Building RelationshipsBuilding relationships with your students is a goal in itself that will help you to achieve your higher goals of reaching children with the gospel and discipling them in Christian growth. If you truly care for the children in your ministry, you will desire to know them a little better than just enough to simply recognize their faces Sunday after Sunday. First and foremost, it is important to learn your kids' names. It really means a lot to a child (and anyone really) when someone special to them calls them by name, particularly since you will be considered somewhat of a spiritual hero to many of them. For the first couple of months after we moved here and took over the children's church ministry, I had a hard time remembering all of the kids' names. It wasn't until I began keeping records that it all began to gel and stick with me: what their names were, who was so-and-so's sibling or kid, who lived where when we went on visitation (my husband knows this stuff because he's a bus driver, but it took me longer to catch on!). So... priority number one in building relationships is to learn their names. Once you get that down pat, we can move along to greener pastures. I have always found whether I was teaching Sunday School, doing children's church, working a bus route, or serving in the ministry in any capacity that people of all ages appreciate a personal contact. I have had Sunday School girls that have grown and gotten married... and tell me that they still have the postcard I mailed to them when they were in my 8th grade Sunday School class. One such girl from my bus route that I discipled during my Bible college years tracked me down by e-mail and told me that she had gotten married. I had spent a lot of time and money building relationships and investing into her life: taking her on visitation with me every Saturday, paying her Christian school tuition (and picking her up for school daily), and tutoring her. She also got to drill me on my study guides and memory verses as I drove her to school every morning and prepared for my own tests. That girl never felt like she meant so much to anyone (not even her parents) until I took her under my wing and began to pour into her life. I could go on with so many personal stories of how it pays off to just spend time building relationships with people. Yes, you may begin to get frequent (sometimes annoying!) phone calls. Yes, you may begin to associate with folks who are not "socially acceptable." Yes, you will encounter the rare but real bum who is just seeking a handout. But if you cannot muster some of God's love from your own heart to share with these people... perhaps the ministry is not where you belong. Maybe an occasional phone call would be in order to your children's church kids: "Hi, Susie! This is Mrs. _______. I just wanted to see how you were coming along on that memory verse..." "Hey, Rocky! This is Bro. ________. I just wanted to make sure you were planning on coming to children's church this Sunday for our Sno Cone Day..." And as I mentioned earlier, kids really like postcards. Who didn't get totally excited as a kid to find that there was actually something in the mailbox addressed to you!?! (And who doesn't get excited as an adult about receiving something other than bills or junk?!) Postcards are a cheap but effective way of getting a contact in to your kids every month are so. There are some great ones available in Christian bookstores and teachers stores, and I often make my own on the computer. If you don't want to use up a lot of colored ink, just print them in black and copy onto colored cardstock using the church's Xerox machine. Whether it's a visit, phone call, or mail, try to squeeze in a contact to each child every month or so. If nothing else, volunteer to ride along with a different bus captain each Saturday and you should eventually hit them all! Just don't neglect the "church kids" who don't ride buses -- they rarely get a visit from the church. Building relationships with your kids will really pave the way to leading them to Christ and working toward their spiritual growth.
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