Teaching Children and Teens Together

My church is small. In our under-18s work we have 6 children aged 1 to 14. One has special needs. And with our current resources we have no choice but to teach them together. It’s not an uncommon scenario. Many churches do it. And if you’re in one of them you’ll know how frustrating it is not to be able to teach in age-specific groups and how hard it is to help groups like this grow.

We tend to fall into some common traps:

• gearing everything to the younger ones so they don’t scream
• making the teens into leaders before they’re ready
• rotating activities for the older ones with activities with for the younger, irritating everyone in turn!

But on our good days, we remember that there are better ways to teach multi-age groups. And here are 4 tips to help us:

• Pray – John 14:26 reminds us that the best teacher is the Holy Spirit. And so asking God to open the eyes of the children by his Spirit – bringing them to faith and deepening their faith – is the top strategy for growth. Praying for more children and leaders is good too!
• Use multi-layer activities – A single activity can work on a number of levels. Teens can read a Bible passage verse by verse, while children act it out and leaders explain it. The previous week’s teaching can be reinforced with quizzes that have blue questions (hard) and red questions (easy) all chosen by tiny children picking coloured balls. We can make collages of prayer-needs that involve simple pictures and complex prose. The aim is to involve everyone in every activity in ways that are age-appropriate.
• Encourage peer interaction – Bible study and prayer work well in twos with each pair having carefully crafted age-specific questions and prayer pointers. Leaders can help the younger ones while giving the older ones 5/10 minutes on their own (in the same room) before everyone feeds back to the whole group.
• Initiate midweek 1:1s – It may be necessary to teach together on Sundays but Tuesdays are far more flexible! Once a fortnight pop round to see each of the older children for an hour in their own homes – enjoy getting to know them, opening the Scriptures with them and watching them grow!