Shortly after my salvation experience in 1973, I felt that I was being called into a full-time ministry position. I was 16 years old and realized that I had a lot to learn if I was going to become a pastor. I decided one of the ways that I could start learning was to read everything church and ministry related that I could get my hands on. I spent many Saturday mornings sitting in the church office by myself reading a book from one of the pastor’s library.

On one certain Saturday morning, I had my feet propped up on the church secretary’s desk reading a book when the pastor walked in. He asked me if I had any plans for the morning and I said “no”. (I have since learned that telling a pastor you have nothing to do will usually result in him finding something for you to do.)

He said that he wanted me to go visit some people with one of the men in the church that would be there in a few minutes. He had no sooner finished telling me that than a car drove up and I was introduced to Bob (name has been changed). Bob was in charge of the bus ministry – I didn’t even know we had a bus ministry! Bob grabbed a couple bags of candy and we were off to visit some kids.

On the way to the neighborhood, Bob explained to me that they had about 10-15 kids that rode the bus to church on Sunday morning. He said he went out every Saturday morning for a couple of hours to remind the kids about the bus and invite more kids to come. The kids expected him to bring candy. The candy also encouraged other kids to come talk to him. (Remember that this was 1973 in south Louisiana – If you do that now, somebody will probably call the police.)

That morning I met many kids and parents. When I was invited to ride the bus the next morning, I quickly agreed. The bus was kind of a controlled chaos environment. Some kids were quiet – others were loud. Bob was trying to talk over the noise of the kids and the bus. I was kind of glad when we finally made to church and kids ran off the bus.

I visited the kids on Saturday morning with Bob and rode the bus on Sunday for the next two weeks. The third Saturday I showed up at the church to visit, but Bob was not there. The pastor showed up and told me that Bob was not going to be there. He gave me the “bus board” and candy. When I asked if Bob was going to be there tomorrow or next week, I was told that Bob would not be coming back because of a “personal problem” (I found out years later that he was in prison.). The pastor said that I was now the bus pastor and to let him know if I needed anything. I agreed to do it until they could find somebody else.

That was it! I was involved in bus ministry until I left for college two years later. I knew nothing about bus ministry so I talked to bus pastors at other churches, did some reading, and a little bit of experimenting.

As I got involved in bus ministry, I realized that it was not being used to its full potential. There were many kids that we were passing up on the bus every Sunday. I decided that if I was going to invest my time in bus ministry, I should do it right. I recruited several of my friends from the youth group and set out to fill the bus. Through visitation and some promotions, our weekly bus attendance grew to over 40 children in just a little over a month.

One Sunday morning near the end of service, a deacon pulled me aside and made a comment that changed my life. He put his hand on my shoulder and said “Brother, we have too many bus kids. They are disrupting the adults that want to worship.” I don’t think I said anything, but I plainly remember the shock and anger that I felt. Did he say “too many kids”?

Our church had just built a new sanctuary in front of the old one. The old sanctuary was not being used for anything. I asked the pastor that week what he thought about having somebody (note that I said somebody – not ME) take the children in there during service and having a special service just for them. He thought it was a great idea! He asked me what I was going to call it and said I could start it the following Sunday morning.

Children’s church was born and I was the leader!

I gathered some of my friends (other high school students) together and we came up with some ideas for that Sunday. We would start out with some Sunday School songs, do a puppet show (one girl knew how to use a puppet), take offering, pray, and maybe play some games.

On Sunday morning, five of us gathered in the old church building with over 60 kids! Our well-planned out service lasted about 30 minutes… that only left us with an hour till the adult service was out. I drew pictures on a chalkboard that I found in a classroom in the back and told the story again. A couple of my friends acted out the story. We pulled out the bus candy and gave it to the kids that could answer questions. After what seemed to be an eternity, our first children’s church service ended.

Attendance grew and our services got better. The biggest problem was that not many churches were doing a children’s service in 1973 in Baton Rouge, La. We didn’t have many people to learn from.

The bus ministry and children’s church was run by our youth group with a 17 year old (me) in charge. We did have an adult driving the bus and I finally convinced the pastor to have at least one adult sit in on our children’s service each week. The adult was not there to help, just watch us. --- After about a year, a couple of adults became interested in helping us out.

When I left for college in 1975, I turned children’s church over to some of the youth that had been helping on a regular basis and a few adult helpers.

When I got to college, the first church I visited was looking for someone to help with their children’s church. They welcomed me with open arms – and food!

As much as I tried to work with adults and get a full-time pastorate, God kept pulling me back into children’s ministries. Working with children was not a place to start, it was the place that I needed to be.

God called me to work with children – that is why I am still going strong after over 30 years. Nobody should work with children unless they are called. I always tell groups that I talk to and prospective children’s workers that “unless God has called you to work with children, you are going to burn out.” (Burnout is a different topic to be covered later.) I hope you enjoy the resources that I have put together on this site and I look forward to hearing from you.