Refine the Message: Craft core truths into engaging, relevant, and memorable experiences

Refining the message is about two things: prioritizing the content and making that content engaging

In Orange Thinkers, Reggie put words to something I had thought for a long time: “All Scripture is equally inspired by God, but all Scripture is not equally important.”

God has given us his word in order that we might know him and come into a relationship with him. Scripture is the story of God’s movement throughout history in making his name famous on planet earth through broken people such as myself. Along the way, we’re given lists of people, laws, and how much families donated to different building projects. While important in the idea that people gave and were a part of God’s story, not so important as to how I hope to teach my kids (or myself for that matter) to make wiser choices tomorrow.

Priorities are part of every facet of our life. They have to be part of how we plan content for the different area of family ministries.

Think about it: At best, a church has 40 hours with a child. At best. Look at your attendance records, most of you will find that the actual hours are less. When we look at our own percentages, the numbers are more like 25 hours per child. This means that anything you say needs to be exactly how you want it said at the exact moment you want it said.

Granted, only you and your leadership can make the choices on what you will or won’t include in the content you deliver. This is true even after you choose a curriculum and begin using it. Be discerning enough to look through the curriculum and not take everything at face value. Continually evaluate the material to ensure that it is saying what you want to communicate to your kids.

This is the brilliance of using a curriculum such as 252 Basics that gives you editable documents. You have the ease and freedom to make the curriculum fit your exact situation from small group activities to large group scripts. As a team, we edit about 30 percent of the material each month. We love the activities, but with our numbers some might take too long or be too expensive or dangerous (insurance companies frown on 90 kids running relays in our spaces). With 252, we have control over content and how that content is produced. The ideas are great; even if we don’t use the exact activity as written, it becomes a spring board to launch us to what activity we eventually use.

Once you know what you’re going to say, the challenge becomes how to say it with excitement. In Part 2 of Refine the Message, I’ll talk more about that.