Children’s Ministry
History of Children’s Ministry
Inception and Background
Deliverance Church Ministry started as a Fellowship in 1969 dubbed “Young Christian Ambassadors Fellowship”.
When the Church started meeting on 22nd November, 1970, except for three or four married couples, the rest were young people in university, college, and high school.
When people started marrying and having children, there was no Sunday School for their kids. After Praise and Worship, the praise team would go out to play with the children so that they wouldn’t disturb the Service or mess up the washrooms at KICC (Kenyatta International Conference Centre) when the Church met.
Genesis of Deliverance Church Children’s Ministry
As the number of children grew, the Worship Team could not cope and every Sunday KICC was left in a mess.
One Sunday Bishop William Tuimising asked if there was a grown up who would like start organising the children. When nobody responded, I heard a distinct voice say to me, “Who are you waiting for? You are the one who is to do this work.”
With my two year old firstborn, we walked from the last seat in the Plenary Hall all the way down the stairs to where the Pulpit was. That was the birth of the Deliverance Church Children’s Ministry.
Functional Children’s Ministry
As a result of answering the call, God gave me a blueprint of how to proceed from there. With the help of a young student from Southern Africa who was doing a Theological course at NIST (Nairobi International School of Theology), we started training Sunday School Teachers, soliciting materials and making our own.
Objectives
- Taining teachers to rightly divide the Word of God as approved workers by God (2 Tim 2:15)
- Training children in the ways of the Lord (Proverbs 22:6) as we lead them to know Christ as their personal Savior from an early age
Achievements
As the Ministry grew, branch Churches were opened, we started Children’s Ministry in the new branches and training of teachers. Joint retreats and outdoor activities were common. Overnight meetings were held in our home where we prayed, planned together, fellowshipped and ate together.
Sunday School gave birth to the Youth Ministry for those beyond teen years. Some of those children are now ministers of the Gospel not only in Deliverance Ministry but in the body of Christ in and outside Kenya.
After moving to Ong’ata Rongai the same continued.
Challenges of Children’s Ministry
- Church Leadership’s balance between adults and children’s services, especially budgeting of required resources.
- Getting called and committed teachers to the ministry of children.