For my first two years serving as family pastor here at Grace Community Church I made very excuse I could as to why we did not need a large group experience for our preschool environment. Let me try and list a few excuses that you may have embraced like I did. We don’t have enough volunteers already. It will be chaotic. We don’t have space to pull it off. Preschool kids will not pay attention. Small group leaders will miss sharing the story. The list went on and one. We finally decided to try a large group experience as an experiment in our largest service. After two weeks of the experiment we made the commitment to make large group a priority with preschool kids in every service. For our preschool environment (Wonder Warehouse!) large group has become the glue for our effort to communicate truth to kids weekly. Here are just a few things we learned in the process…
- Kids learn as they sing > Songs are powerful when used to deliver truth. As preschoolers sing they can learn about the God who made them, loves them, and wants to be their friend forever!
- Small group leaders thrive when they are supported by the large group team > Small group leaders can care more when they can focus on caring and connecting with kids!
- Leading preschool worship is amazing > There is no group in our church more excited about worship than our preschool kids. Our large group leaders lead and the kids are 100% ready to go!
- Kids hang on every word of our storytellers > Preschoolers remember what is being said in large group. we know because they go home and tell their parents. That did not happen before we had large group.
We partner with First Look because they give us great small group and large group resources for our preschool environment. Right now you can try it out for free…yes free…so go and check it out. Embrace large group for preschoolers and you will begin to see your core truths stick.