"The Gospel Truth about Children’s Ministry" book review

Earlier this year, Awana released a book called “The Gospel Truth about Children’s Ministry.” The book shows a summary of the findings from two surveys of over 800 children’s ministry leaders throughout the United States. Its purpose is to help remind KidMin leaders and volunteers of what’s most important in ministry and help them take a hard look at their own ministry to see if the focus is in the right place.

Here are my thoughts on this book.

What I liked:

The survey and findings are applicable to all children’s ministries. Children’s ministry leaders will relate to at least one struggle covered in the book.

The information provides a clear picture of children’s ministry’s current impact on the world, showing what leaders want their ministry priorities to be, the impact of their current ministry efforts and activities, and the outcomes of their ministries. For instance, the majority of responses rated making disciples as a very important objective of ministry. However, less than half said their ministry was actually fulfilling this objective.

The end of each section includes questions to help leaders and volunteers assess their own ministries, such as “in your program or curriculum which comes as a first priority, Scripture/substance, or subject/style?” These questions, combined with the presented findings, make it easy for leaders to determine where changes need to be made and priorities need to be shifted to make their own ministries more effective in teaching children to know, love and serve the Lord.

The infographs were easy to read and understand.

Awana was clear and transparent on how the surveys were conducted, how the results were processed, and how conclusions were reached.

What I didn’t like:

The offered solutions are Awana specific. Only including Awana material and technology as solutions made the book seem like it was an advertisement for Awana with the message, “You have a problem, buy our products for the solution.” For me, this dampened the book’s impact and slightly diminished its purpose of encouraging flexibility and proper focus for children’s ministry overall.

I think that since the study itself covered children’s ministry as a whole, there should have been resources from other ministry partners alongside the Awana options, or just general solutions that could be tried with any children’s ministry.

Conclusion:

I think “The Gospel Truth about Children’s Ministry” provides excellent insight into the challenges children’s ministry is facing. I would recommend this book for all KidMin leaders because the book’s findings can help them more easily identify where they may need to change their ministry to make it relevant to the current generation while keeping its focus where it needs to be.