Crowd Control That STICKS!

As a Children’s Pastor I am always looking for ways to keep the children with me while I am teaching. I know the Bible can be life changing and want the children to hear it and respond. I am super animated, use visuals, media and creative story telling but even my best prepared lessons and most exciting objects and animation can flop with a rowdy group of children!

One Wednesday night I found myself desperate to gain a group of children’s attention. The children had spent the day “sitting” at school and many of the children had come in on our church bus after a forty five minute ride. I gave them some wiggle time by playing a game, having a snack, singing songs and now I had a great truth from God’s word for them to hear! The children were more hyper than usual and somehow I needed to settle their hearts to get to the main reason they had come. I started to teach and spent way too much time asking for them to look up and pay attention. I looked over and sitting on the check in table were little round stickers! I had a moment of inspiration! I announced to the children (like I had planned it all along) that my helpers were going to place three stickers on the sleeve of their shirt. I told them I was so excited to give them stickers because each one of the stickers was worth a piece of candy at the end of my lesson. I told them as I was teaching if they were talking, distracting their friend, or being disruptive I would not say anything I would just quietly take a sticker off their sleeve. If they had all three stickers at the end of the lesson they would get three pieces of candy, two= two pieces, one=one, None=no candy! Wow! It totally worked! I taught the lesson and only took a couple of stickers the entire lesson. After I took the first sticker, the class sat up straighter, participated, and behaved. I didn’t have to embarrass or plead for the children to listen and most importantly the children heard the Bible lesson God had put on my heart for them. As the children exited the helpers let them turn in their stickers for tootsie rolls and sweet tarts! The next week they begged to “play” the sticker game again!!!

There has always been the debate about rewarding children for positive behavior. I believe rewards are a great way to teach Biblical truth. "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve" (Jeremiah 17:10). "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward" (Colossians 3:23-24). The Bible described God as a loving Father that desires to give good gifts to his children and to reward them for righteous behavior.

Every group of children are bound to have rowdy nights where they struggle with sitting still and listening and if stickers and penny candy can help them hear God’s Word and perhaps change their life I will “stick it” to them every time!