UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

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Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Brian and Sister Autumn Critcher. How are you guys doing? Doing good. Wonderful. And we have had a hard time scheduling this one. Man, we had all kinds of troubles

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that we

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rescheduled like four or five times, it seems like. So, Brother Brian, what are we talking about today?

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We're talking about connecting with kids.

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Connect with kids. So it almost has an alliteration. It's a C and a K. And maybe we'll title it like that. I don't know. So Sunday school can be a lot of fun. And around here, we have some pretty crazy Sundays. We have a lot of sword fights, interactive dramas. We have some outrageous doctors we talk about all the time. We get carried away with silly jokes, funny characters, comedy sketches. But in all of that, we have a purpose, bring kids closer to God. So we have two missions. I talk about this often, is to evangelize kids, get them to come to Sunday school, and to disciple kids, teach them about the Word of God. So to do this, we have to connect with kids. All the craziness, all the silliness, and all the fun is geared toward making a connection with kids. So my guests here today are both incredible at connecting with not only kids, but everyone who comes into the church. And so today we want to talk about that connection.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah. Man, one of the primary things that the church does is connecting. And kids are a whole different place as far as you got to kind of bring yourself to their level to connect with them. Yeah,

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it's not just second nature necessarily.

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And I think it's really important to realize that when you're connecting with the kids, those kids are going to blink and they're going to Oh, yeah. This is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Well, it's funny because I was just telling you guys before the podcast here that I did one recently with Anisha and Shaylee, which is my daughter and pastor's daughter. And in that podcast, we talked about you, Sister Autumn, and the, I don't know if you remember this, but back a long time ago, we've done Esther a few times, but we did Esther and you were one of the, you know, Esther's competition or whatever. And I remember, so Anisha, She and Shaylee looked up to you so much and you would have them over to your house. You had a house and they would come over and spend the night sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Dress up. My closet would be destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Oh, yeah. And so they were, you know, young girls and they were in Sunday school. And I remember my daughter looking at you because she was sitting by you and you were had a mirror or something talking about how beautiful you were or something. My daughter just looking at you like shocked.

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This was in Sunday school, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yes. Yes. She was just horrified that you were acting like that. She just couldn't believe that her role model was so, you know, vain

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and conceited.

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How old was she have been at that time? Oh, pretty young. I don't know. Right. You know, I mean, our Sunday school goes to 11. So it would have been crazy.

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She's so like, she remembers that. And I don't remember it at all. Just the things that stick with kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Oh, and I think in that same exact theme, she talked about how brother Joey was the king and And all the women are coming before. She had worn all pink that day. And she was like, came before him. And, you know, as all the girls did. And he was like, no, too much pink. Too much pink. Devastated her, stuck with her all these years.

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That's funny.

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But to that point, though, is like what you said is it is it's you blink and they're adults, you know, because now both of them are staff in Sunday school.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah. Yeah. There was one Sunday school class. I don't remember. remember what it was. I think my name was Princess Allure.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Oh, yeah. That was in Survival Quest, which we actually just did again. Yeah. But you guys were been gone on the evangelistic field. But Princess Allure. Allure.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah. So there was a kid. He was just old enough to be in Sunday school at that time. He named his cat after me. Oh,

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I do remember that. He was so happy about that. He just loved it.

UNKNOWN 5:12

And then now to think like, I think he's like 15.

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Oh, wow. That's I'm not

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sure, but he's a teenager. I mean, he's taller than me now. Oh, wow. And his cat is still alive.

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Still got the cat, Elora. Oh, wow. Maybe we should have a cameo appearance of cat Elora. Maybe if you guys are in town, maybe you can hold it or something. Promo.

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Survival quiz promo.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah. Wow. So I have a note on here just about with connecting kids with kids is having a love for kids. And I think that sometimes myself included, I am guilty of this, but I have a sub bullet point. Those kids get on my nerves. And I think, you know, somebody might would look at that and say, well, why are you Sunday school staff? If that's the case, but we have an awesome Sunday school and we have a lot of fun up here and we're backstage right now. We got a really cool backstage, but, and so there's people that, that they do love kids and they'd love the idea of being involved in ministry. But yet they can come across sometimes as those kids are getting

SPEAKER_00 6:20

on my nerves. It's always

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rapid.

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Well, yeah. And

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like we've talked about, we joked about, I think you and I even talked about this a little bit, but I know brother in order and I joked about that, that we take credit as the Sunday school for you and brother Joey, both being evangelists. You guys learned how to preach in Sunday school. And so, and, and while that is kind of a joke or whatever, it is kind of neat to see, like you said, I mean, now Joey, I don't think he was not in Sunday school as a kid, but you were. Right. And it's neat to see that, and there's other examples, but there's people doing ministry and what we can see even more, I guess, like I mentioned with Anisha Chaley, is we could see kids helping in Sunday school now and other places. And

SPEAKER_02 8:04

that love that they have for it because they experienced it. They're like, I was here. And so it gives them even, I think, a deeper level of not only understanding, but excitement.

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Right.

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It's awesome to see them giving back to

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something that changed them,

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impacted them.

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It's funny you said about us learning how to preach in Sunday school. It's a joke, but it's actually kind of true. I mean, there was a few times where we would. I remember Brother Boggs had to do a good message at the end of Sunday school. There was a couple times you had me do that as well. So it's not a joke. You learn how to do just about everything in Sunday school. Well,

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I do remember now with Brother Joey I remember one time in particular I have a video of it he had to be and we don't we don't often do this because we usually delineate like the lesson is usually a quote staff person not a character sometimes it's a character but most of the time it's a staff person yeah and so preaching definitely even more so but one time we we kind of broke that rule and brother Joey was John the Baptist I remember that he was the character John the Baptist yeah you remember that and he had to preach and he preached kind of the that black gospel

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style. We had music backing him up and everything. And the Lord said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Oh, it was awesome. Maybe I can find a video clip and insert it in here. That would be cool. But yeah, so we definitely, yeah. And I remember even like, I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but people get nervous, even though it's just kids, people get nervous on stage. And I find myself on stage a lot these days, but, and I still get nervous sometimes, not probably in our Sunday school, but in different environments, I get nervous. But I think that when people experience that nervousness and then overcome it in Sunday school, it then helps them in, you know, in quote unquote, big church, as we call

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it,

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you know, testimonies or whatever it might be or preaching.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I can attest to that. Yeah. Yeah. When you, especially when some of the costumes you wear You look a little bit clowny, you know, making a fool of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Which is sometimes something you can hide behind. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah. In fact, that's a good point because I know I've had to do things like, you know, I'm on stage a lot as an actor. Like even, you know, we do our big Christmas event and there's, you know, a few hundred people there or whatever. And, and I'm an actor and I can hide behind that actor thing. But then we do like, you know, our forward conference in October and I have to get up there and do announcements or something like that. No

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wig on.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, no wig, no hat. No glasses. It's me. It's no character. I'd be more comfortable getting up there and doing an English accent or something. Throw everybody off.

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Going back to the just having a love for the kids and stuff.

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Yeah, get us back on

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track. I think it's so important. I've heard people say, I think it's just, I don't Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's good. Sunday or every time they show up and it's kind of like oh just remembering like you don't really know it may not just be that you know they're a naughty kid or

SPEAKER_01 12:26

well and that's the thing that I I think I've told this story before but we had this has been quite a while back we had some kids come in and they had it was like a family and so there's like three or four of them and they were never good in Sunday school but one time they came in and And they were just already in line up outside. They were already being just awful, just horrendous, you know. Right. him and some of his issues and he has some issues you can't hardly understand him when he talks he's getting a little better but he's just all over the place laying down on the bench and just just crazy you know and so we even still have to take him out pretty often once a month but now when I take him out because I understand what is happening and the issues it's not trauma at home he's got some medical issues but now that I understand when I take him out it's not like you come here, you rotten little kid, you know, it's more like, Hey, we're going to have to go out today. Yeah. You know, and let's, let's go. And, and he, he understands. And sometimes he's still upset. Like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to. And I'm like, yeah, well, it's, it's too late, but

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yeah,

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but I can do it a lot more in love and be like, you know, okay, we, you know, you know that you're not supposed to do that. So we got it. We got to go out today. So his mom told me this has been, again, it's been a while ago, maybe a year. She said they were at the barbers and, and he can't hardly, it's hard to understand him. Yeah. They're at the barber's and he's sitting in the barber chair and the barber was just trying to make conversation, I think, or whatever. And I was like, how do you want your hair cut? And he was saying something and couldn't understand. So she got over there by him and he said, like brother bakers.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Oh, that's so sweet. I was like, oh. Well, and there's structure in that too. Kids thrive off of structure and expectations. And, you know, you have to require a level of expectation for them. Yes. Even if it hurts them one Sunday and, you know, they don't get a sit through. I think, I mean, just in raising kids too, not just in Sunday school, but they thrive off of that. Well, you know, if I do this again, then I can't be in here. They kind

SPEAKER_01 15:27

of- Yeah. And I've heard it said that, you know, this is not a podcast about raising kids. So we will move on. We will move on. But I've heard it said that a lot of times when kids are acting out, they're trying to find that border. They're trying to find the edge of that structure. Where is the line?

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Where's the line?

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And they're willing to risk that punishment or whatever because they want to know where the line is.

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We've got a two-year-old right now. He's doing real good. He's trying to find those lines.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

They say it's terrible twos, but he's almost three. I'm thinking it's going to be terrible threes. Terrible threes. They both have a T. Yeah. When you were mentioning that, scripture came to mind. I can't remember exactly where it's found, but it says in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. Oh, yeah. Which basically means you're in control and, and it's in humility and all of that. Yes. You can, um, you know, you can crack down on them and just beat them over the head or so to speak. Yeah. And just crack the whip, so to speak.

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Right.

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On these naughty kids. But if you can understand where they're coming from and just instruct them.

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Yeah.

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Then.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah. And we have to have authority, but I know, I remember pastor a long time ago telling me, he pointed out a young, young boy that was just a, one of those problem children in, in, in Sunday school. in the Christian school, wherever he was, it seemed like, you know, single mom trying to raise him. And, and he said, you know, he said, he said, he told me, he said, see that kid. I mean, he said his name, but he said, see him. He said, all he hears all day is people yelling at him. Yeah. Hey, you know, I'll just use a fictitious name. Hey, Bob, Bob, stop that. Bob, don't do that. Bob, don't be loud, Bob. And so whenever he, he just, he's used to hearing that all that all day. Yeah. So when you try to speak to him about something that is really important. He just, that's all he hears, you know? And so if you can get on their level, like you said, and kind of connect with them. All right. So the other way to connect, this is a little more fun, is by not being boring. And so that's why in our Sunday school, we have all that silliness and that craziness is, you know, we have the role of excitement and comedy. I have, I think it might be in the same video clip of Brother Joey, but Sister Autumn, I have a clip of you.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Oh, Oh

SPEAKER_01 17:47

boy. I have a clue for you. I think that you were, you often led praise when you were in Sunday school. You were characters and stuff too, but you often led praise and you are in like, I don't, I'm colorblind. So I think it's purple, but some kind of wig, sunglasses, a hat. I mean, it's wild. We have live music playing and you're just singing. I can envision it

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right now. Dancing around, acting wild, gutting the little kid inside out.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

yeah I mean that's part of it I mean that's that's why probably so many of us enjoy Sunday school is we got to kind of let that inner imagination go and that inner child yeah man I would have to say I know there's many times in our meetings that you'd have with Sunday school staff about trying to transition from comedy not everything being comedy right yeah because it's easy

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trap

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to fall into because it's just so addicting I mean it's just like once you get the kids laugh they laugh at just Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah, for sure. couple of the young girls just bawling their eyes out. And so that's, you know, that's what we want is we want to have that balance of

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good balance.

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Yeah. We don't want to be doing the crucifixion and it's all funny. No,

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absolutely.

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And there's every story or I don't know about every story, but there's all kinds of stories in the Bible that could go either way, but be able to have that dynamic where you, you know, yeah, okay, we can do this funny, but then there's also where it's like, it's really serious, you know? Right. And Brother Arter's good at that. He's good at like getting in to the character and saying, okay, I'm going to make this

SPEAKER_00 20:17

everything, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, with, in the context of connecting with kids, um, I, I would say that it's probably sometimes comedy can be the pathway to the serious.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 20:31

that's true. Yeah. I've talked about that in speaking is the roller coaster. Um, and there's all kinds of books and different things on, on speaking dynamics, but a lot of times, um, I've heard a good preacher. One, one of just kind of comes to mind is Brother Balestero. He's so funny.

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I almost thought you were going to say

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that. So it'll be really funny. And then all of a sudden, wham, it's like, oh man, you know, this is serious. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's, it's good to have, have that balance. Do you remember Sister Autumn? This was actually for youth, but do you remember when we did Samson?

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I was actually just

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going to bring that up. Yes. Yeah. And that was that we did have, we had both in that we had comedy, but then we had, It was a

SPEAKER_02 21:16

major. Yeah, it was. I'll never forget it, probably because I had to. I was one of the actors on it and it was. Yeah, it was fairly uncomfortable. You

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were the the the first girl from. Yeah, Samson's first. Well, wife to be. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys got burned up in the house.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Correct. Yeah, it was. It was like, ha ha ha. Everybody's laughing and stuff and it starts getting more serious. And then like a little funny note in there. By the end, everybody was coming to the altar

SPEAKER_01 21:46

yeah it was pretty awesome because I remember I told you to scream yes I was like I'm

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trying to remember what I was screaming

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because you were in you they trapped you in the house because this is in the Bible story the response to I believe it was the response to the the fox tales lit on

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fire by Samson yeah

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I think that's what it was and so they came and burned up her and her father and so that's what we had some like special effects and everything to make it look cool but they came in and trapped, you know, quote unquote trapped you guys. And then you screamed a blood curdling

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scream. I think I was in the youth group at the time.

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You're probably newer in the youth group.

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Yeah. Yeah. For those on the audience who don't know,

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I'm

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a little younger than my wife. So I

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think,

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I think

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sister Autumn was in the youth group too.

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She

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was just being an actor.

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Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

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They tease me. In fact, pastor sometimes says, yeah, thank, your wife's taught you

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Sunday school I'm pretty sure I did

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I don't exactly agree with that

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statement

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but I guess that's funny

SPEAKER_01 22:56

wow but yeah so we and then I remember another time with Sister Autumn it was a youth thing well it was it was maybe for Easter or something but you remember the and you can YouTube this all kinds of churches do this play but the everything play oh yeah and so I

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still have scars from that.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Oh man. So your sister actually, Misty was one of the first ones or was the first one that we did it with. But I remember when we were doing it and it wasn't, you're trying to make your way. So this is a play that's, it's like to a song. I think sometimes it's called a human video or something, but there's a soundtrack playing and we're acting out to the song. It's everything. I can't remember who it is by, but anyway, so it wasn't looking real enough. Her struggle, she's trying to get, to the personified Jesus, the actor, you know, this plain Jesus is pulling, like making a, pulling on a rope motion. Yeah. And there's all these evil spirits that are in between me and Jesus. Yeah. And so she's trying to get to him. Well, so they're like kind of throwing her and she's acting like she can't get to him and stuff. And I just didn't look real. So I said, okay, cut, cut, you know, we got to do this again. And I was like, okay, Autumn, I want you to just, just go Yeah. And so she did. And your hair was like down to your floor. My hair was almost to

SPEAKER_02 24:47

the floor and it's supposed to be down in the video. So we ended up choreographing it. I don't know if you remember

SPEAKER_01 24:53

that. Yeah, we did. We did end up choreographing it, but we were able to use some of that live true struggle to get a better choreography because it just wasn't looking real, but it was so we invested. So anyway, we kind of got off track there, but that wasn't comedy at all. No, it was comical during the practice, but it turned out good.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

The one time I would say it was comedy. I don't know if you guys remember this. I'm sure Brian does. But at the end, you and Pastor Burr just got this idea and you pulled me aside. Me and Brian were doing it at the time and we weren't together. Not

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yet. But this was the start of it. No,

SPEAKER_02 25:30

I'm just kidding. At the end, Jesus is standing there and he is protecting me from all the spirits. And then he throws his hands up and it kills the spirits. So I stand up and we're supposed to just walk away together. And you said, Give him a hug. Because in the actual video, you're supposed to. You're supposed to, yeah. But we didn't. We were like, oh, no, we're not going to do that. And so I did. And he just kind of like froze. Like,

SPEAKER_00 25:56

what? I felt my face turn several shades of red.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah. You know, sometimes we have done, we told a story on here about Brennan surprising Brother Arter a while ago. And he was doing a flame thing with it. So Brother Arter drank out of the cup. He's like, do not drink this. Well, brother, I was like, ah, I can drink it. Oh man. And so he drank and his lighter fluid. And so he was just like, so we were talking about, yeah, maybe don't surprise the actors. But I remember one time, and again, this is, this is youth stuff, but, um, we did another play. It's called a letter from hell. I remember that one too. Yeah. And it was the first one. And so we had in the center stages where the, there was this like section that was curtained off. It was like a, it was like through And so we had our main character there and he was reading, you know, the letter or whatever. And so we had this part where, so pastor's office at the time, we've remodeled since, but it was on the side of the stage. And so we had, we had put some fog machines in his office and we filled his office full of fog. Yeah. And we had some red lights flashing in there. So when they opened the door, the fog just billowed out into the sanctuary. And then the, the demons or whatever you want to call it. They were all black with the black masks and they came out slithering out almost, you know, and they came out of the fog. It looked so cool. Well, it was scary. It was super scary. But in the note, he's like, oh no, they're coming. They're coming, you know, in the letter. And it's just, it's kind of a climactic point. Yeah. And well, we practiced it and everything. So we had a couple of the guys, brother John Moe and brother Jared Kaysinger were the demons or whatever. Yeah. Well, I had Brother Mo come out. This is when we went live. We were live. We had practiced it and everything. And I had Brother Jared actually hide behind the curtain and the main character didn't know that he was there. Oh, no. And so he's like, they're coming. They're coming. And they end up having to drag him off. So they're coming and they're coming. He's getting closer. And so he's getting ready just to act his part, you know, get away from that demon. And then Brother Jared comes behind him and grabs him, started him for real. oh my goodness so good yeah and then when he I told him just like with Sister Autumn I told him to struggle and they are literally dragging his feet and he's trying to get away and he grabbed the side of the door when they're dragging him into the office and they like had to literally peel his fingers off the door frame and then slam the door shut I think

SPEAKER_00 28:39

we need to do that again

SPEAKER_01 28:40

nobody

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ever

SPEAKER_01 28:42

forgot that we had altar service until about one o'clock in the morning. Oh my. It was pretty incredible. Yeah. Wow.

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Part of the using

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the

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serious aspect to connect. So there's

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the balance or not so balanced of comedy and serious. So I wanted to talk about, I have a note here, facilitating kids connection, kids' connection to God and that everything that we do, the comedy, all the silliness and even the seriousness, the dramas that we have almost always, we're doing a theme and We have a theme story that's happening at the same time as, you know, there's Bible stories and stuff, but we'll have main characters and we have a lot of fun with it. We have cool costumes, special effects, all these things. But everything is pointing to the altar service. And a lot of times we do have, in fact, by design, the altar service is not the last thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

And

SPEAKER_01 29:36

there's a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is if we have it as the last thing, we miss it too often because they're done. You know, they're just missing the sanctuary and We got to wrap up. So we put it earlier in the script for that reason. And then there's other dynamics, you know. But let's just talk about that really quick about, you know, facilitating the kids' connection to God in that altar service and moving them towards God.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

One thing I'll note here is, you know, I have been to a few churches now and not every Sunday school has altar, the opportunity for altar for kids. Right. And so I actually think it's You know, we've been around that for years and so to us it's normal. But I think if you're not doing that, that needs to become part of your mission. You know, not just giving the kids the opportunity for an altar when you're teaching them in Sunday school is so important.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Well, that's really good that you say that because that's true is I think a lot of times we get so used to what we have and don't lose your train of thought, but we get so used to what we have. And I know there's many listeners. We have a lot of listeners and many of them don't have the same size Sunday school. It might be a smaller situation and the dynamics are way different, but you can still have a quote unquote altar time.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Absolutely. Well, there's one particular church of mine right now that they're upping the game of their Sunday school and just kind of seeing what they're doing. They have some similarities to what we do as far as they utilize Oh, wow. Oh, that's awesome. Where that's

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become a norm

SPEAKER_00 31:29

for them. That's great. treat it as if you were praying for someone in church as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

It's serious. Yeah. You don't minimize that.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

I think to add on to that too is I think a lot of times when you're in Sunday school doing altar call, it's easy just to treat them like their kids and just kind of like, oh, come on, buddy, you got this and rub their back. But if you can be genuine in your worship, you can be genuine raising your hands, let let yourself get emotional in it and let tears fall for you too. Right. Because a lot of times kids, I mean, we're not trying to manipulate them, but they can tell if you're not

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sincere or not. If you're connecting, if you're connecting to God and God's presence is there, then it's, yeah, it's more likely that they're going to connect to God

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and they won't feel silly.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I would mention too, is with kids and pastor is one that told me this a while, quite a while back is of course for Brian you're evangelizing and so you pray for people all the time you lay your hands on their head whatever but the other thing is with especially maybe younger staff and there's a line and you should definitely talk to your pastor about this but they're kids and so you can have more authority to be like let's raise our hands where you might not be comfortable telling an adult you know that but with kids it's like okay it's time to raise your hands now what I want you to say is or I'm I mean, we don't tell them how to pray necessarily like that, but I want you to start worshiping God. I want you to speak out or whatever. You can say these things to kids with a little bit more authority than maybe you're comfortable with adults. It

SPEAKER_00 33:28

makes a big impact. I mean, there's a church of mine also right now in my head that I'm thinking of where there are two brothers that were raised up on the church bus. Today, they're both heavily involved in ministry, not just pulpit ministry, But massive Bible studies that both of them are facilitating in their home. Very effective. And they're very effective. I mean, just growing up to be incredible leaders. And they came on the bus.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

They came on the bus. That's so cool. It's here. I mean, man. All right. Well, recap here because we're running out of time. So just have a love for kids. Remember those problem kids that they're probably going through something. Yeah. And so don't let them hijack your Sunday school. But just remember, you need to have a love for kids. Yeah. And the one way we connect, one of the ways we connect is by not being boring.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

And then remember to have that altar time, facilitate kids' connection to God. Amen. Man, I'm glad we finally got to do this. Hopefully we get to do it again before you guys are like going across the country or something. If not, we'll do a remote one. So I'm going to work on that. That'd be great. All right. Well, I think that's a wrap.

UNKNOWN 34:43

Thank you. Thank you for having us.