OUR DIRECTOR
Laura Ottaviano, our Founding Director, has served for over 25 years as a minister on church and pastoral staffs, as Associate Minister and as Director of Youth and Children’s Ministries for both small and large churches. Laura has a great hunger and passion for the Word of God and a gift to teach the Word with creative illustrations. She stands in the office of a teaching apostle, with pastoral training and a heart for young people especially to experience God. She carries a passion to exhort, lift, and encourage believers to be all they can be in Christ. Although she has years of experience, her greatest desire is to serve the Lord and His church humbly in any capacity that He needs her.
Laura has studied under Kenneth Hagin Ministries as a student of Rhema Bible Training Center Correspondence School. She is a graduate of John Maxwell’s INJOY Leadership School, Gerald Brooks Leadership Roundtable, and is a Level 2 Graduate of Francis Frangipane’s In Christ’s Image Training (ICIT). Laura was first ordained as a minister in 1999 with Word of Grace Fellowship of Ministers and was recently ordained with Presence International Ministries serving as Senior Associate Leader.
GET TO KNOW OUR STORY
Laura’s first assignment was as Children’s Director for a church that placed a strong emphasis on Bible teaching and training. In keeping with the Pastor’s vision, Laura wanted the children to benefit from the grace that was flowing in their local church. She and her team laid out a plan to take some of the same rich teachings the adults were receiving and adapt them for the children. When she first began to present deeper truths to even young children, Laura and her team were astonished by how much and how well children could understand these deep truths when presented at their level.
Soon it became clear that children could grasp and operate in the ways of grace and faith much more than most people expected-- certainly, more than most curriculum developers at the time were assuming. Laura found herself needing to write more and more curriculum to match the hunger she saw in the kids. Many of the early Giant Kids Ministry curriculum were born out of this need to develop creative materials. Laura focused on utilizing every moment with the kids by including creative, engaging and fun avenues to teach and train them in God’s ways.
The children responded with robust faith and sweet relationship with the Lord--not surprising when Jesus instructs all of us to come as a little child. Not wanting to assume any limits, Laura continued to train the children in the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, how to meditate in the word, how to pray for themselves and how to pray powerfully for others, how to put on the armor and how to fight the battle of the mind. Amazingly, the children grew strong and truly became GIANTS for God. The Lord instructed Laura to begin to share her curriculum and programs with others to help train His kingdom kids to become GIANTS in the earth.
Laura has continued to expand her vision and passion to teach deep truths to children and those who teach them in large and small settings through not only GKM curriculum and video, but through outreaches, retreats, camps and children and youth ministry training opportunities. She continues to advocate for teaching children at a deep level without sacrificing any of the fun and relationships that make faith and community “stick” for kids.