Apprenticeship: A Little Child Shall Lead

  by Laura Ottaviano, Director of Giant Kids Ministry

Welcome to my blog. I am a veteran children's minister, but still a major student of ways we can reach kids and help them become dedicated disciples of Jesus. I've had my fair share of both feats and flops in Children's Ministry. With any time at it, we all have our favorite stories! In fact, sometimes I have wondered if I could be called the Thomas Edison of Children's Ministry. You know-- finding a thousand ways NOT to do it on my way to the right way. On this blog, I will share what I am still learning along the way with generous helpings of encouragement as well as wisdom. Because I don't want you to become discouraged and quit. Your kids need you and you are important to the body of Christ! And showing up for them on the regular is more than half the battle.

Okay, so let's start my blog off with one of my wildest successes. Apprenticeship. I wish I could say that this was a well-researched, calculated approach that we instituted. Nothing could be further from the truth. This one golden nugget we stumbled on in a time of necessity and desperation. But, boy is it a nugget none-the-less. I tell the more detailed story in our book One Giant Leap. But I want to talk here about how Apprenticeship turned out to be such an amazing approach to making disciples.  

An Amazing Approach to Making Disciples

Apprenticeship.  It’s a term we don’t usually associate with discipleship of kids.  But if we are going to fight for the faith of the next generation, I believe it will be a powerful part of our toolset to train up children in the way they should go.  Apprenticeship involves intentional influence.

Our children have an enemy.  And unfortunately, our enemy recruits hard-core and early and he's after their identity. And he uses “influencers” to do it. Our children are on-line and vulnerable to leadership influence wherever they find it.  Unfortunately, the most popular influencers are not the most wholesome ones.  They are in their face with messaging that is contrary to faith, morality and even decency

We can no longer wait for our youngest disciples to reach youth age or older before we take up our God-given role as influencers and begin to apprentice them in the faith.

What Does Apprenticeship Involve?

 Apprenticeship is all about bringing kids along in ministry with us.  And that mentorship can start younger than many people think.  It involves identifying callings, igniting passion, establishing positive mentors of Godly influence, equipping them for their God-given purposes, and allowing them to taste the fruits of a life on mission with the Holy Spirit.

Apprenticeship methods allow young believers to find Godly influencers and deep learning experiences that solidify their faith.

Historically, apprenticeship was a final step of education, often starting as young as 10-12 years old.  The apprentice would be paired with a mentor to fully learn a trade.  It was up to the father usually to discover what their child might be gifted or even passionate about and pair him with a suitable, master in that field. That apprentice then agreed to LIVE with the mentor day and night and learn the trade by doing it with the master, day in and day out.

Well…you can see the analogy is breaking down quickly…but children can learn to love and serve God with their whole hearts and the gifts He has placed in them through a mentorship model.  Of course, parents have the biggest role as mentors in their children’s lives, but children’s ministers can be additional mentors, bringing more than traditional learning from an educational approach into the lives of the children that parents entrust them to week to week.

Learning Takes More Than Information

Proverbs 22:6 says train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That word “Old” means “hair on the chin.” That is in puberty. Note that it doesn't say educate them it says to train them.

Psychologists say we learn on three levels of learning. I illustrate these with three different imagery.  The first level of learning is DISCOVERY when you first see something and you first hear it. I call that the Kilroy level. You peek in and you look over and you see something and you might learn a principal or a fact, or even a method.

The second level is PROFICIENCY. And I think of a target when I imagine this level. You practice over and over until you are hitting the center of the mark. But have you really learned it yet?

The third level of learning is called the MASTERY level. I want you to picture the back of somebody's head with a blackboard in front of them. That is because this third level of learning called Mastery doesn’t happen until you are able to explain it to others. Essentially, it's saying that you do not fully learn something until you can teach it to others.

And MASTERY scares the enemy.  Because now we are talking about reproduction and perpetuation of the faith.  And that he fears and fights against the most. This is the stage that we really need to reach for younger and younger.

I have found that most of our young believers, especially those who have been in church for many years, can rattle off the facts of the Bible, and they can even tell you the principles behind some of the stories we've been teaching them as we integrate them within their own relationship with the Lord.

But until they have the passion and the chance to present those teachings to other people, then do they really learn and own them for themselves?  And have they really had to learn to rely on God to love and share his word with others and to live out those truths in community?

It turns out that apprenticeship allows the deepest levels of learning and the chance to live out the tenets of faith we have been teaching our children.  And that makes apprenticeship a vital and powerful way of making disciples, who is ready for it, and how we can incorporate some of the wisdom of apprenticeship in our church services, small groups and activities?  Below are 10 keys that answer important questions about Apprenticeship as it relates to discipling children in the church.

Vital Keys to Apprenticeship

1.  Realize young people are more capable or ready than you think.

Identify giftings and passion and help them to dream big. Start with the oldest kids you have responsibility over.  Then let it work down. Pray and ask, and discern who is ready for more.

2 Timothy 2:2

And the things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

2.  Make it personal not a program. 

We must discover what a student is interested in and/or how he or she is gifted.

Don’t expect that what you build for one set of kids is going to be a fit for the next group.  Yes, you can build on some things as mentors stay, but resist the urge to make positions and refill them.

3. Match mentors around passion and purpose.

Survey the passions and giftings of those who can be mentors.  What are they willing to share?  What are they willing to go above and beyond to reproduce in others?  Don’t look just inside your team. And don’t neglect the older students as potential mentors as you grow.

Some of the best mentors of 10 and 11 years you have may be the 17 and 18 year olds who were first apprentices.

4.  Resist the urge to make it work for every kid and Get their YES

Buy in is everything.  Make sure your kids realize that it’s up to them. This commitment won’t work for every visitor who comes through your door, or even every regular kid. True apprenticeship will more than likely happen in addition to, and as well as during your regular Sunday or midweek gatherings.

5.   Ask BIG. 

Responsibility is a big tool in the process. Consider asking those who commit to coming to a small group time, a special week-long camp during spring break or summer, or to come early or stay late.

6. Really give them the reins, and be ready for messy and for failure

Let quality suffer. The real job is not producing excellent ministry, resources or results.  The real job is growing disciples. And new people who have the reins will always produce lower quality results than the older experienced ones.

7.  Be willing to let go and start over OFTEN. 

You have to be willing to change what you are doing and lose some really good elements too as kids graduate.  So be it. You never have the wrong kids.  The minute you think that you have the wrong kids, you have switched over from discipling kids to sustaining a program.

A perfect example of this is when we have cultivated musicians into dynamic worship teams.  We have to insist they graduate, otherwise we’ll have 23 year olds still leading worship in youth ministry and we will be back to an audience style of worship instead of keeping the lanes open to develop new callings.

8.  Always incorporate essential elements: Word, Prayer, Community and Fun.

Make fun both a culture and an epic memory from time to time.

Throw ice cream from the roof.  Bring in a fire truck for water games. Use a live squid for a game of rugby or use giant pools of Jello for a game of twister. Epic games and fun memories are like oxygen to your apprenticeship fire.

9.  Don’t compromise safety.

Even though mentorship is more personal by definition, we must absolutely construct standards for safety.  Never meet or text youth in private. Always supervise any number of kids with no less than 2 background-checked and trained adults.  Include parents in all communications whether you are sharing information, corrections and celebration.

10. Be as consistent as you can be. 

Show up regularly for your apprentices. They care more about your consistent presence than you can imagine.  “Occasional” doesn’t even strike memory.  Kids will only remember who and what they did over and over again in their church life.  Consistency: It’s the secret sauce.

Apprenticeship Deserves Our Attention

Overall, the apprenticeship method is more work intensive, messy relationship oriented and manpower heavy.  But the results are also multiplied along with the effort. And for that reason, we need to give apprenticeship a longer look and see if there are elements we can incorporate in our times with the children in our care.  Check out Giant Kids Ministry resource book, One Giant Leap for the inspiration story of how apprenticeship became such a fruitful part of our children’s and youth ministry and important Nuts & Bolts to make it work in your church.