By
eHow Careers & Work Editor
Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Step1
Learn about children's development. The basis of separate children's ministry programs is that children have varying needs from adults. They learn differently and have shorter attention spans. Knowing as much as possible about how children learn is very important to being effective in your role of children's minister.
Step2
Volunteer to work with children. You should not seek to become a children's minister without any experience with children. Help with Vacation Bible School. Ask if you can sit in on a children's Sunday School lesson. Get to know as much as you can about children's lives and their responses in the classroom.
Step3
Understand the Bible. Working with children does not require the level of understanding of minute details as adult worship, but children still need to learn as much as possible about the Bible while they are small. Be familiar with the books as well as the stories to share with children.
Step4
Organize a few events. Plan a weekend outing and volunteer to work with an evening missions group for a year. Spend some time studying the children and how they learn. Find out what works with them in classrooms and what does not hold their attention.
Step5
Familiarize yourself with the literature. Your church probably has some type of set curriculum, but you should know about other resources available to you. Find out about publishers who create works for children's ministers and ministry programs, and know crafts related to the Bible.
Step6
Work as an intern or associate minister. Many larger churches have ministry interns. Try to get one of these jobs for a year or even a summer to become familiar with the everyday workings of the life and work of a children's minister.
