Be the first to hear the latest hybrid church insights and product updates from YouVersion for Churches.
How do you reach a growing number of children in a community whose parents aren’t regularly coming to church?
Suandra, a children’s pastor at Engage Church in Mandan, North Dakota, found herself asking that same question.
Engage Church has a large number of children, many of them coming from previously “unchurched” families. During 2020’s mandatory shutdown, Suandra discovered the Bible App for Kids curriculum, and she began using Bible App for Kids to reach their preschool-aged students once North Dakota reopened. This is what happened:
“It quickly became obvious that kids loved the curriculum and the app. They started showing up to class with the verses and Bible stories memorized. They knew each of the prop talks, and they were talking about it with their parents.”
When kids arrived at check-in, Suandra would help parents download the Bible App for Kids and then would give children the supplementary Adventure Book that they could use in class and at home.
“Bible App for Kids has actually helped our parents connect with their kids at home, too. A mom came with her two preschool-aged kids at Easter, and they started attending every week. The mother didn’t regularly go to church before this, so I was able to tell them about Bible App for Kids and help her download the app. Her kids loved it—and she did too! Because the app is so easy to understand, the app helps us teach unchurched parents about God along with their kids.”
As Engage Church’s children’s ministry grows, Suandra is now using the curriculum across multiple sites and watching kids—and their parents—fall in love with God’s Word.
“I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen the excitement the curriculum draws. All the units are nicely labeled, and it’s easy to use—but it’s powerful. Kids aren’t being taught fluff. It’s real stuff that they need to learn. Actually, one of my kids was feeling afraid recently, and so we talked about one of the prop talk points we’d gone through earlier—about fear. My kid remembered the point, and this helped him with the fear he was facing. Bible App for Kids is a really good program and curriculum to look into.”
Bible App for Kids is a free app created by YouVersion in partnership with OneHope, and all of its curriculum is also freely available to anyone, anywhere.
