1. Prayer and involvement by a local church:
- The local church must be praying for revival.
- The local church must bring children for a crusade.
- Our philosophy – mucho children – mucho get the Holy Ghost!
- The evangelist will be inspired by the number of children or crowd energy.
- Our greatest altar workers were trained locals!
2. Planned services with respect to time:
- Services should be constructed with children in mind.
- Children have a short attention span.
- A long drawn out service could play havoc on the altar service.
- Do things funny and exciting, then turn your evangelist loose!
- If you do crusades through the week, while children are in school, be careful how long the service goes. A long altar service is better than a long sermon! Evangelists must be sensitive to time.
3. A dedicated evangelist who is used by God.
- The key to every service is a dedicated evangelist.
- Give him or her flexibility.
- Never try to compete with the evangelist.
- Praise and encourage your evangelist.
- Offer assistance often and criticism seldom.
4. A dedicated TEAM to allow God to flow through them:
- To have the same TEAM go from crusade to crusade is great!
- You can evaluate nightly your victories and your mistakes.
- You can get the feel of what is working and what is not!
- Momentum can be built in the day-to-day crusades.
- The more you pray together the greater the results!
- Your Crusade TEAM shows success or failure! Walk into every service with greater faith than you had at the last place!
- A united effort beats a divided effort ten to one!
Thinking Backwards
What is the order of a service?
Welcome: Express appreciation to adults who love children.
Singing: Sing songs that children enjoy.
Worship: Worship prepares their hears for the Word.
Offering: Remember this is worship too.
Evangelists: (see the Children’s Evangelists and Teacher Training Directory)
Altar call and service: Make sure the evangelist understands that this is important.
Wrap-up or dismissal: Always take time to celebrate with those filled with the Holy Ghost. Don’t rehash the sermon and bore people.
What could possibly fall apart and you can still survive?
Bad welcome? Don’t let technical or weather problems dampen your spirit. You can make it.
Bad music? Been there – thank God I made it through!
Worship? I’ve had my share of dead services! Be positive and move on.
Offering? Many services have more ones than fives or tens! Be grateful for what you get.
Could the evangelist make a mess and trucks and clowns stumble through? If you’ve been in the church long enough, you’ve seen it happen! Children will not notice like adults. Just have church!
Could the dismissal or wrap-up be too long or non-effective? Don’t let it happen!
The ONE THING that has got to be successful is the altar service! Always remember to encourage those who did not get the Holy Ghost. To make the altar service successful, you must think BACKWARDS! Plan your altar service with the evangelist and workers! Train your altar workers! Teach them to pray “one on one” with children! Encourage every altar worker that they CAN pray children through to the Holy Ghost! Altar workers are so important! Build their faith in the possibilities. Work with your evangelist to know when to come up and pray and how! You need to pray in front of them to be more effective. Have altar workers come to the altar first – take the sting out of kids walking up there alone! They need training and you can give it to them! The greatest goal of a crusade is not singing, puppets, or sound. The greatest goal is a child speaking in tongues at the altar! Walk into your crusade, thinking altar! Because you think backward, God can go forward. This is a time you are thinking backward, but going forward.
