3-Steps to Lifelong Discipleship

NOTE: As of August 15th, 2023, all three steps are being revised. We prefer to wait until that process is complete before making the 3-Step program publicly available.

Meanwhile, the rest of this page gives you a good idea of the value the 3-Steps program can be for your Children's Ministry!

Start Smart

The Kids Ministry Toolbox

Challenges? You bet. Grab real world help right now!

An online resource with tons of practical WISDOM, things we all wish we knew when we started. This is the all-important first of three steps to achieving the ultimate goal of children's ministry: making lifelong disciples.

Build Your BEST Kids Ministry

To help YOU thrive and flourish in your leadership role, we have put all our lessons learned, tips and ideas into 40+ pages called The Kids Ministry Toolbox, a valuable resource that helps you decide what priorities to set, how to build a strong set of fundamentals and, in a surprisingly interesting article, how to make your paltry Children's Ministry budget get to where it needs to be (yes yes!). We give you the one tip that made recruiting teachers much more successful for us, and we give you a terrific set of actions guaranteed to burn out your existing staff...what? Don't miss that one!

Want to make Sunday a day kids really look forward to? Years ago we turned around the rusty Sunday School at our church; these principles really work. 

The Articles

  • What is Our Purpose?
  • Our Lord’s Treasure Map to Discipleship
  • Build Your Base (Impart Your Vision)
  • The Key to Recruiting
  • How to Burnout Your Volunteers
  • Sunday School Wisdom
  • The 10-minute Sunday School
  • Fun in Sunday School
  • When the Lesson Ends Too Soon
  • The Best Kids Ministry Tips and Ideas
  • Your Budget

The Kids Ministry Toolbox - Fun to read, and full of powerful help!

In 25 years of children's ministry we've made all the mistakes and learned many lessons - and sometimes we got things right! Now we are inviting you to learn the wise steps to successful kids ministry without going though all the bumps and potholes.

Grow Your Group

The KIDS PARTY Program

Go Bananas: Your  Children's Ministry Growth Action Plan.

KIDS PARTY is an Action Games/Bible Story program that features enough info, ideas, stories and games for 36 ninety-minute KIDS PARTY events for third graders on up. Thoroughly tested and perfected over a period of two decades, the KIDS PARTY program has been unbelievably successful for us. We've learned what works and what doesn't and put together all the good stuff for you in KIDS PARTY. Super fun team games and individual challenges, Bible stories, even team games we call Watchables for the flatscreen on your wall. Kids come, kids stay!

Here's What You'll Download:

  • The KP Leader Guide. This covers the entire KP gamut.
  • KP Games and Stunts. Well over 100 team and individual games, all tested by us.
  • Party Guides. The Bible stories plus sign-in forms, coaches pages and the like.
  • Wall Games 1 and 2. Posters and pages used for various games.
  • Promo Posters. It pays to advertise.
  • Music for action games. Pounding beats impossible to ignore!
  • KP Watchables. A real KP plus: Use your screen on the wall to really rock KIDS PARTY!

I hope plenty of ministries pick up your amazing kids program! I know God will do amazing things with what you have created!

KEALA

Parent of two KP alumni


Question

Are you wondering how an event program aimed at one age level can grow your entire children's ministry - and your whole church for that matter? It's simple. Neighborhood parents bring neighborhood kids to Kids Party, and those parents have kids of all ages. If you spend time meeting and getting to know new parents, some will come Sunday and many of those will stick. Thus, new families!


I had a blast at my first KIDS PARTY and made lots of friends. That was also my first time hearing a talk about God.

ADIN 

Key youth group staffer


KIDS PARTY is on sale soon!

Make Lifelong Disciples!

CLAMbake Sunday School/Discipleship

Christ's Love and Majesty - The CLAM in CLAMbake

Christ's Love is everything He says and does, and His Majesty is who He is: God's Son. This is what we teach the kids. It's a message that draws them to Christ, leading many to make lifelong commitments to the Lord. Graduates now in their thirties are walking with Him, and many are serving in full or part time ministries. 

So what's the Secret Sauce?

CLAMbake is a two-year through the Bible course featuring over 400 Sunday School lessons (more than 100 Sundays times four age-levels). It's designed to be REPEATED every two years as kids grow up, leading to a super-solid understanding of who Jesus is and a lifelong commitment to Him. This is why we call CLAMbake a DISCIPLESHIP course as well as Sunday School curriculum. Also, whatever a lesson's Bible story may be, Jesus is the ultimate focus. The four age-levels covered are Preschool, Early, Middle and Upper Elementary.

The Secret Sauce is the repetition every two years. CLAMbake is not a "use once then on to the next thing" curriculum. Kids who grow up through the two-year cycles know the Bible SO WELL! But much more than that, they know and admire Christ. It's really tough to fall away from someone you admire, so a high percentage of our grads still love and serve Him even after college :) 

Click image to watch intro video. Runtime: 1:47

The Distinctives:

  • Through the Bible in two years.
  • Four age-levels: Preschool, Early, Middle and Upper Elementary.
  • All age-levels study the same Bible story each week, appropriate to the kids' maturity levels.
  • All lessons, no matter the Bible story, lead kids to a deeper understanding of Jesus.
  • Lessons are easily adjustable for time. This permits you to add opening sessions, snacks and play time without significant loss of learning.
  • CLAMbake is a combination Sunday School/Discipleship program. Hundreds of CLAMbake graduates from our home church have gone on to serve God in wonderful ways.
  • We strongly believe in review: (1) Every fifth lesson is a review of the previous four; (2) For the most part, every activity in a lesson is a different way of teaching the same truth each time; (3) CLAMbake is intended to be repeated every two years as students grow up through the age-levels.
  • Includes lesson plans, activity pages and CLAMazine take-home pages.
  • The developer of each lesson is available via our Support page above. Questions and suggestions are welcome.

Requirements:

Internet connection: CLAMbake is made available as a convenient downloadable resource. During our current beta development stage we post five weeks worth at a time, normally every four or five weeks. An Internet connection is of course needed for that but not needed in the classroom. Each month's download folder is large, it can take a few minutes to download.


Printer: Toner-based and relatively high volume, color, able to print to letter-size and 11x17-inch paper. Back-to-back print capabilities highly desirable.


Large paper cutter: Able to trim 11x17-inch paper.


Paper: Letter-size and tabloid-size (tabloid is also known as ledger and 11x17-inch) white paper. Some activities require letter-size darkly colored paper (so kids can't see what's printed on the back) and some require white cardstock (for playing table card games such as Bible Concentration).


Schedule: CLAMbake teaches through the Old Testament in one year, following with the Gospels plus portions of Acts and Revelation in year two. Thus, the first Sunday of CLAMbake must be the first Sunday of your Sunday School year.


Even as a longtime believer who's been to church and learned the lessons as a young boy, I was fascinated: I would go in and I'd learn something new in a simple Sunday School. I loved it. I love the curriculum.

MIKE B

Talking about teaching CLAMbake


The Parts and Pieces:

The first file you want to check is the Print and Prep resource that comes with each week's lessons. It tells you what to print for each age-level, what size paper to use, color or black and white, single-sided or back-to-back, and how many copies to make. We get a lot of praise for this, it makes life MUCH easier for the one doing the work. 

Notice the light blue dialog balloons at the top of the green and yellow columns. Those indicate the files that are used in two or more age-levels.

The Print and Prep has a page like this one for each age-level. Every file is shown along with a brief description. 

On this particular page you see the cover of the Lesson Plan, the cover of the CLAMazine comic, the Biggie Verse poster, a Welcome to CLAMbake poster, the CLAM Bible/voCLAMulary student page, the so-called CLAMbake College set of activity pages and a large poster for a team game we call CLAMs and Ladders. 

PS: Non-printing activities are never listed; those are in the lesson plans.

Every Print and Prep has this Biggie Verse Poster instruction page at the end, showing how to print and put together a typical Biggie Verse poster. In many churches teachers only teach occasionally, not every Sunday, and new teachers come along down the road. To be sure they all know how to assemble posters we always include this.

If any file requires special instructions, they will normally follow after this page.

After checking and printing the Print and Prep resource, you'll want to head to the Lesson Plans

Here you see the cover page for the Upper Elementary class. It shows the lesson number and title and a quick outline of the class hour. The illustrations on the left show available Watchables and the recommended CLAMazine file. More on those when you scroll down this screen.

At the very bottom is the copyright line featuring the filename of the resource, in this case Upper 1ot Lesson.pdf.

All CLAMbake lessons have pages like these above. The first lists the files needed for the lesson plus any special materials. There is also a column showing fifteen lessons in order, so teachers know where their lesson fits in context. The second page shows the title and purpose of the lesson, along with the Biggie Verse and main Bible reference(s). Page 3 is the lesson plan's main body. It tells which activities to do, along with any needed instructions. In CLAMbake an activity's instructions can appear on this page, in the Print and Prep, on the activity page itself or any combination of the three. Next comes the CLAM Bible page that the teacher reads to the kids. Guided discussion thoughts and questions are shown in gray. 

The Upper Elementary lesson plans also feature a final page called Bible Wars. Kids of this age group are old enough to easily read aloud Bible verses found in the course of the Bible Wars game.

Bible Wars achieves two main functions. One, it teaches kids the ever-important ability to look up Bible references. Two, when played at the end of the lesson it can be kept going until class ends.

The Upper Elementary lessons include a separate file called the CLAM Bible. It's for the teacher to hand out to the students. On the back is the voCLAMulary page, a glossary of terms used during the Bible reading. The voCLAMulary page is rarely mentioned in the lesson plans, so it serves as one more optional activity when wanted. The cartoon above is from the weekly CLAMazine. The CLAMazine can be used in class or sent home. It's for Upper Elementary ages.

More Parts and Pieces:

The Preschool (or Pre-K if you Pre-Fer) lessons are much simpler than what you've seen so far, of course. They do include three things the other lessons don't have. First is the Advent Bible which, when trimmed and taped together, has paper doors to open like a Christmas advent calendar. Behind the doors are illustrations from several Bible stories. The teacher has a separate page from which to read the stories. There's also a puppet skit with each lesson. And each lesson shows kids how to use simple sign language to make short phrases about God, His Son Jesus and the Bible.


I started CLAMbake in first grade and attended until I graduated in the fifth grade. This program got me excited to learn about Christ through the interesting Bible stories and games. My mother and I went back to volunteer. Becoming excited about my relationship with the Lord from a young age helped me walk with Him into my middle and high school years. I went on to staff the middle school youth group.

HELENA

College Student


What's in the Download Folders?

You'll receive the link to a single zip folder for every five weeks of lessons. The link to the latest ZIP folder will be emailed to you once every four to five weeks. In each folder you will find:

  • Lesson Plans for four age-levels, five weeks in each downloadable ZIP folder. We suggest you email the lesson plans to your teachers a couple of weeks in advance.
  • CLAMazine files. The CLAMazine has cartoon stories and learning activities. One page is handed to kids each Sunday for five weeks to complete a cartoon and activity-filled comic book. Use them in class or as take home papers.
  • Activity pages (variable amount). Usually about a dozen files per Sunday, split among the four age-levels.
  • Posters. Normally one to three files per Sunday. Most posters are formed from four 11-inch by 17-inch sheets. 
  • Print and Prep. One file per week containing printing and preparation instructions for all four age-levels. The Print and Prep pages are super helpful when printing all the rest; be sure to print the Print and Prep first for reference.

The CLAMbake lesson format is terrific for both the teachers and young students. I've used it with my 8-10 year-olds for nearly ten years.

BOB FRENCH

Resort Restaurant Owner, Sunday School Teacher


The first 15 lesson topics

Title, Theme, Main Passage, Memory Verse:

  1. 1
    God's BIG PLAN. God has wonderful plans for us. Genesis 1:1. Biggie Verse: Jeremiah 29:11
  2. 2
    Creation. Jesus is God. Genesis 1:1. Biggie Verse: John 1:3.
  3. 3
    Adam and Eve. Jesus loves us. Genesis 2 and 3. Biggie Verse: 1 John 3:5 
  4. 4
    Cain and Abel. Jesus is the cure for our sins. Genesis 4:2-12; Matthew 9:1-8. Biggie Verse: Romans 6:23 
  5. 5
    REVIEW of Lessons 1-4.
  6. 6
    Noah. Jesus saves us. Selections from Genesis 6:9—8:17. Biggie Verse: Acts 4:12. 
  7. 7
    The Tower of Babel. Jesus, name above all names. Genesis 11:1-9. Biggie Verse: Philippians 2:10-11.
  8. 8
    Abraham is Called. Jesus chooses us. Genesis 12:1-7. Biggie Verse: John 10:27.
  9. 9
    Abraham and Sarah. Jesus can do anything. Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7. Biggie Verse: Jeremiah 32:17. 
  10. 10
    REVIEW of Lessons 6-9.
  11. 11
    Abraham and Isaac. Believing our Lord. Genesis 22:1-18. Biggie Verse: James 2:22.
  12. 12
    Jacob and Esau. We are to forgive others. Selections from Genesis chapters 27, 32, 33. Biggie Verse: Matthew 6:14.
  13. 13
    Joseph the Slave. Jesus sets us free. Genesis 37:1-36. Biggie Verse: Romans 6:17. 
  14. 14
    Joseph the Prince. We are part of God’s Big Plan. Excerpts from Genesis 39—46. Biggie Verse: Mark 16:15. 
  15. 15
    REVIEW of Lessons 11-14.

CLAMbake is on sale soon!


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