Life for Kids

The Life Center in Dois Irmãos, RS, has the objective of reaching out to the community in order to build relationships as a platform of spreading the gospel. One of the ways that we decided to reach out to the community is by having a monthly kid’s event.

In many parts of the world, reaching the kids in the community is a good way to reach the families, as well, with the message of the gospel. In Brazil’s culture, this is also true, since the families are so geared to satisfying the child’s needs and wants. It is still a culture that is very family oriented, which is great.

In Northeast Brazil, when a church is putting on a children’s ministry, it is very common for the parents to send their children, with no problem, to the event. Sometimes, they will even send their children, the neighbor’s kids, their friends, their cousins, and any other child they might know. Because of this, we often will have lots of kids at a VBS or at a kids ministry. In some areas, it is common to have 100-500 kids for a VBS.

In South Brazil, however, the families are a bit more wary of sending their kids off with strangers. The culture in the south tends to be more closed off than in other regions of Brazil. So, often what happens is parents will take their kids to the children’s event and stick around.

This can be advantageous to us, since, not only are we reaching kids with the Gospel of Jesus, but the parents are also hearing and learning what we are teaching their kids. They see the way we interact with their kids, loving them as Jesus would. They see others interested in investing time and energy in serving one another and in serving their kids and their family. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Life for Kids began as a community outreach to kids, taking the Bible and it's truth about God and creating a context and language that kids will understand and remember. We see Jesus taking hard to understand spiritual concepts and presenting it in a way that would make sense to the common person of his time. That is exactly what a parable is: an “earthly” story with a spiritual lesson.

Without changing Scripture and its complete infallibility, we strive to make the Scriptural truths understandable and memorable for kids, reaching their heart with the need of Jesus and His grace and forgiveness. Our monthly program generally consists of praise time, memorization of Scripture, a short skit, and a Bible lesson all linked to the theme of the Biblical truth taught. We also offer a snack, fun games and a small “party favor” to remind them of their time at the Life for Kids event.

Ways you can pray for Life for Kids:

1. for the team involved in preparing and hosting this monthly event: that they will be prepared to sew the seeds of the Gospel, and that they will be charged with living the Biblical truths in their daily lives;

2. for the kids that come to these events, that God would prepare their minds to understand His spiritual truths and their hearts to believe in these truths;

3. for the hearts of the parents to be willing to send their kids to these events, and that they also would be open to hearing from the Bible.