3 Ways To Unify Your Kids, Youth, and Adult Ministry Content

Thanks to Justin Edge for writing this post. Justin is a pastor, speaker, and Central Ministry Leader for LifeKids, the childrens ministry at Life.Church. He loves helping leaders and pastors to equip their volunteers, kids, and students for success.

As a pastor, you are the driver for unity and cohesion within your church.

But so often, kids, youth, and adult ministries work in silos, like the other areas of ministry don’t even exist.

As a kids pastor myself, I want to set my youth pastor up for success by sending strong, faith-filled children into their ministry ready to become developed, empowered teens.

The aim is that the students I send them raise the bar for the rest of the leaders in their ministry. In turn, our youth ministry’s desire is to do the same as they send students out into young adulthood, too.

You must fight against the mindset of being a “silo,” where each ministry is disconnected instead of flowing together and building on past knowledge.

Are your kids’ ministry goals cohesive and unified with your youth ministry goals? And do they together align with your church’s overall goals?

As a pastor, it’s your job to drive for unity and cohesion within your church.

So, how do you drive for unity? 

Here are three ways to unify your kids, youth, and adult ministries.

1. Start with a coffee, lunch, or a road trip.

It may sound obvious, but you can’t become a strong, cohesive, like-minded church team if you don’t actually know the people you are working with.

Get past the surface-level conversations, honestly share what you’re passionate about, and make sure you understand your team’s “why.”

It’s hard to push toward the same goal if you don’t know how your goals build on each other.

2. Collaborate!

Once you’ve gotten to really know each other better, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Look at the next two weeks of your schedule, and determine how you will bring your Youth Pastor, Kids Pastor, or Small Groups Pastor together on a project that will move the needle on your overall church goals.

Every week, I look back and analyze: did I go about my week all on my own, or did I invite someone else to the table with me? 

Collaborate—and just watch how God begins to bring your ministry areas into alignment.

3. Choose cohesive curriculums. 

Are you teaching a curriculum in your kids’ ministry that sets your youth pastor up for success? Are your high school students learning content that helps prepare them for college and beyond?

We should always begin with the end in mind.

Instead, our curriculum strategy follows an eight-question model. From birth to sixth grade, each year we orient our content around answering eight strategic questions.

Parents know exactly what we will cover with these eight foundational truths, and the eight themes set them up for the transition to our student ministry, Switch.

We’d love to help you start!

If you want to use this model but aren’t sure where to start, our church would love to share resources with you. Our kids and youth curriculum intentionally build upon one another:

Get the Bible Adventure preschool curriculum here. 

Get the Crosstown kindergarten curriculum here. 

Get the Konnect HQ elementary curriculum here. 

Get The Loop Show preteen curriculum here. 

Get the Switch youth curriculum here. 

If you only have the volunteers or space to run one or two curriculums, we recommend starting with Bible Adventure and Konnect HQ!