The Ministry Strategy LifeKids Shares with LEGO—and How It Can Help You

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.

Have you ever been to a LEGO store? 

As you walk through the store, you hear impressed customers of all ages commenting “How cool this project is,” and encouraging someone to “Come look at this one over here!”

Next time you’re there, ignore all the LEGO bricks for a moment and just look at the people.

You’ll see young kids in a world of wonder and possibility, teenagers looking to advance their skills with more difficult sets, and even adults seem drawn to the challenge of trying the biggest, craziest sets. (Okay seriously, have you seen the Titanic or Death Star LEGO sets? They are nuts!)

Point being, if you walk around the LEGO store, you will find something for every age and every skill level.

The LEGO Mission

LEGO’s mission statement is to “Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.” 

So, how do they do that?

They start with their DUPLO brand, teaching the youngest kids the shapes of blocks, colors, simple designs, and easy instructions.

Once those kids become comfortable at that level, they advance to the next one. The instructions get a little more challenging.

As they advance, the potential ways to create expand even further.  Eventually, you get to some insane levels of creativity. The instructions become extremely challenging, but the design possibilities are endless!  

At this level, they are actually living out the LEGO Mission statement … They’ve become one of “the builders of tomorrow.”

What does this have to do with ministry?

For me, LEGO’s mission statement hits the target when I think about the ministry model in our Life.Church Curriculums. With five curriculums spanning birth to 18, we guide little children through the basics, help them grow stronger, and then prepare them for life in Christ after 18. It looks like this:

We start out young—from birth to kindergarten—with our Early Childhood programs.

Through our Bible Adventure and Crosstown Curriculums, kids learn the foundational truth of God’s Word. We develop their knowledge of the Bible, and we introduce the teachings of Jesus before kids finish Kindergarten.

Then, the early elementary curriculum Konnect takes that foundation and helps them learn what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. Kids learn the “ABCs” of the gospel and how to share them with their friends.

By the preteen years (fourth through sixth grade in the U.S.), kids move into the Loop where they’ll learn biblical truths about some of life’s biggest questions.

And finally, students move into Switch—a dynamic, relevant high school ministry that teaches kids to grow in both their own discipleship and their evangelism to others.

Like LEGO, our LifeKids curriculums help kids “level up” as they grow.

The LifeKids Mission

At Life.Church, our mission is “Leading People to Become Fully Devoted Followers of Christ.” That includes our youngest attenders, so we created a strategy that flows consistently from one age group to the next, helping people truly grow in their faith as they grow up through our kids and youth ministry. 

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

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

I outline three ways I’ve learned to unify our kids, youth, and adult ministries here. 

If you want to use our model but aren’t sure where to start, our church would love to share resources with you. Our kids and youth curriculum build on one another, helping kids grow from baby steps to fully devoted followers of Christ.

Here are links to completely free curriculum packages we use here at Life.Church: 

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 for early childhood-age kids and Konnect HQ for elementary kids! 

And next time you go to church, I hope you’ll take a moment to think about LEGO. 

Pause, and truly look at the people. Just as there are different levels of potential found in the LEGO store, every person is at a different level in their relationship with Christ. 

God is working in every person in a unique way, and we get to help provide the building blocks.