I love that moment when kids "get it." I love the look on their face and the sound in their voice when they understand the gospel for the first time. I've seen it happen during small group Bible study, an art project, a song during worship, a science experiment, and even a messy game.

Just like kids "get it" through different learning styles, adults connect more strongly with certain interests or gifts. Some feel paralyzing anxiety when they think about teaching a room of kids about God, but could get really excited about showing kids God's love while playing crazy messy games! What if we equipped those people to serve and connect with kids in an environment that they would love and thrive in?

Introducing ZIP for Kids

Meet ZIP. ZIP for Kids provides a customized event for your church by giving you the ability to chose what lessons, tracks, video components, and schedule you use. Your church can use ZIP for overnight camps, specialty camps, Wednesday night programming, weekend events, or any other children's ministry events you can dream.

How can ZIP meet needs in your church and your community?

Provide an outlet for people to use their gifts to serve God.How empowering would it be for the middle school cheer coach to be able to teach kids about what she loves in a cheer track time? Do you have people in your church who are gifted coaches, artists, singers, or builders? As leaders teach the activities that they are good at, they will have more time to focus on communicating the Gospel and building relationships with the kids that are in the track.

Develop discipleship relationships in your church.Ministry happens best through the context of relationships, and we know that God will use conversations that happen on the soccer field or in the science lab to work in the hearts of kids. When leaders and kids have a common interest, relationships are built naturally, leading to conversations about the Gospel or diving deeper with Him.

**Equip more leaders to connect with kids.**What better way to get people involved than to give them an opportunity to lead kids using their gifts and interests? By providing environments outside of classroom or stage-driven teaching, you can expand your ministry and serve even more children in your community. ZIP will be a blast for kids and adults and may even instill passion in the leader for children's ministry.

Speak the language that a kid hears best.A kid who may not want to come to anything labeled "Bible school" might love to come to a sports camp or day camp. Through their interests, they could hear the Gospel for the first time and even build a mentoring relationship with the leader. Biblical content is woven throughout tracks, so kids will hear the truths of Scripture and hear how it applies to the game they just played.

How can ZIP help you in your ministry to kids?

As the ZIP director, you choose the schedule, tracks, and activities that speak best to the abilities of your leaders and the community you serve. You can choose to create a sports camp, arts camp, day camp, overnight camp, weekly event, or any other possibility you can imagine!

ZIP Essentials provides you with solid biblical content focused on God's unchanging nature and plenty of choices for activities that reinforce the Bible concepts.

ZIP Tracks provides you with 16 tracks spanning interests from Soccer to Messy Games and from Art Works to Drama. You will even get customizable templates so you can create your own track if we don't have a plan for the specific gifting of someone in your church.

ZIP Media offers lots of great videos and music. You can even use a video to tell the Bible story if you don't have someone gifted as a storyteller.

ZIP Preschool gives you a chance to connect with the youngest children in your church through activities and interests.

Visit zipforkids.com for more information.

Mary Carlisle Wiley serves as a content editor for ZIP and VBS at LifeWay Christian Resources. She leads with the children's ministry at Restoration Church in Nashville, Tenn.