Well-Equipped Volunteer: Train & Grow Your Children's Ministry Volunteers

Prevent distracting chatter

You want the kids in your small group to build relationships with you and with each other. The downside of this is that you have friends sitting together who sometimes can’t resist the urge to have their own conversation right in the middle of application time! Or kids want to tell you stories about what is going in with them.

Both of these are examples of distracting chatter. Application time is a time for talking, but it’s focused group discussion. So, you need to do your best to prevent distracting chatter.

There are a number of ways to do this:

• Set up ground rules
• Let kids know what you expect
• Be prepared with good questions
• Know what the lesson’s key theme is, the key Bible passage, and the aim of application time
• Think out ahead of time how you will deal with distracting chatter when it does happen

You may need to move certain kids away from each other. If a child shares something that is totally off track, tell them that you will talk about that later, and move right back into the conversation.

During application time you are guiding kids to a response. It’s important to focus. Distracting chatter causes loss of focus. Do your best to prevent it from happening in the first place.