Within the BTKIDS! ministry, we have a PreTeen group that meets on Tuesday nights during the adult Prayer Meeting called REMIX.  During our REMIX meetings, we do all sorts of lessons, series, and events to draw our preteens into a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  With preteens, as with all age groups of our children’s ministry, God has to anoint the team to be creative and think outside of the box. We do our best in order to help our preteens develop a love for the things of God.  One of the ‘hit’ events that we did last year was The Psalm 2011 Contest.

We did a series at REMIX called “A Buck Fifty” [which is street lingo for "150"] which focused on the Book of Psalms.  At the end of the series, we ran a contest to see which of our preteens could write the best “current day Psalm.” There were three simple rules for this contest, which were:

1. Your Psalm has to be addressed to God.
2. Your Psalm has to be written by you.
3. Your Psalm has to be about something that has meaning or significance to you.

Our preteens rose up to meet the challenge and did a phenomenal job!!  Originally, we were only going to have two winners.  However, due to the quality level of some of their entries, we ended up having FOUR contest winners – two grand prize winner and two runners-up!

I was extremely proud of all of the preteens. They handled both the contest and the series very well.  They were enthusiastic and showed a good deal of reverence and respect for the Word of God.  Sometimes passages of Scripture can be difficult to understand – especially for a 10, 11, or 12-year-old child.  But this contest showed that God is doing something great in the lives of our preteens.

Upcoming Preteen Events
• Friday, June 8 – Sunday, June 10, 2012 – REMIX (Preteen) Retreat. All 10, 11, and 12 year old children are invited to attend our 2nd Annual REMIX Retreat. The cost is $150.00 per person. Seats are on a first come, first served basis.
• Friday, July 6 – Saturday, July 7, 2012 – REMIX Lock-In. The preteens will be spending the night in the church from 9:30pm, Friday night until 8:00am Saturday morning.  There is no cost for this event.
• Saturday, August 4, 2012 – REMIX is sponsoring a day trip to Splish Splash Water Park, Long Island. The cost is $55.00 per person.
• Please contact Mr. James at 718-290-2054 or jcpowell@brooklyntabernacle.org for details on the above events.

Although the BTKIDS! Staff wrote the content for BTKIDS! UNIVERSITY – the concepts and format were loosely based on an evangelistic program called KIDS Evangelism Explosion [www.kidsee.org] that teaches children how to share their faith with others in a way that makes sense to them.  This might be a great resource for you to check out if you’re interested in teaching evangelism to children in an age-appropriate way.

9 | You’ve ever called one of your senior pastor’s sermons a lesson ["Boy, the lesson was really great today..."].

8 | You sit up straight and put your hands in your lap whenever anyone starts to preach.

7 | You expect a copy of the memory verse and a snack on the way out the door as you’re leaving the adult service.

6 | You have a VERY difficult time worshipping without dance moves and hand motions.

5 | An innocent bystander asks you, “what time is it?” and you excitedly scream out, “GAME TIME!!”

4 | You instinctively refer to your main sanctuary services as “Big Church.”

3 | Your “Sunday best” is a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and some comfy sneakers.

2 | You’ve counted to five in the microphone to quiet the kids down as you silently prayed they would stop talking because you had no idea what to do if you got to “five” and they hadn’t.

1 | You’ve had a child run up to you outside of your children’s services and say “Hi Teacher So-and-So!!” and give you a hug – and you felt on top of the world for the rest of the day!