Teaching Children Effectively™ Level 1 is a course designed to equip local church members to reach children for Christ in various settings including Good News Clubs in the community and public schools as well as other children’s classes. Attention is focused on the lostness of the child without Christ and the biblical basis for child evangelism.

Special emphasis is placed on methods of evangelism, such as The Wordless Book and the evangelistic Bible lesson. Students are also instructed in how to plan and conduct evangelistic children’s classes in various venues. The course provides practical training, thus enabling students to immediately begin children’s classes in their neighborhood or local school. Students are required to participate in five practical teaching opportunities with children in the context of a Good News Club®/5-Day Club®, applying the knowledge gained in the course.

Rationale

Jesus gave the command to “go and preach the gospel to every creature.” However, subtle worldly philosophies have persuaded the majority of Christians that children cannot make a decision for Christ until they can “reason” or until they reach a certain age. It is generally accepted young children cannot receive Christ as their Savior and be born into the kingdom of God.

This course challenges the believer to reexamine biblical principles and teaching concerning child evangelism and confronts him with God’s will that “not one of these little ones should perish” (Matthew 18:14). It exhorts the believer to lead the child to Christ as a first spiritual experience instead of continually attempting to give “spiritual food” to spiritually dead children (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Topics Covered

These are the main items covered during the course.

  • The Child in the New Testament
  • The Importance of Conversion
  • How to Lead a Child to Christ
  • The Importance of the Teacher
  • Bible Lesson Preparation and Presentation
  • Counseling the Child for Salvation
  • Scripture Memorization
  • The Importance of Reaching the Child in the Neighborhood
  • The Good News Club® Program
  • Organizing the Good News Club
  • Managing Your Classroom
  • Teaching Children to Pray
  • Teaching with Music
  • Visual Communication in Teaching
  • Encouraging the Newly-Converted Child

How, When, and Where

Since this training is so important, it is offered online and in-person. The specifics of when and where and how depends on how many people are organized to take the course. When possible, we will attempt to have a local option. However, we generally have a statewide course offering at least once per year via a Zoom-style video conference. The sessions are set and you do take it with people in a live video class. Here are some points of interest that you need to know when considering TCE-1:

  • TCE-1 can be taken as a part of our complete Children’s Ministries Institute® certification process. Referred to as CMI, this 12-week series typically is scheduled twice per year. Click this link to learn more.
  • TCE-1 is offered as a separate course through CMI for a fee via their online platform. Click this link to find out more about when this is offered, plus you can download a syllabus for the couse to dig in a little deeper if you wish.
  • TCE-1 is also offered on a state level and organized to allow people to take the course virtually. This opens up opportunities for “live” instruction, but with in-home participation. Click this link to learn more about what is offered in Tennessee.
  • Occasionally, local chapter offices will offer TCE-1. This is based on “if” we can gather a group of interested people and have enough course instructors available to lead the sessions. Our chapter will advertise such opportunities when they are available.
  • TCE-1 is a 30-hour commitment for the students and is a paid course. The cost is set by the locality offering the course.
  • Once successfully completed, you receive a certificate from CMI.