In my ten years of ministry, serving four different churches, one element of worship that has always been hit-or-miss was the children’s moment.

More often than not, a well-meaning pastor or lay leader would invite the kids up for a few cute jokes, or maybe a creative object lesson that would just go over the kids’ heads. This always annoyed me.

In my last call, as I was exploring and reclaiming my identity as an artist, I began creating illustrations of the lectionary passage for the day, and used those as visual aids to simply tell children the biblical story for the day. I then gave the children a copy of the illustration to take home.

I started hearing from parents that their kids (and the parents) loved the illustrations. They were putting them on the refrigerators at home, and it would be something that the family could use to talk about the biblical story throughout the week.

I want to introduce you to Illustrated Children’s Ministry, a creative new venture to help you bring the Bible to life and tell the story. I launched this business in September, and there has been a wonderful response to it.

I create illustrations for both the Revised Common Lectionary and the Narrative Lectionary, and those are accompanied by Leader Guides to provide some background about the illustration and some examples of different ways to use them.

Additionally, people have begun using the artwork as coloring sheets for children and as cover art for bulletins.

On November 16, I will be launching some new products, including Advent/Christmas materials for churches to purchase, and for families to use at home. I also have some Advent-themed coloring sheets.

I’d love to share more about this new resource with you. The best way to keep updated with Illustrated Children’s Moments is to join our email newsletter. When you sign up, you’ll automatically receive five free illustrations that you can use however you want for your ministry. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and check out Illustrated Children’s Moments and let me know if you have any questions. You can learn more about Illustrated Children’s Moments here.

Adam Walker Cleaveland, artist, pastor, and entrepreneur, Chicago, Illinois