My three children are fascinated with animals. They love to learn interesting facts about animals. Recently we checked out a book about baby animals that was full of amazing facts about all kinds of creatures. One of the discoveries that I found most interesting had to do with baby ducks and how they imprint.

When baby ducks hatch, they imprint on the first living creature they see that is larger than itself. Whether it’s another duck, a dog, a cow, or a person, baby ducks thinks it is their mother and they believe that they are its baby. And you thought this kind of thing only happened on “Tom and Jerry” cartoons? But it is true, God created baby ducks to imprint on another creature so that it is always the first thing the duckling thinks about and the most important being in the duckling’s world. Ducklings look to them for protection, provision, and to teach them how to live.

#1 THING WE DO

As I read this, I thought that this should be the #1 thing we do in Children’s Ministry. Our role is help kids imprint on their Heavenly Father. In Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Moses tells us to impress, or imprint, our children with a love for God.

Love the Lord Your God. As we lead children to imprint upon God, we are teaching them to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. This teaches them the basis to know who God is and what God is like.

God Takes First Place. They will see God as the most important being in the world and He will be the first thing they think about. When kids imprint on God they begin to look to Him for protection, provision, and to teach them how to live.

#1 WAY WE DO IT

I believe Moses clearly lays out a plan to imprint children in our ministries with a love for God. He tells us to “impress them upon our children.” The Hebrew word here is shanan, which means “to instill by persistent instruction.” The idea is that in everything we do, we guide our children to love God and put Him first through persistent reinforcement.

Reinforcement And Retention. A recent study found that when we expose kids to a concept once in 30 days there is a 10% retention level. For example, if you’re only teaching a Biblical truth once in 30 days, your kids are only remembering 10% of what you teach them. On the other hand, the study found that if we review that material six times within a 30-day period kids will likely retain 90% of what we teach them.

Stick To The Theme. A few years ago we started teaching the same theme for an entire month but approaching it using different Bible stories, songs, and activities each week. As you can imagine the practice of persistent reinforcement radically changed the way we do children’s ministry. We no longer concentrated on totally new material every week and then moving on to something different. Now once we teach a lesson we come back again a week later from a different angle, and back again another week, and back again another week for the entire month. The end result has been amazing! Our kids are remembering who God is and what God is like. They are learning to love God and give Him first place in their lives.

The challenge is to begin to practice persistent reinforcement in your ministry. According to Moses, our goal is not to impress children with a new Bible story each week, but rather it is to imprint them with a love for God.