Episode 223: How to Help Kids Truly Encounter God with David Rausch

Most kids are leaving church and faith behind because they’re starving for a balanced, genuine encounter with God—not just education or entertainment. But what if you could change that in your ministry—and see lives transform?

In this eye-opening episode, David Rausch of GO! Curriculum reveals the secret sauce for cultivating lifelong faith in children.

Get 25% off your KidMin Academy tuition with the code PODCAST at https://www.kidminacademy.com/. Get your copies of David's Feeding Faith and learn more about GO! Curriculum at https://gocurriculum.com/. 

Transcript

Hannah Augustine (00:00)

Faith is so important to every believer, but at the same time, it can feel very intangible. Jesus tells us that we should all have faith like a child, but the older we get, the harder that becomes. So how can we, as KidMin leaders who sometimes feel far away from that childlike faith, effectively help the kids in our homes and in our ministries develop faith from a young age?

That's exactly what we're talking about today with David Rausch from GO! Curriculum. And if you stick around until the end, you're going to get to hear about his favorite national park—but that's just a bonus. So hang in until we finish up.

I'm Hannah Augustine, and I'll be your host for today's timely conversation with David Rausch, a man of many talents. His latest book, Feeding Faith, is designed to help leaders like you take your kids from starving to faith-filled.

Now, for some of you, David needs no introduction. He is the founder of GO! Curriculum and GO! Academy, creating Bible-based resources that engage kids and equip leaders. You can learn more about that at GoCurriculum.com, and we'll link that in the show notes. With over 25 years in children's ministry as a pastor and curriculum developer, David blends creativity, humor, and biblical depth to help kids know and follow Jesus for life. David, we are honored to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for being here.

David Rausch (01:40)

Yeah, thank you for having me, Hannah. What's really surprising about this whole journey is that I swore I would never be in children's ministry. I knew in college that God was leading me into ministry. I also knew that I loved children, but the idea of doing children's ministry was not appealing to a college-aged guy. My perception, having never been in it, was that it's just a bunch of old ladies with sock puppets and felt boards, and that just was not appealing to me.

It wasn't until I graduated—I was a college pastor at Willow Creek Community Church—and because I loved working with kids, one day I just said, "Hey, you know what? I'm going to volunteer with Promiseland," which was their children's ministry. And my goodness, Promiseland was anything but sock puppets and felt boards. It completely blew away my perception of what children's ministry was. So it was through Promiseland that I started to fall in love with children's ministry. I really found my passion.

After about seven years of being a volunteer small group leader with ages four and five, they brought me on staff as a K-1 teacher, then a fourth and fifth grade teacher, and ultimately as the elementary programming director.

Hannah Augustine (03:05)

Moving toward your book—I really believe, as I said at the beginning, that this conversation is timely, and I meant that. If kids are really leaving in record numbers, why is feeding their faith the most important thing we can do?

David Rausch (03:17)

Yeah, well, first of all, when you talk about the importance of it, it's so easy to look at the numbers and not see the people behind them. Sometimes it's easy to look at that and see it as a statistic. It's an alarming statistic, but it's still just a statistic. It's when you start to think about the people who have come through your ministry—the people that you know and love who are the ones who have walked away—that it really starts to become personal.

I talked about when I was volunteering at Promiseland. The first small group I ever had—I had this little girl in my group. She was four years old, named Sarah. The cutest, most adorable girl. She was the perfect kid to have in small group. In fact, I tell people this: she's the kid who made me not only want to be in children's ministry, she made me want to be a dad. That's how much I just absolutely adored this girl and loved her, and I got to pour into her for two years as she turned four and then five.

But then after that, as they do, they keep growing. So she left my group and moved up to the room above me. I still saw her from time to time, but I could also see that as time went on, it seemed like she was making life choices that were taking her further and further away from God and away from the church. Ultimately, after high school, she left the church. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Now, that was just a girl who was in my small group. I know for a lot of people, it's their own kid or their grandkid—someone who is deeply close to them. And that is just heartbreaking to watch happen.

The alarms have been going off for a while, but there aren't a lot of people talking about, "So what? How do we stop that from happening?" That's what I really go into with this book. The hypothesis of the book is that the reason children and youth are leaving in record numbers is because we're releasing them out of high school when they are still spiritually hungry. We have been feeding them a very imbalanced spiritual diet. If they leave our ministry and they're still hungry for something, they're going to keep looking. But instead of looking for it from the church, they're going to look for it in the world. They're going to look for it through unhealthy relationships, through drinking, through a different religion or a different faith community, or by becoming atheists.

That's really what I spend a lot of time talking about: how exactly do you give them a balanced spiritual diet? How do you keep them from leaving your ministry still hungry for something they haven't gotten yet? Because if they leave our ministry filled full of the joy and the presence and the power of God, they will not leave that. They absolutely won't.

Hannah Augustine (06:21)

Absolutely. And you mentioned diet—obviously, that's the premise of Feeding Faith, and we're going to talk in a minute about the E.A.T. strategy. But when I think of even a physical diet—my husband and I are trying to make some good choices. Over the past six to eight months, I've been slowly phasing out the coffee creamer for something a little more healthy. Now I drink it mostly black, which was like, "This is so different from my Chobani creamer." But over time, your appetite changes.

So when we can help kids develop the right appetites at this young age and, as you said, fill them with the right things, that appetite can hopefully carry them forward, because they're going to continue to crave what we helped them learn to crave. There's going to be a foundation there. Sure, there's going to be temptation down the road, or they may interact with some of those things you mentioned, but the prayer is that the foundation we've created is going to help them as they go forward into life—into college, high school, the great beyond, wherever their future takes them.

David Rausch (07:28)

Yeah. What I'm finding, too, is that with a lot of churches, there are two big mistakes they make. Either A, we're feeding kids a whole lot of spiritual junk food. They're coming into church and it's very entertaining—which it should be. We should be helping the kids have fun. That is a core value I think we should all have in children's ministry. But if that's all we're doing, then they're just getting junk food.

The other mistake is that we're overfeeding in one area and not the other. There are diets out there like this. There's the carnivore diet, where you just eat meat—caveman diet: meat, meat, meat. That's all you eat. But we know that if that's all you eat, you are not going to be healthy because you're missing some of the other food groups.

I think that's what we do in children's ministry. Think of the Word of God—that's the meat. The meat and potatoes really is Scripture. In a lot of churches, it's like, "Yeah, we are going to get those kids in the Bible, and we are going to get the Bible into those kids." And that's where it stops. What I would suggest is that's good—we should be giving them those meat and potatoes—but there are also two other key ingredients we're missing.

That brings us to the E.A.T. strategy, which is what Feeding Faith is all about. It is the discipleship strategy that GO! Curriculum is built on. It's all about giving kids a well-balanced spiritual diet so that when they leave our ministry, they are not hungry. They are filled with the presence of God.

So that's the E.A.T. strategy: E-A-T. The E stands for education, the A stands for application, and the T stands for transformation—spiritual transformation. When you can do all three of those well, those kids are going to stay in the faith—not just through grade school or middle school or high school. They will be in it for life.

Hannah Augustine (09:50)

That's so good. When we're emphasizing meat or only the vegetables or whatever that is, we are missing some of the things that God intended for us. So coming at it from a holistic approach—I love that GO! Curriculum is emphasizing that across the board.

For those of you listening, if you're not as familiar with how a curriculum runs, every curriculum is coming at Scripture or coming at their approach in a specific way. You want to make sure that whatever you're using has that solid foundation and strategy. Obviously, that's evidenced with what we're talking about today: that you have an intentional approach you're taking to Scripture, to each lesson, to each activity, that's going to shape how you approach those things.

David Rausch (10:26)

Right. Every church—you don't have to work too hard to convince them that biblical education is important. Every church is on the same page: yes, biblical education is very important. We go into the book about how to do that best—how to teach kids, how to get them into the Bible in a way that they're going to understand it and enjoy it and be able to digest it. Using the food analogies, they're going to be able to digest Scripture. That's important, and pretty much every church is doing it.

It's when you get to the A—application—that you start to see some drop-off. Not only is it important that we teach kids what Scripture has to say, but we also need to teach them what this looks like in their lives. How do you take what Scripture has to say and apply it to your life, your everyday life, at school or at home or in the neighborhood? What does that look like for you?

Like I said, most people are on board with that. Not every curriculum does that, by the way. There are some curricula that stay away from application, sort of under the philosophy of, "We'll let the Holy Spirit help them decide how to apply it." Certainly the Holy Spirit should play a role in application. But Scripture is filled with application. Just read the book of James—it's so much application, talking about how we take what we've read in Scripture and make it real in our lives. So you see that God's Word is not only filled with application, but takes it very seriously.

Now, the one where you see almost total drop-off is when you get to the T—transformation, spiritual transformation. Because not only is it about understanding God's Word and applying it, but we're talking about a real, living God who wants to know us, who wants to have a relationship with us. That one is a little harder to do, because you can test for education. You can observe application. But transformation is so squishy. How do you help a kid have a transformational experience with God?

I think the way that most churches approach this is sort of like what happens when you walk into a big-box store. Hannah, I'm curious—which one of these box stores would you most likely walk into? Are you a Walmart girl? A Target girl? A Home Depot girl? Where would you most likely go?

Hannah Augustine (13:20)

You know, we are a Lowe's family. I used to be a Home Depot family, and now we're Lowe's. Walmart and Sam's Club are our favorites.

David Rausch (13:22)

Okay. So you walk into Lowe's and you're looking for a thingamajig. You don't know where it is. You see the person at the front of the store and you say, "Excuse me, could you tell me where would I find the thingamajigs?" The person points toward the back of the store, the back corner, and says, "Oh, it's back in this section, maybe aisle 32 or 33." And you say, "Okay, thank you."

Then you walk back to where they pointed and for the life of you, you cannot find the thingamajigs. You're thinking, "My goodness, I wish that person had just walked me back. They know where it is. Just walk me back to it and show me where it is. It would have saved me so much time." In the meantime, you have a garden hose and a gnome that you don't need, but you couldn't find the one thing you were really looking for.

Well, we sort of do that when it comes to helping people find Jesus. We're the people standing at the front of the store saying, "You should have a relationship with Jesus. He's over in that direction. Go find Him and start a relationship with Him." Well, that's tough for a kid. We're missing the opportunity to say to that kid, "Hey, I know Jesus, and I want to introduce you to Him. Follow me. I'm going to walk you all the way up to the feet of Jesus. I am going to make the introduction, and then at that point I'm going to step back, and the Holy Spirit is going to do what the Holy Spirit is going to do."

Too often, I think we stop short of making the introduction to Jesus. We point them to Jesus instead of saying, "Come on, I'm going to introduce you to Him." There are different ways—we go in depth in the book about how to create experiences within your children's ministry that carve out the time and the space to allow kids to have that interaction with God: to pray to God, to listen for God's voice, to read Scripture. There are even artistic experiences where they get to express themselves to God artistically, or to journal to God. There are all kinds of ways kids can have that interaction with Jesus. That's the big thing I think is missing in most children's ministries.

Hannah Augustine (16:08)

That's so pivotal. I think growing up, I trended toward the more traditional ways of relating to God. Some kids do, but my sister was more artistic. She wanted to be creative. Even my mom would tell you she knew how to parent me because I was like her, but my sister was so different that it was like, "Well, does she love God? Because she doesn't do what Hannah does."

I think in children's ministry, we can create these "this is what it's supposed to look like" boxes. It's educational, and you do this and read your Bible, and then you do this and this and this. But when we create different experiences that help kids understand there are so many ways to relate to the Lord—obviously, Jesus is the one true way, but I mean spiritual disciplines and experiences—whether that's being out in nature, going for a walk, doing something creative, or journaling, there are so many different ways to relate to the Lord. When we're not helping kids find that, it can create internal dissonance: "Maybe I'm not good at this. Maybe this isn't for me. I'm doing it wrong." And that's not going to help. No one wants to do it wrong for the rest of their life and feel like a failure. We're setting them up for that trajectory to walk away.

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David Rausch (18:20)

Well, we're also not teaching them one of the most important things possible, which is essentially how to have a quiet time with God. Like you said, there are so many different ways to do it. It doesn't mean just sitting there and meditating, and it doesn't mean it has to be all prayer—although that's a huge way to do it. But it could be through journaling, through nature, through art, through all these different things.

One of the best things I ever did as a children's pastor when I was at my previous church in St. Louis—and we have since built this into GO! Curriculum, and again, in Feeding Faith I talk in depth about different ways to do it—we started to institute response stations. After the large-group time was over but before small group had begun, the kids would have an opportunity for about five minutes—a very kid-friendly amount of time—to go and very quietly engage at one of the response stations.

The way I would set it up: "Hey, we're going to do our response stations now. Remember, this is a time between you and God, not you and your friends. Because of that, it needs to be absolutely silent. I'm going to say a prayer, and after the prayer, you're going to get up very quietly and move to one of the four stations." The stations were the prayer station, the Bible reading station, the journal station, and the art station. We would have prompts at each station, and if a kid needed some direction, they could use the prompt. Otherwise, they were free to pray about or journal about whatever the Holy Spirit was leading them to do.

The first time I ever did this, I really thought, "Boy, we'll see how this goes." This was sort of in the third- through fifth-grade room, and I was worried about the fourth- and fifth-grade boys. Were they going to take this seriously? Were they going to be making fart noises during this and goofing off, you know, fourth and fifth graders?

Boy, I said that prayer. It was a very calming prayer inviting the Holy Spirit into the moment. I said, "Amen." And they couldn't have been quieter. You could have heard a pin drop as they all got up and moved to the different stations. Very quietly, based on their interests, based on the ways they connect to God best, they just sat there. They wrote the most beautiful prayers, and their journal entries were just so precious. To watch them sit there reading Scripture and then writing their favorite parts down—it was absolutely amazing.

I don't think we give kids enough credit for just how deep their souls are and what they're capable of. If you teach them how to encounter God, just how beautifully and wonderfully they can do that. They do that even better and more easily than grown-ups do. You see that when you carve that space out in your children's ministry.

I went from being at Willow Creek at Promiseland to being at a church in St. Louis, where I was the director of a multi-site church—I'm still in St. Louis to this day. After about five or six years—I think I was there for six years, all of them great years except for the last one—I'm sure there are a lot of people who can relate. That last year in that position, I was like, "Please, Lord, lead me anywhere else." I had even been thinking, "I'll just go get a job at Home Depot. I'll be a cashier until I figure out what I want to do with my life."

So one evening, sitting in my office at church, I just said the shortest, simplest prayer: "Okay, God, what's next?" I have never had God answer me so loudly or so quickly. Later that same night, I heard God say to me, "Start your own curriculum company."

I questioned in that moment—and well beyond—whether that was God's voice or just my internal voice. All I can tell people is, I'm still learning what God's voice sounds like in my life. But I know what my internal voice sounds like, because that thing is running all the time. It doesn't speak with any real authority. It says small things, safe things, comfort-preserving things. All I can say is this was not my voice. It spoke with absolute authority. It was saying big things and bold things and scary things—so scary that in the moment, and I couldn't put the word to it at the time, I could only describe it as feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I now know it was a mini panic attack.

I just kept pushing this voice away, this thought away. But after a month, I kind of realized, "Look, this thing isn't going away on its own." So I really started to pray and wrestle with God. I said, "Hey, God, thanks for the invite, but you have got the wrong guy. Seriously, the creativity, the writing curriculum—I can see how that's in my wheelhouse. But we're talking about starting and building and leading an organization that does those things. I don't know the first thing about that. So God, you've got the wrong guy."

What I heard God say back to me was, "I know you're the wrong guy, and that's why I picked you. Because at the end of the day, this isn't about you or how smart you are or how talented you are. This is something that I'm going to do, and I'm inviting you to be a part of it." This was my Moses-at-the-burning-bush moment.

Long story short, I continued to wrestle with it. I had conversations with people I trusted, and ultimately decided to walk away from my full-time paid ministry and just step out in faith, trusting that God would see us through. He has been—over the course of the 10-plus years that we've been doing this now, He has been absolutely 100% faithful. It's amazing to be a part of this journey and see what GO! Curriculum has developed into today.

Hannah Augustine (24:47)

There is so much rich theology in what you just shared. So many people struggle to hear the voice of God and struggle to discern, "What does He sound like?" Each of us is going to relate to the Lord differently, or differently in different seasons. I've had those times where the Lord was clear and firm—not audible, but my spirit so strong.

David Rausch (24:51)

Yes, that's what it was for me. It was just shy of audible. I've come to believe that God only speaks as loudly as He has to. Sometimes that's a nudge. Sometimes that's a little whisper. For me, I needed a shout, because this was so scary and so outside of my comfort zone that, had I not heard His voice so clearly, I would have come up with an excuse not to do it. So yeah, He shouted because He had to. But oftentimes for me, it is that whisper or that nudge.

Hannah Augustine (25:54)

We could talk about that the whole time, because it is so good. I grew up Pentecostal, so we grew up with a lot of time at the altar and all the tarrying and all of those things. I have come to appreciate different traditions, but I'm so grateful to have grown up in a tradition where there was a lot of time to experience God and to learn how to linger in His presence—to go into elementary-age camp, where they would do altars, and we'd go up and you're praying for your friends.

I think when you can create this space that works within your denominational framework, your church framework, but not be afraid to say, "Well, just because we do it this way doesn't mean we shouldn't try, maybe we should try something else"—another way that maybe a different church would do it.

Have you read the book Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas?

Hannah Augustine (26:52)

He talks about nine different ways that people relate to the Lord. Obviously, you can't ever perfectly categorize something like that. It's so interesting because he kind of helps you identify, "Maybe you like to be outside, or you like a more traditional approach—going to maybe an Episcopal church"—and exploring those different ways of communicating with the Lord. So even looking at that and saying, "How can I help my kids identify this?" Whether that's through a couple of stations, maybe the stations change up once a month—creating that, I think, is so important. I love that you all are incorporating that into the curriculum.

David Rausch (27:22)

Yeah. In Feeding Faith, I think I give ideas for maybe eight, nine-plus different stations that you can rotate through. There are lots of different ways to help kids encounter God.

So it's so interesting to me, even as I was writing this book and thinking about this more and more—it's so interesting. We teach the kids that God is everywhere. In fact, He's right here in this room with us. But then we go on to talk about Him as if He's not there. It's sort of like God is in the room, and we keep telling the kids about God: "God this and God that. God is this and God is that, and God wants to know you," and all of that stuff. And then, "Okay, let's pray. Goodbye, kids." Wait a second—He's right there. Make the introduction. Give them a moment to spend time with God instead of just hearing from and talking to you and to each other. Carve out that space. He's here. Talk to Him. Relate to Him.

So there is a little bit of disconnect between the way we talk about God and His presence in our lives and the way we have kids interact with Him—or don't have them interact with God.

Hannah Augustine (28:55)

And that's where application and transformation can really be—it's all tied together, but those two can overlap. If we're teaching them in church, or in whatever service you're offering, to connect with the Lord, and then we're saying, "Now, when you go home, you can do this in your room, you can do this in the car, you can do this"—helping them connect that dot of, "This isn't just a church thing."

I think of a friend of mine who just started working with a personal trainer. She only sees the trainer maybe once a week, but she takes those workouts and she does them three or four times a week. You don't have to be with the trainer to do the things the trainer taught you. When we can help kids understand that—you don't have to be with Pastor David to be able to have this time with the Lord. You can do this on your own. That's where private transformation can start happening, so that it's more lasting.

Not that that won't happen in the church service, but when it's only in the church service, what happens if the kid moves and goes to a new church that doesn't offer that? Or if your parents stop bringing them, and now they don't have the chance to do it on Sunday morning, and they don't know how to translate that into a different environment?

David Rausch (29:55)

Yeah. The more you think about it, the sillier it is. In Feeding Faith, I give an illustration similar to this—a little bit different, but it's almost like, imagine I invited you, Hannah, to my children's ministry, to my classroom. The entire hour, I talked about Hannah: "Hannah this, Hannah that," gave your entire bio. "Hannah loves you, by the way. Every single one of you, she loves you." And you're standing there up on the stage while I'm saying all of this. I talk about you for an hour. The kids then go off to small group, and the kids talk about Hannah. They have activities built around Hannah. And then they leave. At no point did I say, "By the way, let me introduce you to Hannah."

Hannah Augustine (30:56)

Wow.

David Rausch (30:57)

"Let's give Hannah a moment to say something. Let's listen to what Hannah has to say." So when you actually visualize it in the room, you're like, "Yeah, that's silly that we do that." But that's what we do to God. That's what we do to Jesus.

So what I'm trying to help people do through Feeding Faith—one of the things I'm trying to help them do—is to recognize that and say, "No, no, He's in the room. Let's start a conversation with Him. Let's teach the kids how to do that and carve out space to talk with the ever-living, ever-loving God who is standing right there and wants to know those kids."

Hannah Augustine (31:40)

That is such a great illustration, because you're right. How weird would that be—throwing a birthday party for someone and never allowing them to share?

David Rausch (31:43)

That would be very weird. We just sit the birthday boy in the corner, put a hat on him, and say, "Hey, be quiet. This is for you. Be quiet. We're not going to talk to you, and you can't talk to us." Worst birthday party ever.

Hannah Augustine (32:04)

Worst. Absolutely. That is so good.

And if you're listening and you're thinking, "Man, I'm already locked into this curriculum that I bought for three years"—you can get this book and apply these principles within your framework. It is not tied to, "Well, I'm not using GO! Curriculum." There are amazing ways to just tap in.

David Rausch (32:09)

Absolutely. No, this is for anyone. It doesn't matter what curriculum. This book is not about GO! Curriculum. Certainly, this is the discipleship platform upon which it's based, but this is for anyone. Whether you're using the curriculum or not, this book will help you.

In fact, one of the things I love seeing is that there are a lot of churches doing this as a book study with their entire team—whether that be their paid staff team or their volunteer team. As a part of the book, I created a free study guide. Every chapter has its own little guide that goes along with it, with a number of things, but one of those is discussion questions you can talk about with your team to help process: "What does this chapter look like for us? How do we implement this into our ministry?"

Hannah Augustine (33:13)

That is so good. And that's a great way for those of you listening to invest in your volunteers. We've talked about it in KidMin Academy. We've talked about it maybe on the podcast or in PRO. When you invest in someone's growth and development, it shows them, "I believe in you, and I see something in you."

The larger the ministry you're running—you know this—the less interaction you're having directly with the kids. You may take this in and know it, but if your volunteers haven't taken it in, it's not getting applied in the small group classroom setting. So even if you don't feel that you want to give them all a copy of the book, could you translate that to them in some way? Send them this episode—"Hey, give this a listen, and if you want to learn more, get the book"—and create those opportunities.

For me, when I've engaged with content like this, sometimes it's a huge paradigm shift and a big change, and sometimes it's just a subtle step. That may be where you are today, where you're right on the edge of doing this. Maybe you've been praying about it, processing it, but you haven't quite known how to do it. What David's done is given you some very practical steps and helped you understand—like you shared at the beginning, David—how to take the stat and put it to a face and to a name, and then almost work backwards. "What if we had done this for this person? Let's figure out where the chain stopped working. Where did the system break down? Let's fix that system."

David Rausch (34:34)

Yeah. I'm so excited about this. I believe this is what children's ministry has been missing for a very long time. It's not because children's pastors are not working hard. We are all working our tails off. But this is a matter of making an adjustment to the discipleship strategy that you are using in your ministry, to make sure that not only are you filling their heads with Scripture, but that you're also filling their hearts, that you're filling their lives, and that you're introducing them to the Savior who wants so desperately to know them.

Yeah, it's about a little bit of an adjustment. That's what excites me about this book—the impact that it'll have. Also, I tried to write the book that I would like to read. As a reader, I just made it fun. I made it as fun as I could. There's humor and lots of stories in the book.

Hannah Augustine (35:53)

I love a good book that makes me laugh. So that's a good one. And it's going to get your attention.

I think sometimes the reason people are afraid to do this is what you addressed earlier, David: "I don't know how they're going to react. How are the fourth- and fifth-grade boys going to interact with this?" Know that you may not have the experience David described the first time, but you can create—

David Rausch (35:56)

Right, yes. And I know people—I've talked to people who have said that was not exactly the experience. Sometimes it's messy, and messy is okay. Spiritual growth is messy. That doesn't mean it's not working. So if there's one thing that children's pastors have to be okay with, it's messes. Kids are great at making messes, and that happens in spiritual development as well.

Hannah Augustine (36:41)

Absolutely. And recognizing that it's a culture shift, and culture shifts take time. This is not an overnight change. You may personally make an overnight mental shift, but teams—your volunteers, your kids—it's going to take time for them to adjust to a new format.

Maybe think through, could you add rotations like this, or a station like this, once a month? Especially with VBS coming up—we've got VBS coming up. That is a great opportunity to kind of beta test this and see how it goes, and then implement it on Sundays. Kind of bring it into your regular rhythms.

David Rausch (36:55)

Yes, absolutely. Those are great ideas, Hannah.

Hannah Augustine (37:17)

David, this has just been so great. For those of you listening, you can find the book on Amazon. David, should they look anywhere else for that, or is Amazon the best place to go?

David Rausch (37:25)

Yeah, well, Amazon's great if you want less than 10 copies. Amazon's perfect. But we do sell them in bulk, so if you want—I think we sell them in packs of 10, 20, 25, something like that—you can go to GoCurriculum.com. There's a Store button at the top. You can find the book in the store, and that's where you can buy bulk for teams.

Hannah Augustine (37:45)

Great. And that's, again, a great way to help equip your teams. Maybe get a copy for your pastor and say, "Hey, I'm reading this book. We're really wanting to see how we can help apply this. We'd love your thoughts." A great way to include them.

David Rausch (38:00)

Seriously, one of the best things you could do to help your pastor understand what's going on in children's ministry: get him a copy of this book. Honestly, 90% of the content in the book is not just applicable to children's ministry. It's youth, it's students, it's adult ministry. It applies to all of them, although it's written in the children's ministry context. So this is the sort of discipleship strategy that the entire church could get on board with.

Hannah Augustine (38:33)

And there's so much power when the whole church is unified around something like this, because you don't want to lose that momentum when they move from fifth grade to sixth, into students, or whenever that transition is. All of a sudden, "Well, that's gone. You don't do that anymore. Does that not matter now? Does that not matter now that I'm in middle school or high school?" We want to keep that transition. We want to keep strengthening.

Just think of weightlifting again—the further along you get, you may add different moves or heavier weight. What you want to see is progress through our ministry.

David Rausch (39:05)

Or even to make it longer. Like I said, for elementary kids, I think five minutes is a great amount of time. When they get older, you can bump that up—seven, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Yeah, they can put more weight on the bar.

Hannah Augustine (39:13)

Yes. And finding ways to add additional optional times. When I was in high school and middle school, we had what we called pre-service prayer. It was maybe 45 minutes before service, and it was a 15-minute time frame. They'd put worship on, and anyone who wanted to come could just come and pray over the service and pray about anything going on in their lives. They'd have worship music going. It wasn't really a led time from the front, but that helped teach me how to pray independently for other people, for salvation, maybe at that service that night, for myself and things I was walking through. And it provided accountability for that 15 minutes. If I didn't have any other 15 minutes during the week, at least I had been intentional with that, and someone had helped me.

So find those ways to add on for kids who maybe want to dive deeper, or parents that would help their kids come a little bit more for a devotional track or something like that. The more opportunities we can give them to grow that appetite and lift those weights, that's a huge—

David Rausch (40:16)

Yeah, absolutely.

Hannah Augustine (40:19)

So you can check out GoCurriculum.com or Amazon, and there's a Kindle version, all that good stuff. Check those out. We'll link them in the show notes below.

And David, I think we need to get you in KidMin Academy. Stay tuned. I'm going to need to get you in there somewhere, helping us, because all this has been so good.

But as promised, would you share with our listeners: what's your favorite national park, and why?

David Rausch (40:34)

Yeah, thanks. Oh my goodness. You're asking me to choose which is my favorite child. Anyone who knows me—in fact, if you're watching on video, you can see I have these national park posters behind me. I have so many favorites.

I am an avid hiker. I love doing long-distance hiking. In fact, I just got back a week ago from the Arizona Trail. I did not do the whole thing—I did 460 miles through the desert. It was incredible. It was very difficult. That took me one month. And don't get me started—I could go on and on about the benefits of unplugging, like completely, from everything for that length of time. Incredible stuff starts to happen when you totally detox from tech and from society and work and all those things. So I had an amazing time.

But if I had to pick just one national park, I would have to say Zion National Park in southern Utah.

Hannah Augustine (41:51)

You did? Why? I knew you were going to say that. Tell us a little bit about what people could experience if they go to Zion.

David Rausch (42:01)

My goodness, well, it's a desert paradise. It is the most iconic, most beautiful sort of desert landscape you could find—very mountainous, with huge canyons, and not a dry desert, by the way. It's got the Virgin River that runs through it, and lots of springs going through there. It's what I would call an outdoor playground.

It really is. There are so many things you can go do and climb on. If you are even more adventurous, you can do some canyoneering. You can do some rappelling. It is a breathtaking place. There are so many other national parks within a stone's throw. Bryce Canyon National Park is just an hour down the road from there. Grand Canyon is only about two hours from it. So you can go there and do lots of incredible things, but I highly recommend Zion. You will not be the only ones there, though—it's not a best-kept-secret sort of thing. There are plenty of other people who will be there with you. But if there's one hike that you do in Zion National Park, you have to do The Narrows. The Narrows is a giant slot canyon with a big river that runs through it. You're hiking a lot of times in the water, but it is just magnificently gorgeous. Go there.

Hannah Augustine (43:28)

All right. There's your next vacation. You can go check out Zion National Park. So find a way there.

Thank you for tuning in today. As a reminder, if you want to keep learning and growing with content like this, you can join KidMin Academy at KidMinAcademy.com and use the code PODCAST for 25% off tuition. We're so grateful that you joined us. Like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.