Tips to help leaders incorporate missions discipleship group elements into your weekly meetings and beyond. 

Have you recently started a Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors, or Children in Action group at your church? Here are some tips to help you incorporate elements from those groups into your weekly meetings and beyond. 

Opening Activity 

An easy idea is to say the pledge, motto, and scripture verse for your group at the beginning of each meeting time. After the Opening activity, when all children have arrived, ask volunteers to lead the group to recite them. If children are still learning the words, let them help you create hand motions to accompany the words, to reinforce what they are reciting. 

Extra Activities 

Another option is to begin incorporating the Extra Activities at the end of each unit into your group. These are separated into Extra Activities for Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors, and Children in Action. Each month you will find ways children can earn a group-specific badge or patch, or even let children work on an Individual Achievement plan (GA=GA Journey; RA=RA Trek; CA=Missions Expedition). 

In case you don’t know, individual achievement plans help children reinforce and live out missions concepts they learn during regular sessions. As children progress through the levels of the individual achievement plan, they will choose the missions projects and activities they want to complete in order to earn their badges/patches. 

Leaders can block out the fourth week of each month, or the one fifth week per quarter, to dive into these group-specific activities. 

Vests and Sashes 

When children earn badges and patches, the recommended way to display them is on a vest or a sash. If children have vests, encourage them to wear them to weekly meetings and even to outreach activities or events. Some groups hang children’s vests on display in their meeting room in the hall leading to the meeting room.  

Outside the Church Walls 

To help children practice missions and reinforce what they learn each week, it’s a great idea to get them involved with outreach projects (like the Week 4 Outreach Activity); Children’s Missions Day; GA and RA camps, or state missions camps; associational or state missions conferences for children; or even inviting missionaries to speak to children. 

When preparing children for the events, discuss their pledge, motto, and scripture verse. Discuss the RA virtues with boys. Help children make the connection between what they learn in your group times and what will be done or discussed at the event. Help them understand that being a GA, RA, or CA is more than something they will just do as children—it’s preparing them to live a life on mission for God, and participating in the work of the Great Commission. 

by Sarah Murray

Image Description: Members of F.A.I.T.H. Riders, a Christian motorcycle ministry visited with Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action at Morgan Chapel Baptist Church (Mississippi) to help them learn more about sharing Jesus through hobbies, like riding motorcycles.