How To Have A Successful Children’s Crusade
By Steve L. Cannon

Thinking Backwards

What is the order of a service?
1. Welcome
2. Singing
3. Worship
4. Offering
5. Evangelists
6. Altar call
7. Wrap-up or dismissal

What could possibly fall apart and you can still survive?
1. Bad welcome? You can make it!
2. Off key singing? Been there, thank God I made it through!
3. Worship? I’ve had my share of dead services!
4. Offering? Many services have more ones than fives or tens!
5. Could the evangelist make a mess and tricks and clowns stumble through? If you’ve been in the Church long enough, it will happen!
6. Could the dismissal or warp-up be long or non-effective?
7. The ONE THING that has got to be successful is the altar service!

To make the altar service successful, you must think BACKWARDS!
1. Plan your altar service!
2. Train your altar workers!
3. Teach them to pray `one on one’ with children!
4. Encourage every altar worker that they CAN pray children through to the Holy Ghost! Altar workers are so important!
5. Work with your evangelist to know when to come up and pray!
6. You need co pray in front of them to be more effective.
7. Altar workers coming to the altar first, take the sting out of kids walking up there alone! They need training and you can give it to them!
8. The greatest goal of a Crusade is not singing, puppets or sound. The greatest goal is a child speaking in tongues in the altar!
9. Walk into your Crusade, thinking altar!
10. Because you think backwards, God can go forward.
11. This is a time you are thinking backward, but going forward.

Four Areas for a Successful Crusade

There are four areas to have a successful crusade
1. Prayer and involvement by a local church
2. Planned services with respect to time.
3. A dedicated evangelist who is used by God.
4. A dedicated TEAM to allow God to flow through them.

Prayer and involvement by a local church

1. The local church must be praying for revival.
2. The local church must bring children for a crusade.
3. Our philosophy – Much children – much get the Holy Ghost!
4. The evangelist can be fed by the amount of children or enthusiasm in the crowd for God to do something!
5. Our greatest altar workers were trained locals!

Planned services with respect to time

1. Services should he constructed with children in mind.
2. Children have a short attention span.
3. A long drawn out service could play havoc on the altar service.
4. Do things funny and exciting – then turn your evangelist loose!
5. If you do crusades through the week, while children are in school, be very careful how long the service goes. A long altar service is better than a long sermon!
6. Evangelists must be sensitive to time

A dedicated evangelist who is used by God

1. The key to every service is a dedicated evangelist.
2. Give him or her flexibility.
3. Never think that you are better or you have heard better.
4. Praise and encourage your evangelist.
5. Offer assistance often and criticism seldom.

A dedicated TEAM to allow God to flow through them

1. To have the same TEAM go from crusade to crusade is great!
2. You can look nightly are your victories and your mistakes.
3. You can get the feel of what is working and what is not!
4. Momentum can be built in day to day crusades.
5. The more you pray together, the greater the results!
6. Your Crusade TEAM shows success or failure! Walk into every service with greater faith than you had at the last place!
7. A united effort beats a divided effort ten to one!

This article, How To Have A Successful Children’s Crusade, by Steve L. Cannon is excerpted from Children’s Ministry Convention, Indiana District 2007.