So kids love, lead, and live like Jesus.

At Gateway Christian Church, our mission is to love, lead, and live like Jesus. And this is something we are committed to teaching all of our wonderful kids too! Every Sunday morning at 10am, we have children’s programming available for our kids birth to 5th grade. We have a nursery for newborns/babies, PreK for non-school age kids, and an Elementary for all kids K-5th. More information on these areas below!

  • First Time?

    Considering a first time visit with your kids? We would love to meet you and your family! Kids can be checked in starting at 9:45am. Adult service and Kidzone programming begins at 10am. After service, please pick up your children within 15 minutes of the end of service.

  • Nursery

    The main focus of our nursery is to ensure an environment where children are safe and experience the love of Jesus through our volunteers. Volunteers often read to the children or teach them worship songs. The room has many toys, large play equipment, a television, multiple rocking chairs, a couple of cribs, a cabinet stocked with baby/toddler snacks, a mini-fridge for any drinks, a Jack-and-Jill Style bathroom, and a changing station with all sizes of diapers in case you were to run out or forget them.

  • Pre-K

    Every Sunday our volunteers lead the children through games, activities, crafts, musical worship, a Bible lesson, and prayer. Our hope is that this experience will lead every kid to have fun and come to know the love of Jesus! Our Pre-K room has many toys, large play equipment, a television, a lesson area, a story-time rug, a cabinet stocked with snacks, and a Jack-and-Jill Style bathroom. We do ask that children are potty-trained to be in this class.

  • Elementary

    Every Sunday our volunteers lead the children through games, activities, crafts, musical worship, a Bible lesson, and prayer. Our hope is that this experience will lead every kid to have fun and come to know the love of Jesus! The room is staffed with board games, art supplies, a television, and kids tables. Bathrooms are available across the hall.

  • Parent's Fellowship

    This small group is organized for parents of young kids. We call it a fellowship rather than a small group because it is focused on community and prayer rather than group study of Scripture (something that is a great thing, but is very difficult with numerous toddlers running around). The group gathers on Sundays after church in the Kidzone. We use a potluck lunch style. If you’re interested, please reach out at this link.

  • Other Programs

    Throughout the year, our children’s ministry hosts special events. We have events for parents and kids, such as our Garden Party, Parent Classes, Camp, Superstart, and VBS. Please see our annual calendar and events page at the top of the page for more details.

Current Series: Wonderfully Made

SERIES OVERVIEW 

Personal connection comes through honesty. The psalmists understood this better than anyone. From the pages of the Psalms leap lament and joy, anger and mercy—honest cries to the God who hears us and knows us. During this series, you and the kids you lead will discover more from the Psalms about the unchanging character of God—the loving, caring, faithful shepherd—and your identity as His kids, wonderfully and purposefully created. Together you’ll come to God like the psalmists of old with singing, shouting, and crying out your prayers and praises to the One who is worthy!

  • Kids can be dropped off as early as 9:45am.

  • Walking your child through baptism often becomes a very sweet memory! If your child begins to ask questions about baptism please feel free to reach out to our children’s pastor, Leland. In short, our ministers are available to equip parents by answering any questions parents have about this journey while also providing our baptism booklet for parents to walk through with their child.

  • Our Elementary kids who have made the decision to follow Jesus and have been baptized take communion as a group every Sunday morning.

  • Our children’s ministry has 6 values.

    1. Helping Kids Know & Love Jesus

    2. Teaching the Bible

    3. Building Community

    4. Empowering Parents

    5. Discipling the Next Generation

    6. Helping Kids Love Church

  • Yes! And in fact, it is our hope that parents would be as involved as they can be in our Kids programming! If you would like to start serving in the Kidzone, please contact us here.

  • Our Kidzone ensures your kids will be safe by maintaining these six systems.

    1. Background Checks - Every single volunteer is background checked by the State of Tennessee before serving.

    2. Security Team - We have a security team every Sunday morning that is monitoring both the church as a whole and specifically the Kidzone.

    3. Secure Check-In - When a child checks into service, both the parent and the child are given a matching randomly generated four character key. This ensures that a child always goes home with the correct parent.

    4. Two-Adult-Rule - We have a strict rule that volunteers are always held accountable by another unrelated adult. Your child will never be alone with an adult under any circumstance.

    5. Volunteer Training - Our volunteers participate in a training every 6 months where we review our safety policy and go over how a volunteer should respond in certain cases.

    6. Safety Policy - We have a written and established safety policy.

  • Periodically, our children’s ministry hosts a “child dedication.” Essentially, it is a special moment during service where a parent makes a commitment to raise his or her child alongside the church to know & love Jesus. Any child under the age of 4 is welcome. You can see our baby dedication dates in our annual calendar.

  • In the Kidzone, we call this Promotion Sunday (the first Sunday after the last day of 5th Grade)! On this Sunday, we have a special moment in the Kidzone where the volunteers pray over our new 6th graders and each child receives the gift of a new Bible that matches the ones our Youth Program uses.

    During the summer that a child is between 5th and 6th Grade, those children are welcome to be involved in all Children’s and Youth events (such as Kid’s VBS and Youth Summer Hangs).

  • Our recommendations:

    1. Ages 0-3 - Multiple picture/story-telling Bibles. Click here for many options.

    2. Ages 3 to Kindergarten - Spark Story bible

    3. Kindergarten to 2nd grade - Biggest Story Bible Storybook

    4. 2nd Grade to 5th grade - NIrV

    5. 6th Grade+ - Any NIV or NLT Bible

  • Our lessons/curriculum focus on teaching the Bible from Genesis to Revelation every year, focusing on different stories each year. We do this by walking through monthly series focusing on different related lesson points (Such as “Heart of Jesus” which focused on the Sermon on the mount for a month.) Currently, we use a curriculum called WonderInk.

    WonderInk focuses heavily on making sure that every child knows these four points:

    1. God Knows Me.

    2. Jesus Loves Me.

    3. The Holy Spirit Leads Me.

    4. I am a Child of God.