Visit to Buckhead Church, Part Three

This is the third part of my travel report from the US. This time I'm talking about my return visit to Buckhead Church later on in the morning, after the service. This time Erin, the head of the host team graciously took some time to show me around the children's facilities - all four floors of them.

If you have an auditorium for 3000 people, you better make sure that you have environments for hundreds of children. And these are not just holding pens, these are all age-appropriate environments designed to present the Gospel in a relevant and engaging way.

Before we start, let me apologize. I am a terrible photographer. Words are my medium.

First up, Waumba Land, for kids from 6 weeks to 4 years old.

Here's a shot of the reception desk, where parents sign their kids in:

They have a cool safari theme going:

Here's a video of the entrance:

There are many different environments for children from 6 weeks to 4 years. Here's one for the wee ones:

Each of the rooms has a sink setup like this in it:

Each of the rooms also has the mantra for the kids - it's the one thing they need to know. Part of the Northpoint strategy is to understand your target audience, design an environment expressly for their needs, and give them the essential message that they need to know, over and over again. For kids this age the message that Buckhead Church wants them to come out knowing is:

God loves me. God made me. Jesus wants to be my friend for ever.

The whole length of the horseshoe-shaped hallway of the environment is painted with a mural depicting the seven days of creation.

Here is a walk through of the environment, starting from the large group worship area, and going through a few of the small group rooms.

The curriculum that they use here is 252 Basics. I recommend reading up on this to get an idea of how it works. I may do a separate post around it. I subscribed to it for one year and have it stored for future implementation.