Anthea Molino and Bronwen Courtney love teaching the gospel to children, and they are taking calls from churches keen to learn from their dynamic approach.
The women from Quakers Hill Anglican Church have been the driving force behind a winter holiday kids' club which began four years ago with 120 children.
This year they reluctantly turned parents away from the four-day jungle-themed program, which reached capacity this year with 300 excited kids " and their equally as keen parents.
The program is now being offered to other churches.
Anthea's husband Steven developed the kids' club resource " known as the Kids Mission Jungle Survival Kit " which is being sold for $50. The kit contains three DVDs including a drama script and video, Bible talks, stories, books, craft ideas and practical ways to involve parents.
It will be updated every 12 months.
Bronwen Courtney, a trained primary school teacher, says the concept began when she was praying about way to reach the large number of young children in the suburb.
"I had been praying about how we could do it, and Anthea came to me and said she was also interested," Mrs Courtney explains. "Our first year was in 2001. Having done it once, we were confident that we could do it again."
She soon realised they were spending a lot of time answering requests from people wanting to borrow props and resources.
"We were doing all this work and thought we ought to be providing it for other churches to use," she says. "We hope that churches that may not have the manpower or creative gifts can use the material."
Up to 100 volunteers from the church helped with the five months of planning this year, with many taking time off from work to help over the four days.
Parents pay $25 per child for the four days or $8 for one day.
Quakers Hill is surrounded by one of the largest concentrations of children per household in Australia.
The parish's ministry has grown since children and family minister Adam Jolliffe was employed in 2003.
Mrs Courtney says they have noticed an increase in numbers at their GFS and CEBS groups as a result of the kids' club, but getting parents along to church on Sunday is still a hard task.
"Coming to church is often a big leap for the parents," she says. "We're working on strategies to reach them, such as hand delivering the DVDs to their homes and sending the children birthday cards and invitations to special events."
Director of Training at Anglican Youthworks Tony Willis is helping to promote the kit.
"The resource is really well done and exciting for kids," Mr Willis says. "It's great that the church is making it available to other groups."
He says Youthworks is available to offer further training to churches " especially those with smaller congregations " that may need additional help in running the program.
St George's, Earlwood has been running school holiday kids clubs for more than 15 years and in 2005 they became one of the first parishes to use a prototype of the whole kit.
Father of two Mark Witcombe says the general consensus was overwhelmingly positive.
"The play had the kids' complete attention from the first day" they seemed to make the connection between the plays and the spiritual truths that they related to," Mr Witcome says.
"I really liked that the crafts worked for boys as well as girls. It certainly made our job so much easier."
For more information about the Kids Mission Jungle Survival Kit contact Quakers Hill Anglican Church on (02) 9837 2277.
