How long should it take to create a kids talk?

I've given lots of kids talks in church services.
In my experience, if your church wants to be family-friendly and child-inclusive, then they are a manditory element of the service.

But, these 5 minute interactive spiels are not done at the church I take my daughters to (even though they have a decent Sunday morning ministry to children).

With this in mind, I've been pondering the amount of work needed to do a kids address and if this is a perceived hindrance for the church doing them.

Frankly, I don't think it should be.

In my history, going from a blank-piece-of-paper to rough-script-of-what-you-are-going-to-say, takes about 20 minutes.

In theory, all you need to do is read/study the passage, select the primary/applicable/child appropriate point, think of or find a connector to this point and then write an rough script which flows from connector to point to application.

This shouldn't take too much time.

Why?

Because your talk shouldn't be too complex. It should be a point from the passage which explains what God is like or points to the significance of Jesus, applied to your audiences context.

Furthermore, there's soo many resources which can give you a launchpad (not a full script!), that an absolute impass can be fairly quickly traversed.

Now, all this doesn't mean that you should start planning 15 minutes before that start of the service.

That would be foolish.

Even if you've planned everything in 20 minutes, it will take longer to gather anything you need and, prayerfully, be completely comfortable with your point and deliverance.

But, my point in all this is to share that children's address need not be too intimidating to putt off successfully.

And, for the effort required, kids talks make a massive difference to the ministry you have to families and, often, provide a means of basic, applicable, theology to everyone in the congregation.