5 Ways to Prepare Your Ministry for When You Can’t Be There
t was Saturday night around 8pm. We’d just finished dinner and were watching TV. Suddenly, I felt a rumbly in the tumbly and got to see dinner all over again.
I didn’t know if I had a bug, it was a fluke, or I was just stressed out. It didn’t really matter in the moment because one thing was for sure: I couldn’t do kids church the next morning.
5 Things to Do After a Conference
So, you just got back from the big conference and you’re brimming with ideas and excitement. You can’t wait to get home and inform your team about all the changes you’re going to make.
First of all, I love your excitement. Second, chill.
When you have to do a Christmas Production
I have a kidmin secret and it’s bigger than I hate crafts (link). I hate productions. Rather, I hate leading them. Even with this deficiency and being very vocal about it with my leaders and parents, I still got asked (more like told) to do it.
How to Develop your Ministry’s Vision
As the leader of your ministry, people are looking to you to set the direction for your ministry. That direction may have come from your pastor or leadership, but it’s your job to communicate it to your team.
3 Ways to Help Volunteers Serve in Their Purpose
My last post was 6 places you’re losing your volunteers. That’s a lot of places, but there is one key thing you can do to hold onto your volunteers no matter how long they’ve been serving with you. And that is to provide a place for them to live out their purpose.
6 Places You Lose Volunteers (and How to Keep Them)
One of the biggest challenges in every ministry, not just kidmin, is that you always need more volunteers. The maxim "never stop recruiting" exists for a reason. Turnover is constant, which means recruiting never really ends. But simply finding more people doesn't solve the problem on its own. You have to retain the volunteers you already have.
4 Things Lead Pastors Wish Their Kids Pastors Knew
Now that I've been a lead pastor for a year, I see things differently than I did before. I spent most of my career in the kids' pastor chair, and I thought I understood what it would take to sit in this one. I'd heard other senior leaders talk about the weight of the role, and I thought I got it.
4 Things Kids Pastors Wish Their Lead Pastors Knew
In my last post, I wrote about how different things look from the lead pastor's chair. While much of the work is familiar, there are some important differences that most lead pastors never fully see. That's the genesis of this two-part series.
This week I'm speaking from my own experience as a kids' pastor, along with some honest feedback I gathered from several kidmin Facebook groups. Next week, I'll flip the script and share what lead pastors wish their staff, and specifically their kidmin leaders, understand.
5 Things I Learned My First Year as a Lead Pastor
In about a week from this writing, I'll mark one year as a Lead Pastor. It's been a long road to get here. I spent 15 years as a kids' pastor, then served at two more churches as an executive pastor before God called me to this role.
Now that I'm in the big chair, I can say with confidence that things look different from here. I'm just as busy as I was in kidmin, but the scope, the worries, and the challenges are bigger. From what I've observed in other leaders at this level, I know I'm just getting started. Still, I wanted to share five things this first year has taught me
3 Ways to Survive VBS Without Burning Out
Over the last few weeks I've seen a lot of people expressing frustration about VBS. Specifically, they feel like the rest of the staff isn't supporting them, and many are on the verge of burnout.
I get it. I spent many summers working 70-hour weeks back to back just to pull off this one event. As much as I love VBS, it puts a serious strain on your time, resources, and volunteers.
But there are things you can do to keep from hitting the wall before VBS even starts.
3 Difficult Conversations with your Pastor and How to Have them
There will come a time in your ministry career when you have to have a hard conversation with your boss. What I've learned over the years is that the longer you put it off, the more room there is for discontent, bitterness, and church hurt to take root. So bite the bullet and have the conversation.
When a Volunteer Chooses to Sin
In ministry sometimes you have to deal with volunteers living in sin. It’s not fun, and there have been major abuses in the church. However, if we’re to follow Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18 it’s something we have to do.
The key throughout this process is to approach with humility and grace. You want to set the person up for restoration and reconciliation.
A Practical Guide to Determining A Kidmin's Salary
One of the biggest questions in kidmin is how much you should be compensated for your work. After all, Paul wrote to Timothy:
"Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker deserves his wages." — 1 Timothy 5:18
The problem is that many of us love this work so much we'd do it for free. But we also have families to support, ministry costs to cover, and real time invested week in and week out caring for our kids and families.
When It Feels Like Your Ministry Isn't Supported
Early in my ministry, a boys leader came into my office demanding money for training and trips. The problem was we didn't have it. I would have loved to write him a blank check, but that was never going to happen.
His complaint, though, wasn't really about money. It was that he didn't feel supported.
4 Principles to Get People to Come to Your Meetings
Picture this. You have an awesome volunteer meeting planned. You’ve spent weeks or months putting all the pieces together. You have food, childcare, printouts, and slides. You’ve been talking about the meeting for weeks. You even got your pastor to announce it from the stage!
But when you talk about it to the people who it’s designed for, they’re non-committal. They’re not excited, maybe even apathetic. You find yourself in a panic, thinking that no one is going to come.
5 Steps to Presenting Your Genius Idea to Your Pastor
I had a genius idea. I knew it was going to work. It was going to excite my volunteers and reach all new people for Jesus. But there was one problem. Ok, so maybe three problems. It wasn’t in the budget or in the plan for the year. Therefore, I needed to get my pastor’s permission to make it happen.
Leading Change Without Losing Your Team
Leadership is hard and leading change is even harder. But it’s an essential part of the job. Every year I look back on the last and ask what could we do differently? What’s working? What’s not? And how can I make what I’m doing better? And set goals for the next year. With those goals inevitably comes changes.
Is Your Ministry Moving Forward or Just Staying Busy?
I’d been serving at one church for a few years. I’d put in the systems the children’s ministry needed the most, most of my volunteer positions were filled, and I was happy with the way things were going. Kids were getting saved and baptized. Visitor flow was good. Outreaches were well attended. I felt like I could just sit back and relax. Which we all need to do from time to time.
But the problem comes when we take our foot of the gas for too long.
You think you’re called to ministry. Now what?
One question I’m asked often is what should you do when you’re called to ministry? I understand the question. There are a lot of different ways to get started. And it’s not always clear what the next steps are.
What I read in 2025
This year was a huge change for me. Years ago, God called me out of Kidmin into something bigger. Five years later that’s becoming the Lead Pastor at Encounter Church in Toccoa, Georgia.
I’ve found it's hard to maintain reading the quantity and quality of the books I normally read, while teaching full-time. So, I read a lot more fiction this year. Thankfully, making the jump to Lead Pastor in August gave me more time to read what I like.
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