5 Steps to Pre-Service Meetings Your Team Will Love
No matter how long a lead team meeting is you need to have an agenda, and pre-service meetings are no different. But what should you talk about in those meetings? How do you make them engaging and enjoyable so that your volunteers are willing to show up 30-45 minutes before the service, just to meet?
3 Tips for Creating Your VBS Budget
I often see questions from people asking their VBS budget. How many kids? How big is your church? How much do you spend? Those are all great questions because your budget will depend on those three things, the size of your church, the size of your event, and how important it is to the church’s outreach strategy.
Leader Fails: 4 Steps to Navigate the Chaos
The kidmin world was rocked last week with the news from Orange. Another leader has failed, and we’re left wondering what happened and what will happen. I usually don’t say anything when this kind of news breaks, but if you’ve followed any of my content you know I’ve been a fan of Orange for years and have recommended their content over and over. I feel I need to share my thoughts.
Boost Your Team with Pre-Service Meetings
What If I told you there was one thing you could do this Sunday that would improve your volunteer morale, orient everyone towards your vision, and make sure all your volunteers are cared for? Such a thing exists. It’s called a pre-service meeting.
5 Hacks for Streamlining Church Event Childcare
Being in kidmin, it’s natural for people to ask you to also provide childcare for events. It can be frustrating because that’s not what you signed up for. You are the kid’s pastor, spiritual leader, and discipler, not their babysitter. And yet, the requests still come, and the expectations are still made. Children’s ministry is not childcare, it’s discipleship.
3 Personality Tests for Ministry Leaders
I love these tests so much because they help me better understand myself and those around me. It’s natural to think that everyone is just like you with the same thoughts, motives, talents, and passions. However, we soon learn, many times painfully, that this is not the case. As a leader in ministry, it’s imperative that you know your people.
The Secret Weapon to Leading Volunteers
Volunteers are just that, volunteers. They can leave whenever they want. So, what is a pastor, leader, coordinator, director, leader supposed to do? There are things that need to be done and you can’t do all of them. It all comes down to one simple idea…
3 Holiday Practices to Keep Jesus First
A few years ago, I hosted the biggest Easter Egg Hunt my church had seen to date. We had hundreds of kids and thousands of eggs. We saw many kids accept Christ and everyone had fun. It was all a big lead up to the next day, Easter. As I drove home thinking about the wins and losses, it hit me like a kid remembering his semester long project is due tomorrow and he’s done nothing. Easter is tomorrow.
Beyond Bible Bucks: How to Have a Kidmin Store
Reading your Bible, praying, inviting a friend, memorizing the Bible verse. These are all things we ask our kids to do in kidmin, but few will naturally do it without an some kind of incentive. There are a lot of ways to motivate kids to engage in these activities, and one of the more effective ways to do it is with a store.
4 Questions to Handle Church Complaints
The dirty little secret about ministry and leadership in general is that whatever you choose to do someone is going to hate it. They’re going to think it’s the worst decision ever and by extension you are too. It just comes with the territory.
5 Tips to Include Kids with Special Needs in Your Kidmin
A growing epidemic throughout our society are children with special needs. The latest statics show the number of kids with Autism or other disability are staggering. According to Maternal and Child Health Bureau's National Survey of Children's Health, 19% of children in the United States had special health care needs in 2019–2020.
4 Steps to Scheduling Your Volunteers
When you’re the leader and the pastor, you have a push and pull. You want to make sure all your positions are filled, but you also don’t want to burn out your volunteers. What is the best way? Does everyone serve with the same frequency? What about if you have multiple services? Multiple days? Or just one? And what about fifth Sundays?
4 Steps to Rediscover Hope and Rebuild Faith After Ministry
Last year, I lost my ministry job. I was at a church hoping to become the next senior pastor, and I didn’t get enough votes. The following day, I resigned. The subsequent 6 months have been some of the hardest months of my life. But now looking back I see it was also a gift. Let me show you what I mean.
What I Read in 2023
I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember. I read John Maxwell’s book 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership for the first time when I was 16. It’s become a habit to read multiple pages a day, which turns into multiple books a year.
How to Set Ministry Goals that Lead to Growth
At the end of the year, one of my favorite things to do is to look back at the year that was and the year to come. What were my wins and losses? What worked? What didn’t? What curveballs did I knocked out of the park and what ones slipped by? It usually takes a few hours for me to go through it all, but my overall effectiveness as a leader and minister has increased every year since I started this practice over 10 years ago.
How to Turn Service Fails to Success
The big weekend is finally here. You’ve been working for months getting all the people, supplies, and logistics together. You’ve invited tons of people, prayed for God’s favor, crossed that t and dotted that i. You’re ready for the big day. Or you think you are. Sometime during the event something goes wrong. Something always does.
Stretch and Release: Finding a Sustainable Pace in Ministry
It feels like the end of things, but at the same time, it can be one of the busiest seasons of the year. I’ve seen it multiple times in Facebook Groups. Hard-working dedicated kids’ pastors are ready to tap out. They have so much work to do and are exhausted. Their only solution for relief is to quit.
5 Must Have Security Policies For Kidmin
One of the three questions parents ask about your children’s ministry is “is it safe?” Now, more than ever before, parents want to know that their precious little ones will be safe in your care. Even more important, your environment needs to be one of the safest places in your church.
The 3 Lowest Attended Sundays (and What To Do About Them)
This post is coming out Thanksgiving weekend, and for most churches that means we’re heading into one of the lowest attended Sundays in the year. These days can be frustrating and disappointing. You put as much time and effort into making the day great and then it feels like no one but your most faithful show up. Even then, some of them didn’t come either.
4 Principles to Get Guests to Come Back
You’ve had the big outreach event and now you have a huge stack of cards with contact information and you’re not sure what to do with it. Should you email them? Send a postcard? Call? Which way will be most effective? What’s going to give you the best return on your investment?
These schedule templates will help you plan your VBS with multiple stations and different times.