Crafting the "Perfect Easter": Planning for Guests and Their Return
Easter is just a few months away and that means that you’re thinking about and preparing for the Super Bowl of Christendom. This is a season where we ministers pray, plan, and prepare for the largest attended Sunday, and hopefully the biggest harvest. But what should you do on Easter Sunday? Should you do an Egg Hunt? Family pictures? A kids musical? An adult musical? Communion? Baptism? Big giveaways? Small giveaways?
The options are endless, and the short answer is yes… and no.
5 Fun and Easy Kidmin Games You Can Play Over and Over
One of the best things about children’s ministry is we get to play games. They don’t have to be elaborate or gross like the Youth Group. Kidmin games are just fun and easy and hopefully have a point that works with the lesson. And having fun is a key ingredient to a successful children’s ministry.
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?
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.
3 Ways Your Calendar Can Help You Reach Your Next Level in Ministry
There are a lot of tools we can use in ministry. There’s our church management system, our curriculum, our events. Each one helps us serve our communities and reach more for Christ every year. However, I think there is one tool that is invaluable for your ministry. One tool that if used correctly can extend your reach and find that elusive work-life balance we’re all looking for.
What is that tool?
5 Questions to Create Your VBS Schedule
VBS is one of the most complex ministry outreaches in children’s ministries. It takes 3-6 months to put on a one-week event for tons of kids and a major part of the kidmin annual rhythm.
One of the more complex yet essential parts of VBS is the schedule. It answers the question, “How are you going to get multiple groups of kids to multiple rooms throughout your campus all at the same time, not lose anyone, make time for bathroom breaks, and still get all the content covered?”
5 VBS Volunteers that Make a BIG Difference
Many of the curriculums I’ve used over the years give you an idea of how many volunteers you need and where they should serve. However, if you’re doing a VBS for 100 kids or more, these lists can be found lacking. They’ll list small group leaders and station leaders, but what about registration? Décor? Marketing? Supply management?
Over the years I’ve added several positions to my VBS that have helped me reach more kids and made my workload so much simpler.
4 Principles for Planning your Kidmin Service
If you’re like me when you’re planning your first kid services, you’re probably following the model that you’ve seen before. Whether you learned it from a mentor, internship, or just watching another kid’s service, you’ve decided this is the order for the service.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
1 Simple Trick to Maximize Next Year’s Calendar
Over the last several weeks, I’ve posted about planning for next year. You can read about calendar planning here and budget planning here.
If you’ve been doing this for a while, you may realize that just putting dates on a calendar doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
5 Budget Categories Every NextGen Leader Needs in Their Ministry
Budgets, love them or hate them, you need to have one to effectively manage the resources God has given you and your ministry.
Whatever your church’s requirements, your budget and your yearly calendar are inextricably linked. So, before you start putting numbers down into a spreadsheet make sure your yearly calendar is done first.
6 Steps to Make Next Year’s Ministry Calendar
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
No, I’m not talking about Christmas or Thanksgiving (I’m a no Christmas until after Thanksgiving person).
I’m talking about planning for the next year.
How to Create Your Best Event
Whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of ministry is events. Yes, we want people to know about Jesus and grow in their love for them, but how do we do that? Do we hold a class? Do we host a service? Do we put on a VBS or camp?
If you think about it, all of these things are events.
Planning Your Worship Set
Working in Kidmin, I’ve had the unique opportunity to plan not just what we’re teaching, but what we’re singing as well. I’m a church kid, so I’ve heard a lot of church music and my children’s ministry was pretty progressive, so we were singing worship choruses long before other churches were.
3 Methods of Communication that Work
You can talk about the event or program over and over again. You put up posters, make slides, and make an announcement from the stage, and you get crickets. Or even worse, the week after your event, someone asks you when it is.
Two Awesome Plans, One Big Mistake
Sometimes you plan something awesome, and you have unintended negative consequences. This happened to me on Sunday. We had a dance off in both elementary services and the winning group got to sit in the "VIP" section and get a free soda and candy. A little more than I usually give, but it helped illustrate the sermon for the day.
These schedule templates will help you plan your VBS with multiple stations and different times.