5 Steps to Transition Your Kidmin to Small Groups
What does your Sunday morning service look like? Do you have Sunday School and a Kids Service (Large Group)? Large group with a small group component? Just Large group?
Many churches fall into one of those three buckets. Since any successful children’s ministry needs to have some kind of discipleship element, we need to seriously consider how we do that.
4 Steps to Get to Know New Volunteers
I’ve talked about onboarding volunteers before. It’s one of my most popular posts. And while getting your new volunteers the tools and resources they need are essential, there are some questions you need to answer before you plug them in.
4 Ways to Identify Your Kidmin Volunteers
There are a lot of things you can do to communicate to parents that their kids will be safe. But one of the best ways to make it easy to identify who is a volunteer and who is not.
4 Focuses for Your First Ministry Leader Meeting
The first 100 days of any new position is the most important. So much so that they even wrote a book about it.
One of the best ways I’ve started well is to have a meeting with all the leaders of the church or ministry. I’ve done it at the last 4 churches I’ve served. But why are these meetings so important?
Developing a Ministry Lead Team
One simple truth about leading in church is that you’re not going to be there forever. It may be hard to think about the day you will leave, but it is a simple reality. You will leave. Either you feel the Lord calling you somewhere else, you will retire, or you will die. There will come a time when you’re no longer the leader of your ministry.
The best thing you can do for your church and your current leaders is to prepare them for this eventuality. But how do you do that?
How to Involve Elementary Kids in Ministry
In many church models, from birth to young adults, we ask kids to sit and consume. We mean well. We want them to learn about Jesus and follow Him. However, in practice, many times this means coming to a service, joining a small group, and watching what happens.
These are all good things, but they are also passive. In a service, we sit to be fed. In small group, we sit to be fed.
But this is not what Jesus modeled for us.
Using Planning Center Services in Your Ministry
A few weeks ago, I talked about how to set up Planning Center Services. You can see that post here. But once you get Services all set up, how do you use it week in and week out? How do you handle volunteer declines? How do you communicate with them what you’re doing in service, and how can they be prepared?
In this post, I’ll answer all those questions.
Finding the Help You Need with Next Level Kidmin
When I first started out in kidmin, I felt like I was alone. I’d served two internships in children’s ministry. And I still had a good relationship with the kid’s pastor who guided me on my last one. However, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Fast-forward a year in and I was drowning. I thought I had it all under control, but elementary was the David Reneau show. Wednesday night was holding together with a hope and a prayer, and don't’ even get me started on Nursery.
I needed help, but I didn’t know where to look
Setting Up Planning Center Services for Your Ministry
One of the most useful tools in my ministry career is Planning Center. I reference it frequently in my posts about planning. As much as I love the program, it can be daunting to a first-time user. That’s why I wrote this post about Check-ins.
Setting up Planning Center Check-ins can be complicated. But Planning Center Services is on another level.
5 Steps to Easy VBS Dismissal
You’ve had an awesome night of VBS. You had a ton of kids. More than you originally planned. Now all their parents are outside, and you need to get those kids to their parents safely, quickly, and efficiently.
Good luck!
7 Steps to Resource Your VBS Volunteers for Success Part 2
In my previous post, I talked about the importance of having a strong volunteer team for your VBS. In order to have a strong team you have to work hard and fast to get them ready. You only have weeks, not months to get them ready.
7 Steps to Resource Your VBS Volunteers for Success Part 1
One of the biggest indicators of a successful VBS is the strength of your volunteer team. You can’t do this big event on your own. I’ve led many VBSs with hundreds of kids in attendance, and it’s my team that made it all happen.
Surviving a Tough Sunday in Ministry
If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time you’ve had a tough Sunday. You can’t find that vital item for service. All your volunteers call out. You had a huge argument in the car. You have some really bad news you’re not ready to share with the church.
It’s tough to walk into the place and plaster on a smile. But sometimes you have to do it.
Dealing with Difficult Volunteers
I was early in my career as a kids pastor. I was doing the best I could to teach my kids about Jesus, lead my volunteers, and help the church grow. It was a big job for a 25-year-old, but I knew God had called me to this. We were making progress.
Except for one volunteer.
6 Steps to Effectively Delegate in Ministry
But over the years, I’ve realized I can’t do everything. I’m not good at everything and nor are you. The mission God has given us is too big for one person. Jesus even said the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. (Matthew 9:37) See that? “Workers” is plural. We were never meant to do ministry alone.
Your Complete Egg Hunt Service Schedule
Egg Hunts can be so much more than just grab some eggs and go home. In fact, if that is all your event is, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to reach your community. I’ve run egg hunts for years. In They became family traditions for the whole neighborhood.
Lessons Learned from a Year of Church Planting
About a year ago, I accepted an executive pastor position at a small church plant. The church was barely a year old and had a good thing going. My second Sunday there we baptized 13 people. Over the next year I learned a lot.
VBS Planning Calendar: 9 Steps to Success
If you’re in kidmin, Vacation Bible School can be one of the biggest events of the year. It takes a lot planning, organizing, recruiting, vision casting, prayer and so much more.
Sharing Ministry Wins Part 2: The Where
Knowing how you’re successful is vital to your ministry. But you don’t want to just collect all that data and sit on it. You’ll be like the foolish man in the Parable of the Talents. He kept his master’s money and buried it. The Master was furious and took it away. If you don’t talk about how your successful, people will draw their own conclusions. Unfortunately, they may assume you’re doing a horrible job. No one wants that.
Sharing Ministry Wins Part 1: The How
One of my biggest problems was no one knew what was going on in kidmin. You could attend my church for years and never visit the kids wing. Many didn’t even know it existed. You may have a similar problem in your ministry. God is doing great things. But because you’re in the basement, meet on another night, or for some other reason, the congregation doesn’t know it. Or worse, seem to care.
You've moved beyond the basics. Now, it's time to build a truly thriving and impactful Kidmin!
Get a signed copy of Next Level Kidmin.