KidMin Programming Archives - Page 15 of 16

Athens VBS: Day 1

07/09/201307/09/2013 Kathie Phillips 4 Comments

Photo Credit: Group Publishing

A little over a month ago I found myself in a new leadership role at my church and subsequently the director of our VBS (now known as Summer Bible Camp). In the two years that I’ve been at my current church, my role had been very, very small. Did I mention my role was very, very small? This year, I am leading a leadership team of 20 (who, in turn, are leading 150+ volunteers).

I am so blessed to be able to lead with such a fine group of capable, take-initiative leaders. It has truly made my job a lot easier! For the past several days, I’ve been asked, “Are you okay?” and “How are you holding up?” countless times. I’ve also heard, “You look great, considering the amount of responsibility on your shoulders.” Again, because of our capable leadership team, my primary role as director has been to troubleshoot and equip our leaders (what I love to do..the equipping part!).

After many months of thinking, planning, purchasing and organizing, our VBS kicked off yesterday. We were expecting 300+ children and it seemed like they all showed up at once! Thanks to our security and registration teams, we were able to get the children settled in rather quickly before the Celebration (worship) time began.

Of course, there were issues that came up that we needed to address: parking lot congestion and traffic flow, implementing and enforcing a new drop-off & pick up policy (persons picking up children must now show a valid photo ID), building safety, a broken copier, and helping our youngest campers be active participants in the worship time.

All in all, the day went well. When I was leaving the building for the day, someone asked me how I’m surviving such a busy time. My answer: God’s grace. I am operating in His strength, not my own. I am energized by my leaders and how I can best serve them. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do this week!

Verse for the day:

“The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation.”

Psalm 145:9

Here are a few pictures from Day 1:

How We Brought Preteen Parents and Leaders Together

02/22/201302/22/2013 Kathie Phillips

This past Sunday, we hosted a Small Group Leader & Parent Breakfast for Route 45, our church’s Preteen Ministry. I was inspired to plan this after I saw an idea on a great website, Stuff You Can Use. The website offers a free, editable kit that will help you plan the entire event. The event was originally designed for Middle School Ministry, but I found it easy to design it for our needs.

I described this event to our parents as the church version of “Back to School Night”. This type of event is usually held in August or September. Since things were extremely busy in the fall, we scheduled it for February, the mid-point for our ministry year.

Here’s an overview of our event:

Purpose: The primary purpose of this event was to bring parents and leaders together for a light breakfast and conversation. Since our preteens are allowed to check themselves in and out on Sunday mornings, many of our parents and leaders had never met. I didn’t want the school year to go by without this important face-to-face interaction.

Logistics: We held our event on a Sunday morning during both of our morning services. Parents were encouraged to attend during the hour that their child attends Route 45. I recruited a few teens to help me teach the morning’s lesson and help with crowd control. Leaders were provided with a timeline for the morning and a copy of conversation starters prior to the event so that they’d be familiar with how things would operate.

Promotion & Registration: We began promoting the event through our weekly parent email approximately two months before the event. It started as a “Save the Date” promotion and then moved to actual emails with more details. We also promoted the event through announcements during our preteen Large Group time, our online church newsletter and the church bulletin. Invitations were provided for each preteen to take home and give to their parents. (We wanted to publicize in many different ways.) Our invitations and other handouts were customized to be blue and white (to complement our color scheme) and include our logo.

Food: We kept the menu pretty simple. We served muffins, bagels and cream cheese, protein bars, fresh fruit, juice and bottled water. We were able to keep the event to less than $60 for food and supplies.

Decor: We set up three 9-foot tables parallel to each other with space to walk in-between. We covered the tables with table cloths and placed an acrylic sign holder in the middle. The sign holder held the names of each small group leader. At each place setting, we placed a legal-sized place mat (with a section for notes); a two-sided post card – one side shared how we want to partner with parents and the other side listed our leaders and contact information; and a feedback card that parents and leaders could use in telling us if the event was beneficial, if we should offer it again and suggestions to make it better. We also placed name tags, pens, markers and copies of Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof’s book, Parenting Beyond Your Capacity, for parents to peruse.

Here are a few pictures:

Flow for the morning: At the beginning of the morning, I welcomed parents, shared the purpose of the gathering and brief overview for the morning as well as insight into our ministry year. (We launched Route 45 in September, so the word for the year is “new”…new format, new curriculum, new leaders, new space, new programming, new, new, new!) Then I turned things over to our leaders and let them facilitate the conversation. Five minutes before the service ended, I wrapped up the time by giving a few announcements and a heartfelt “thank you” to our parents and leaders.

Overall, I am so glad that we held this event and I look forward to it again in the fall. It warmed my heart to see parents and leaders talking about how we can best work together to help our precious children in their spiritual journey.

Leaders and volunteers: How do you encourage a partnership between your ministry and parents?

Parents: How can your church better partner with you as you guide your children spiritually?

Guest Post: Three Last-Minute Christmas Lesson Ideas

12/19/201212/19/2012 Kathie Phillips

Today’s guest post is written by Steven Knight. Steven has been serving in children’s ministry for almost 10 years. He loves working with kids & families, both evangelizing and discipling them. He is currently serving as a children’s ministry leader in Chicago while studying at Moody Bible Institute. He is blessed to have a wonderful wife, Katie. Steven blogs regularly at Kidmintools.com, which is a website dedicated to providing Family and Children’s Ministry resources and articles. You can also follow him on Twitter at @StevenKnight09.

Hey everyone! Since the holidays are such a busy time, we all get behind in something. For this Christmas season, I wanted to provide you with three last-minute Christmas lesson ideas to help you, if you are in need of a quick children’s ministry lesson!

Candy Cane Time: For this lesson, you will need to write on small pieces of paper and tape them to the candy canes. On the pieces of paper, write things that you believe are important to children (family, friends, Xbox, toys, dolls, etc.) Hide the candy canes around the room and have the children search for them. After the game is over, have several of the children say which candy canes are most important to them. Using the candy canes as an illustration, link the things written on the paper to a story about what is most important in your life, which is God. You can share how important these things are during the holiday season, but God is way more important than all of them. You can then share the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in Luke 2.

The Ultimate Present:This lesson is based around an object lesson using a Christmas present. You can talk about how excited you are to give away a gift today. Pretend to give your present to one of your volunteers, but don’t let go of the present when you start to hand it to them. Act surprised and then ask them to pay you $50 for the gift first. After the volunteer has acted surprised at this outrageous demand, give the gift to him for free. Explain to the kids that every present has a cost, but there is no cost to someone when they receive a free gift, because it has been paid for by someone else. Use this analogy to then explain the free gift of salvation, and the purpose for Jesus’ birth.

Nativity Narrative: For this lesson idea, simply read the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke 2. While many children have heard about the story of Jesus’ birth, some children might not have ever heard the Scripture account of His birth, and definitely not an exciting narrative! To make this lesson have more of an impact, simply add emphasis to the story where appropriate. For example, “I cannot even pretend to imagine what it must have been like for the shepherds, who were out in their fields with their sheep at night, when suddenly an angel appeared with the heavenly host, all praising God while His glory shone around them!” If you need extra tips on how to make this re-telling of the Nativity story more impactful, you can check out this recent article on Reteaching a Story.