KidMinspiration

How Our Kidmin Celebrated Easter

04/25/201404/25/2014 Kathie Phillips 5 Comments

Like most of my kidmin friends, the weeks leading up to Easter kept us busy. They were action-packed – extra services, egg hunts – lots to do to help children and families celebrate our Savior’s Resurrection.

Here are a few things we did for Easter:

EASTER EGG HUNT

On Saturday, April 12, we welcomed children and families into our building for a morning of games, prizes, egg hunting, candy (lots of candy actually!), refreshments and Journey to Easter stations, which chronicled the last week of Jesus’ life. Each station had a skit that helped the children understand the Easter story better. The children also completed a progressive craft as they traveled to each station. What makes this time so special is that many children hear the true meaning of Easter for the first time during this event, which is why we put a lot of attention into this particular area.

Here are a few pictures:

Our Empty Tomb, which served as our Photo Booth

PALM SUNDAY

On Palm Sunday, our preschoolers and elementary children learned about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. We marked the celebration with our very own palm parade – our very first palm parade! Our elementary children and preteens created a human pathway for our preschoolers to parade through while everyone waved palm leaves. The children paraded through our elementary area to Israel Houghton’s “You are Good”. It was such a fun time!

Here are a few pics:

Our elementary exit ramp welcomed our preschoolers to the parade!

EASTER SUNDAY

On Easter Sunday, I decided to change things up a bit in our elementary area. Because some of our leaders were going to be away, we designed the morning’s schedule to look a little different. We had 4 activity stations for the children to choose from when they arrived: a coloring page area (for younger ones); a craft area; and 2 game areas (we used one game from our printed material and one Easter Minute-to-Win-It game – that was a BIG hit!).

We then had our large group worship time but we set up chairs for the children – they usually sit on the floor. Having the chairs changed the atmosphere and allowed the children to focus a lot better, so we might continue to set up chairs each week.

After worship, we had our large group teaching time, followed by a game and then a snack. The snack was a real treat because we don’t serve snack every week. We had the children construct edible tomb snacks (you can find the directions here).

It was a great morning and a sweet way to end Holy Week.

How was your Easter? Did you try anything new this year? I’d love to hear about it!

Last-Minute Ideas for Easter

04/10/201404/10/2014 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

Palm Sunday is this Sunday and Easter is right around the corner!

Here is a list of just a few of the many resources available to help you get ready:

Children’s Ministry Deals: Games, curriculum, countdown videos and printables.

Kidology: Games, lessons, devotionals, printables, and discussion forums filled with tons of helpful ideas.

What’s in the Bible: Videos, Holy Week devotional, articles, and printables.

Worship House Kids: Videos, song tracks, countdowns and motion & still backgrounds.

Guildcraft: Printables galore and craft kits

If you’re looking for even more Easter ideas for church, home or school, be sure to visit my Lent & Easter board on my Pinterest page. You can access the board here: http://pinterest.com/kathierphillips/kidmin-lent-easter/

What do you have planned to make the Easter season come alive this year? I’d love to hear all about and pictures are also welcomed!

Whispers from God

04/07/201404/07/2014 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

As I sit, reflecting on an action-packed weekend, my heart is overflowing with gratitude for all of the bold (as well as subtle) reminders of how God is at work in and around me.

For the past few months, I (along with my mom and sister) have been planning to host a Priscilla Shirer simulcast event at my church. We were so excited to welcome the ladies joining us for the simulcast this past Saturday. The worship, led by Priscilla’s brother Anthony Evans, was spirit-filled and uplifting. The Word that Priscilla brought impacted me so deeply that it will take quite some time to process it all. I felt God whisper to me…

Being with other women is life-giving…

There is safety in My presence…

Feeding your own soul spiritually is vital to your relationship with Me…

I want to be part of EVERY aspect of your life.

After the simulcast concluded, I helped my son pack his final things for his senior class mission trip. Early yesterday morning, we sent him off to serve in Belize. For the next week, he (and his classmates and chaperones) will run a VBS and Easter Egg Hunt for a local school there in Belize. This year has been filled with moments of letting him go and this one was a big one! Sending my firstborn on his first international mission trip was a huge deal for me, but I know that (1) he’s ready, (2) he’ll enjoy being with his classmates, and (3) he is so capable of helping to run the VBS and egg hunt. I’m so proud of him and the ways God is shaping is life. I felt God whisper to me…

You love him but I love him more…

Each season of his life will be filled with exciting and teachable moments…let him go…

All of the ways you and Lance have raised him have prepared him for this moment.

As if that wasn’t enough, my new Associate Director of Children’s Ministry was commissioned for service yesterday. I am so thankful for her and the energy, gifts and passion she brings to the team. I cannot wait to see all that God will do through her ministry to our children, families and volunteers! I felt God whisper to me…

I am faithful…

I heard your prayers for many, many months. My timing is perfect…

Cherish her, mentor her, do life with her. She is more than your co-worker.

And last but not least, five children in our ministry celebrated their First Communion yesterday. For the past three weeks, these children (plus an additional one whose First Communion will take place later this spring) have learned what Communion is, why we take it and how to personally reflect before taking it. As I watched those precious children partake of the elements, I felt God whisper to me…

What you do matters…

What you train and equip others to do matters…

You are impacting my Kingdom for eternity…

This is the call I have placed on your life.

The prayers I have prayed in recent weeks have been some of the most heartfelt I’ve ever prayed. I have seen God’s spirit move in mighty ways. For that, my heart is grateful.

What are you grateful for today?

Ministry Basics: Leading a Staff Meeting

04/02/201404/02/2014 Kathie Phillips

Call me weird, but I love a good meeting, especially when the meeting is about something that I’m passionate about. As a kidmin professional, I spend a lot of time in meetings and leading meetings.

Over the years, I have learned a few things about meetings:

People lead busy lives; therefore they don’t want to waste time sitting in an unnecessary meeting. Only meet when necessary.
Speaking of time, people want you to respect it. Start and end on time.
It’s helpful if people know what to expect. Send an agenda ahead of time.
Speaking of agenda, keep the meeting on track by sticking to the agenda. Try to curtail side conversations.
Food and fun decorations makes all meetings enjoyable!

Since I recently hired an Associate Director for our ministry (she is awesome, by the way!), we have resumed our weekly Children’s Ministry staff meetings. The purpose of our time together is make sure that everyone is up-to-date about what’s going on and to pray for ministry & personal needs.

While we have only had two CM staff meetings so far, I have thoroughly enjoyed them both. Not only are we planning better but our friendships are deepening. It’s been a beautiful thing to watch.

When designing our meetings, I made the decision to make our time purposeful by keeping each meeting to 60 minutes and having a pretty standard (but flexible) meeting agenda each week.

Here’s a snapshot of what our staff meetings consist of:

Opening prayer & devotional

Recap the previous Sunday (God sightings, what worked well, what didn’t work well)

Updates on ‘action steps’ from the last meeting

This week at a glance: We look at Monday-Saturday events & Sundays separately. We assess volunteer needs and logistics. Then we assign tasks for the week so that we know who is responsible for what. We also review our calendars (who will be out of the office and when).

Other items? (I realize there are other things that might need to be discussed that don’t fall into any other area, so I try to allow some time to discuss other things as well. But, to honor our time, I will chat with the appropriate person about items outside of our meetings if they will cause us to run over our 60 minute time frame.)

Prayer (for ministry and personal needs)

Notes of encouragement (We write notes of thanks and/or encouragement to our volunteers – because we can’t do ministry without them, we need to make sure that we regularly let them know we appreciate them.)

After our meetings, I upload a summary and to-do lists to our shared folder on Basecamp.

For your convenience, I placed a downloadable Staff Meeting Agenda template under the Leader Resources “Forms” tab. You can use it to design your own agenda to suit your team’s needs.

What do your staff meetings look like? Share your ideas with our community!