KidMinspiration

Summer Lovin’: A Recap

08/23/201308/23/2013 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

The following post is the final part of a series of summer-related posts.

Today, I’ll share my reflections on the summer and what God has been teaching me.

Earlier this summer I shared how this was a new season of ministry for me. (You can read that post here.) This new season has meant a wide range of emotions for me. It’s been exciting and overwhelming at the same time. We have been busy in summer mode while also preparing for our fall kick-off in a few weeks, so we’ve been making many changes externally (physical spruce ups) and internally (policies, procedures, structure).

When families return for our fall kick-off, they’ll see walls freshly painted in bright, fun colors. They’ll see new signage directing them around our children’s area. We’re using new curriculum and aligning with a new vision, mission and overall ministry strategy. I am excited about all that God will do in the ministry this coming year and will post here what we’re doing, what’s working and what we’re working on.

But what makes me more excited is what God is doing in the life of the ministry leader – ME! All summer long, people have approached me, asking questions like, “How’s everything going?” “How are you holding up?” “Are you ready for vacation?” Things are busy, I’m still standing and I’m always ready for a vacation, especially near the water! 🙂 But really…with all of the changes that have taken place in our ministry, the most remarkable changes have been within me.

I’ve been in Children’s Ministry (professionally) for 11 years now and boy have I learned a lot during that time frame. A few weekends ago, I was sorting through some of my ministry resources and I was horrified by some of the things that I thought was my best work! Thankfully I am older, wiser and insistent on building a stronger foundation this time around by putting a few practices into place:

Without prayer and time in God’s Word, I am operating out of my own strength. Any ministry that is a product of my ideas, my energy and my plans is downright frightening. Many times I’ve gone to bed after praying for solutions/insight into things and literally would be awakened during the middle of the night with a God-given idea. (I talked about one particular incident here.)

Start with the basics. Clarify vision, mission, core values, ministry strategy, job descriptions – all of the things upon which a successful ministry is built on. With God’s guidance, building the basics now will benefit us greatly down the road.

Build strong teams and delegate. Loosen my own grip because it doesn’t belong to me. My primary role as a leader is to equip others to do the work. This will free me up to do the things that only I can do. This is very hard for me to do sometimes but I must for the sake of the ministry and my own sanity.

Get out of the office and invest in relationships with those I lead. One of the favorite part of my job has always been getting to know people I serve with. I believe that these relationships strengthen our ministry in a very unique way.

Set boundaries. Protect family time. Call it quits at a decent hour. Talk about things other than ministry. Make time for fun. This will make me a happier, healthier leader.

Sometimes the changes you see on the outside are no where as big as the changes on the inside! I pray that the work that God is doing in me will have biggest positive impact on those I serve.

Are you living your life in a way that allows God to transform you from the inside out?

Encourage & Equip Families to Worship Together

08/21/201308/21/2013 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

Photo Credit: Central Presbyterian Church

This month, our church has encouraged families with elementary, middle, and high school students to worship together in lieu of their regular Sunday morning programming. It was an idea that surfaced at the end of last summer and again this past April at a staff meeting. It wasn’t really a hard decision for us to make because of two observations: (1) last summer it was almost impossible to recruit volunteers to serve because of August travel schedules and (2) summer is a good time to try something different. We had also been asked by several families to promote this type of initiative.

After a number of collaborative brainstorming sessions between Children’s Ministry, Student Ministry, Worship Arts, invested parents and Senior Leadership, we decided to go for it. But we wanted to be strategic about our approach.

We wanted to give advance notice to our congregation, so we began announcing this change a few weeks out. Our first announcement fell on our VBS Celebration Sunday (when there were many families – regular attenders and visitors – were in attendance.) Our Family Pastor even gave the children a bit of a teaser by announcing that a special ticket book might show up at their house. *See below for more info about this.

In addition, a number of promotional material was prepared. We contracted a designer to create a Worship Together logo that was used on promotional material through the Sunday bulletin, our weekly e-newsletter, a letter that was mailed home to parents, our website and video. Our promo videos included a rising 6th grader being ‘interviewed’ by one of our preachers; a skit by members of our Family Ministry team and one by me (gasp)!

We acknowledged that some parents & families might be a little apprehensive about worshiping with their younger elementary-aged children. We wanted to ease their fears a bit and supplied a “Worship Together Resource” handout for parents to download from our website. You can take a peek at that here. (I will also place a pdf copy under the “Parent Resources/Downloads” tab on this blog.)

Being very intentional about including children and students in the service is something we also desired. This included a special blessing that parents could over children and students on Communion Sunday; creatively telling the Bible story through skits (involving children & students); and using examples that kids could relate to. Our contracted designer also designed a pew card that explained the elements of the service and why we do them.

Supplying children’s worship bags was also a way for us to be intentional about including younger children in the service. Each bag (a small, bright yellow plastic bag that I had on hand from a previous event) was filled with crayons, a pencil and that week’s specially designed children’s bulletin. Our children’s bulletin was a one-page bi-fold which included a cover page; a place for older children to take notes (write down the scripture, who was preaching & what they learned); a place for children to circle corresponding pictures every time they sang a song, prayed, gave an offering, took Communion and read their Bible; and 2 activity pages (we varied the activities each week and chose crosswords, coloring pages, decoder puzzles, mazes, etc.) Remembering that we were catering to children in grades 2-5, we wanted to offer a balance of activities to suit the wide age span.

Earlier I mentioned a special ticket book for families. We mailed a ticket book to families with elementary-aged children so that the children could redeem tickets each week for a special small treat. We chose some items that corresponded with the scripture text as well as general items like pencils and bookmarks.

I am hearing pretty good feedback from parents and other adults about how much they’ve enjoyed worshiping together and seeing the children in worship. Our prayer is that Worship Together would become a regular practice among families at our church.

How to Help Your Child Have a Great Year – at Church

08/20/201308/20/2013 Kathie Phillips 7 Comments

Photo Credit: Our Daily Bread of Tennessee

At this time of year, parents are being inundated with “how to’s” regarding the new school year – how to find the best deal on school clothes, how to pack a healthy lunch, how to set up a well-organized homework area.

That got me thinking: what “how to’s” can we, as kidmin leaders, give to parents that might help their child have a great year in our ministries?

Here are a few ideas from my KidMin Mom perspective:

Prepare the night before. Lay out clothes and accessories, bathe the children, set Bibles and offering money near the door, set out non-perishable breakfast items…anything you can do to eliminate as many time-consuming items in the morning will help you get out the door on time.

Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Being well-rested will ensure that everyone will (1) get up and out the door and (2) help squash grumpy behavior – for parents AND kids.

Don’t forget breakfast. I mentioned setting out non-perishable breakfast items but don’t forget to eat them (non-sugary options are best). A full tummy will help kids focus better and again cut down on grumpy behavior.

Play up positives for church other than “fun”. If you tell your child something to the effect of, “I’ll bet you’ll have lots of fun today!” and they don’t, they will likely resist wanting to go back. Emphasize that worshiping and attending church is an important start to your week and that when we go to church, we can more about Jesus.

Here are a few additional ideas from my KidMin Leader perspective:

Commit to attending church regularly. There are so many things that vie for your attention on Sunday mornings (sports, work, custody arrangements, travel, exhaustion, overflowing laundry baskets, empty refrigerators just to name a few.) But as often as you can, make regular church attendance a priority for your family.

Arrive at church on time. By doing so, your child is able to get settled in and enjoy getting to know his/her classmates. Many churches allow for more relaxed, unstructured activities at the beginning of the class. This time is very important for building friendships.

Get to know your child’s teacher. Your child’s teacher has committed to building a relationship with your child and sharing Jesus with him/her. This relationship is a very important one to nurture.

If your kidmin provides a calendar of events for the year, plug-in those dates on your calendar. While you won’t be able to attend every event, try to attend what you can.

Ask the right questions. Instead of asking, “Did you have fun today?” when you pick up your child, ask more specific questions such as:

“Tell me about your day.”
What did you do today?”
What did you like best?”

Extend learning by taking advantage of provided take-home resources. Not only will this help your child reinforce what is being taught in class, it will help you as a parent stay connected. It will also show your child that learning and talking about God doesn’t only happen at church.

Find ways that you can serve together as a family. Participate in collecting and delivering canned goods, serve as ushers/greeters, or bake cookies for church events. This will help your child feel ownership and part of a larger community.

Worship together as a family. Again, this will help your child feel part of a larger community. Our church is wrapping up a ‘Worship Together’ emphasis in a few weeks. Tomorrow I’ll share what that looked like for us and how we equipped families to worship together.

What would you add to the list? Share your ideas with me in the space below!