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Tag: kidmin

Simply Put: First Things First

Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

Happy New Year, friends!  I hope your New Year is off to a fabulous start!  My New Year started with a vacation – my first cruise – to the Caribbean.  It was a long overdue vacation and I did not have any problem relaxing…the weather was warm, the food was great, the company was sweet and the views were amazing.  See for yourself:

The view from my room on the cruise ship – Sunset over the Atlantic Ocean

When I returned home, there were lots of things to catch up on – opening mail, unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping, email, catching up with my family (who stayed behind while I was away).  “Where should I start?”, I asked myself.

Have you found yourself asking the same question?  Ministry – and life in general – can be filled with long to-do lists.  It can be overwhelming knowing where to start.  Here are a few pointers that have helped me:

Make a to-do list.  Simple, right?  It is a burden lifted when I take a few minutes to simply write down all of the things swirling around in my head.

Prioritize the list.  Take an honest look at what you’ve listed and determine what’s immediate, what can wait, what can be delegated, what can be eliminated.  

Move forward.  Work your list and make your list work for you.  Jump in and start knocking things off of the list.  Don’t procrastinate!

Set time limits.  What can you do in an hour?  What can you do in five minutes?  You might be surprised how much you can knock out when you’re focused and have a time frame to work within.

Eliminate distraction.  No social media.  No email.  Put your cell phone on vibrate.  Set your desk phone to “Do not disturb.”  Go to a quiet place (I love working at the library).  You get the idea.

Cross things off of the list as you work.  Seeing things scratched off the list can be one of your biggest motivators!

How do you keep ‘first things first’?  I’d love to hear what you do!

{Advent & Christmas}: KidMin Service Project for College Students

Kathie Phillips

Last month, a great idea was shared at a workshop that I attended at the Engage Conference.  The idea is perfectly suited for the season of Advent & Christmas and will bless your church’s college students.  I’ve expanded a bit on the idea but I’m sure you can add your own twist on the project.

December is a time when college students are studying for final exams before heading out for Christmas break.  Help make the stressful time more enjoyable by providing the students at your church with care packages that your kidmin (and their families) can contribute to and assemble.

Photo Credit: blogs.yu.edu
Photo Credit: blogs.yu.edu

Have kids and families (and your entire congregation for that matter!) donate items such as granola bars, ramen noodles, microwave popcorn, hard candy and chewing gum to help college students survive late-night study sessions.  You might even want to have the children/families write encouraging notes that can be attached to the packages.  Once all items are collected, have your kidmin arrange the items in fun, creative packaging and distribute to the students.

This idea could be as simple or elaborate as you choose but the impact will be priceless to many students who receive the packages.

If you’re looking for more great ideas for Advent & Christmas, be sure to check out my Advent & Christmas Pinterest board.

What fun ways are you, your ministry or your family serving others this Advent/Christmas?  Share your ideas below!

{Advent & Christmas}: Edible Advent Wreath

Kathie Phillips

To kick off the beginning of Advent, our elementary children made edible Advent wreaths in class yesterday.  They loved them and so will the children in your ministry! (Thanks to one of our awesome leaders, Megan, for this fabulous idea.)

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Donuts with a hole in the middle (any will work but I’d suggest glazed or powdered)
  • Green sugar (we used a store-bought one in a shaker bottle)
  • Jumbo marshmallows
  • Pretzel sticks
  • Twizzlers (we used the pull & peel kind), cut into 2-inch pieces
  • Paper plates

Assembling the ‘wreath’ is fairly simple to talk children through. Here’s what you’ll have them do:

1. Place a donut on a paper plate. (The donut represents the wreath.)

2. Place the marshmallow in the center of the donut. (The marshmallow represents the center candle.)

3. Sprinkle the green sugar on the donut and marshmallow.  Careful…some of our kids were very generous with the sugar.

4.  Stick one pretzel stick in the marshmallow and the remaining pretzel sticks around the donut. (The pretzel sticks represent the candles.)

5. Make flames for the ‘candles’ by peeling apart the Twizzlers and wrapping the pieces around the top of the pretzel sticks.

That’s it!  A simple (and delicious!) way for children to learn about the Advent wreath.

If you’re looking for more great ideas for Advent & Christmas, be sure to check out my Advent & Christmas Pinterest board.

What fun ways are you bringing the Christmas story to life through food?  Share your ideas and pictures below!

{Guest Post}: Four Lessons I Learned While Reviewing Sunday School Curriculum

Kathie Phillips

Note from Kathie: Today’s post, written by Jackie Jamison, who blogs over at Sunday School Helper.  

After two years of haphazardly trying to find curriculum for my elementary Sunday School class without much success, I decided to create a website to help others in my position by providing independent reviews of the major Sunday School curricula on the market today. Sunday School Helper, a curriculum review website, was born.  Through the process of reviewing over 35 curricula, here are the top four lessons that I’ve learned about Sunday School curriculum.

Most Sunday School curriculum is better than you think.

When I started reviewing curriculum, I was skeptical about the quality of most Sunday School curricula.  But when I systematically immersed myself in studying curriculum, I found a lot of material that was genuinely interesting, age-appropriate and biblically sound. There were only a few that I genuinely didn’t like.  It occurred to me that God really is invested in teaching the next generation and has given a lot of people who really love Him the passion and creativity to write curriculum.  A lot of the Sunday School curriculum out there is better than you think.

All curriculum will appear hard to use at first.

It takes a surprising amount of time to make sense of sample materials. This is because it’s hard to absorb a new curriculum format.  ANY curriculum will appear hard to use at first.  Even curricula that are not designed to be used digitally will appear very cumbersome if you’re evaluating them on the computer. Most curricula have lessons with numerous pages (over 10 pages per lesson is not uncommon). This is a lot of material to sort through in a meaningful way. Curriculum is not written to be easy to evaluate—it is written to be easy to teach.

All curriculum requires work to implement—but not that much.

I ran across one curriculum from Group that is literally open-the-box-and-go (which is convenient for a volunteer but makes the quality of the curriculum suffer), but aside from that, all Sunday School curriculum is going to take work to implement. Some will need more modification to work for your group—but there is no such thing as a curriculum you don’t need to customize. It requires work to translate a curriculum to your teaching style, and it requires time to prepare your heart to teach.  With that said, I found most mainstream curriculum was designed to be easy to prepare, and there weren’t lots of differences in how time-consuming the prep work was.

Writing your own curriculum is probably not the best option long-term.

According to the Barna Research Group, 18% of churches write their own curriculum.  I was in this category, too, until I saw the high-caliber of curricula on the market. There are great reasons to write your own lessons sometimes, but over the long haul it takes an enormous amount of time that in many situations could be better used customizing something that’s pretty good to make it great.  With such great options on the market, that have already taken into account different learning styles, and systematically covering the whole Bible, and testing activities to know what will be effective, I have decided to write my own curriculum a lot less.

If you need help finding Sunday School curriculum, read my reviews at Sunday School Helper. I have profiled almost 40 of today’s major Sunday School curricula, and have broken down curriculum by cost, age group, translation, level of creativity, level of depth, and much more.

I am the mom of two young kids, and the director of my church’s children’s ministry. I have been working with children and youth in Sunday School and Christian camp settings for over ten years. I am a freelance writer with a background in natural resource planning and live near Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

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