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.
What I Read in 2024
This year was an interesting year for me. I started teaching high school math full-time while serving in ministry part-time. It’s been a struggle finding a balance between school, church, this blog, and family. I hit many of my goals and accomplished many things I never dreamed of doing. However, many goals went by the wayside.
3 Essential Tools for a Successful Year
It’s the end of the year. And as busy as we are with Christmas, it’s also important to look ahead. If you want to have a successful ministry, then you need to have a plan. You can’t wander into January and hope that things will happen. There needs to be intentionality and purpose to the things you do.
4 Effective Altar Calls for Your Ministry
There is an age-old tradition in our evangelical services. Altar time. That point at the end of the service when the congregation responds to what they’ve just heard. Usually by coming to the front of the room for prayer.
Winning the Annual Review
It’s the end of the year and your pastor may be setting up an annual review. The annual review can be scary. Recently, I saw a Facebook post where a person asked if it’s natural to feel like you’re going to get fired.
My response?
How to Follow Up with Your Missing People
As a pastor you’re a shepherd. It’s your job to take care of your flock. In my own experience (and even in my writing) I talk about reaching out to new people and caring for them. However, Jesus gave us the example by sharing the parable of the shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after the one.
A 6-Step Event Follow Up Plan
Looking back, I realized that part of my problem was follow up. When learning to hit a ball, one of the main things you lean is to follow through. It’s the same with any outreach event. Once your event is over, you’re not done. You have to follow up with everyone who came, especially guests.
Essential Strategies for A NextGen Event Budget
But as much as we like to plan and dream about all the things we’re going to do in the next year, we need one valuable commodity. Money. In today’s post, I’ll give you the tools and processes you need to plan for a specific event.
5 Best Practices for Kidmin Check-out
When talking about safety and security, this general rule applies. The safer the area the less efficient it is to enter and exit. Those bits of friction make it more difficult for bad actors to make a move.
The Essential Kidmin Events Calendar
Whether you’re just starting out in kidmin, or you’ve been in it for a while, you know there are events and a lot of them. But which ones should you be doing? Is there something you’re missing? What can you do that’s fun and impactful for your ministry?
Every church is unique and has its own set of events that works well for their community. That said, there are patterns we can follow.
4 Steps to Mastering Your Ministry To-Do List
One thing about ministry is that you’re busy. Depending on how small your church is you can find yourself doing a lot of things that don’t fit within your “job.” Even if you work at a large church you can look up at the end of the week and wonder where the time went.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Conference
One of the best things you can do for your ministry and leadership growth is go to a conference. Whether it’s a small regional conference like the Orange Tour or a large national conference like Kidzmatter, you can find something that will make your ministry better.
But how do you get the most of your experience?
7 Essential Details for a Seamless Ministry Transition
As you’re leaving, you need to also think about the person that’s coming behind you. Will they be able to pick up where you leave off? Will they have access to the necessary resources, websites, social media profiles and more? Will they know who their volunteers are and where they like to serve?
3 Fall Festival Ideas to Reach Your Community
It’s time to work on your Fall Outreach. It’s what I call part of the big three, Egg Hunt, VBS, Fall Festival. In the kidmin world it’s one of the biggest outreaches of the year.
3 Essential Elements of a Volunteer Training Meeting
A new school year is starting, and this is a great time to hold a volunteer training meeting. The training sounds like a great idea, but what are you supposed to talk about? What can you talk about? What’s the most important thing?
3 Challenges of Multiple Services in Kidmin and How to Overcome Them
Most of the problems we face with multiple services are the same. While I don’t think there is one solution to each of these problems, I do have some ideas on how to overcome them.
4 Summer Outreaches that Aren’t VBS
With the end of the summer, we start to look at all the things we did and ask if they were effective. One of the biggest questions I see this time of year is “What are churches doing other than VBS?”
3 Tips for Creating Your VBS Budget
I often see questions from people asking their VBS budget. How many kids? How big is your church? How much do you spend? Those are all great questions because your budget will depend on those three things, the size of your church, the size of your event, and how important it is to the church’s outreach strategy.
Leader Fails: 4 Steps to Navigate the Chaos
The kidmin world was rocked last week with the news from Orange. Another leader has failed, and we’re left wondering what happened and what will happen. I usually don’t say anything when this kind of news breaks, but if you’ve followed any of my content you know I’ve been a fan of Orange for years and have recommended their content over and over. I feel I need to share my thoughts.
Boost Your Team with Pre-Service Meetings
What If I told you there was one thing you could do this Sunday that would improve your volunteer morale, orient everyone towards your vision, and make sure all your volunteers are cared for? Such a thing exists. It’s called a pre-service meeting.
This downloadable curriculum will give you all the tools you need to create and run your own kids lead team.