4 Principles for Planning your Kidmin Service
If you’re like me when you’re planning your first kid services, you’re probably following the model that you’ve seen before. Whether you learned it from a mentor, internship, or just watching another kid’s service, you’ve decided this is the order for the service.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
How to Celebrate Easter When You’re in Ministry
It’s the Friday before Easter. You’ve been busy with all the marketing, event planning, service prep, and inviting. You’re probably a little tired and the light at the end of the tunnel that is Monday is looking better and better.
But you also have a family and obligations there too. If you’re like me, it’s far too easy to let work overtake the home. All the focus is on what the Church is doing, and your family gets the leftovers. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to you.
5 Essentials for Successful Lead Team Meetings
When you’re first starting out in ministry is so easy to go it alone. You have all the passion and energy and you’re ready to storm the gates of hell. However, if you’ve been in ministry longer than 3 months, you’ve probably realized you can’t do this alone.
5 Easy Steps to Promote Your Summer Events this Easter
With Easter in just a few weeks, you’re probably deep into prep for the big weekend. Whether you’re doing an egg hunt, planning your worship set, or just getting your volunteers ready, there’s a lot of focus put on this weekend.
Not to pile on, but there’s one more thing to consider for Easter. What are you doing this summer?
5 Steps to Taking Great Event Pictures
Maybe this has happened to you. You had a huge event where hundreds of people came. People were saved. Lives were changed. You get ready to make an announcement in the service or post on social what God has done. But you’re stuck. You can tell them what happened, but only verbally. The pictures and video are terrible or non-existent.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
The Paradox of Every Service Matters
Right in the middle of my worship set, my entire computer system crashed. I use video worship and teaching so having this crash was worst case scenario. I didn’t have a backup plan, and I was the only one who could fix it.
Looking back now, I’m not entirely sure what we did to get through it, but we did. The Gospel was proclaimed, and we built relationships with the families that came.
But that was just one service. I could fill this post with story after story of successes and failures on big days and small days, and I’m sure you could too.
5 Must Haves for a NextGen Policy Manual
A little talked about, but vital document in your ministry is a policy and procedure manual. The manual answers a lot of questions for volunteers and clearly defines your thinking on multiple situations.
While your church may have its own policy manual that addresses your ministry specifically, many times these are incomplete when it comes to NextGen. In my experience, they’ll address room ratios and background checks, but not other problems such as fire drills, dress codes, meeting attendance and more.
This is why I suggest every NextGen ministry have its own policy and procedure manual.
How to Have an Easter Egg Hunt Part 2
Easter Egg Hunts. Love them or hate them, it’s one of the most popular kidmin events leading into the Easter season. I know it’s only February, but if you want to have a successful outreach event, you need to start planning now.
This is the second part of my two part series on How to have an Easter Egg Hunt.
How to Have an Easter Egg Hunt Part 1
Easter Egg Hunts. Love them or hate them, it’s one of the most popular Kidmin events leading into the Easter season. I know it’s only February, but if you want to have a successful outreach event, you need to start planning now.
In this series of posts, I’m going to share my system with you. If you leave me a comment with your email, I’ll share my to do list that will walk you through every step.
A Ministry Fundraiser that Works
Being in ministry usually means you’re going to have to fundraise for something. After all, a church is technically a non-profit and generosity is a core tenet of our faith.
Over the years, I’ve heard countless ideas for fundraisers for various reasons, but there’s one I’ve done year after year with great success.
3 Midweek Service Alternatives
I was stuck. We were finally coming back from COVID and starting Wednesday night services back up. We decided to rebrand the night for adults and focus on groups instead of the traditional Wednesday night service.
This was great for adults, but what about kids? Will I have the same kids every week? How long will the groups meet? What should I do on First Wednesday, when I’ll have more kids?
5 Steps to a Successful Parent Meeting
It was the summer of 2014, and I’m trying to get as many kids as possible to go to camp. I advertised, secured scholarships, made phone calls and much more, but I’d hit a ceiling. Many kids couldn’t go because their parents had already scheduled something that week or they had already committed to attending one of other paid events throughout the summer and couldn’t afford it.
Sound familiar?
3 Questions Every Guest Asks
It’s been said that a new guest makes their decision to return to your church in the first 15 minutes of their visit. That’s a small window, especially when you consider most of that 15 minutes happens before service begins.
3 Questions to Ask Before Picking a VBS
It's January and that means it's time to start working on VBS. I know it’s 6-7 months out, but there are a few high-level decisions you need to make now to set you up for success in the coming months.
One of the first questions that is asked is, "What VBS curriculum should my church use?
The truth is there are a lot of great curriculums out there, and while I have my preferences, I won’t advocate for any of them in this post.
What I Read in 2022
Every year I set a goal to read a certain number of books. I’ve gone all the way to 36 but have settled between 20 to 24. This year, instead of focusing on quantity, I focused on subjects that interested me and read a few pages every day. Somehow, I still got 20 books in.
For this post, I broke the books into categories.
5 Christmas Movie Recommendations for your KidMin Service
Come Christmas time a question I see asked over and over is, “What is a good Christmas movie to show at my church?”
Whether it’s for simple service for the Sunday after Christmas, a part of your midweek service, or a family movie night outreach, trying to find the right movie for your audience can be tough.
1 Simple Trick to Maximize Next Year’s Calendar
Over the last several weeks, I’ve posted about planning for next year. You can read about calendar planning here and budget planning here.
If you’ve been doing this for a while, you may realize that just putting dates on a calendar doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
5 Budget Categories Every NextGen Leader Needs in Their Ministry
Budgets, love them or hate them, you need to have one to effectively manage the resources God has given you and your ministry.
Whatever your church’s requirements, your budget and your yearly calendar are inextricably linked. So, before you start putting numbers down into a spreadsheet make sure your yearly calendar is done first.
Video Game Buying Guide 2022
Since this is coming out on Black Friday, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about one of my passions.
Video Games.
I’ve been playing since I was a little kid and still play regularly. Also working in NextGen, I’ve seen a lot of kids exposed to games and media way before they’re ready because of their parents' ignorance.
It doesn’t have to be this way though.
4 Simple Ways to Appreciate your Volunteers
One of the best ways to retain your volunteers for years to come is to show them appreciation. So many jobs they do go unnoticed. What’s more, if you work in NextGen, your volunteers may never hear from those they serve that they’re doing a good job.
Get resources to lead well in your ministry.
This downloadable manual will help you develop and deploy your own policy and procedure manual for your ministry.