Kidmin1124

Don’t Lose Sight of Children in Grave Need

Lynda Freeman — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:13 +0000

I’ve served in children’s ministry for 41 years and all this time the kids in the churches where I’ve served have been a mixture of “typical” kids . . . if there is such a thing. Children from homes where their entire family went to church, children from homes where part of their family went to church (most often from homes where their parents were divorced) and children from homes where nobody went to church (community, non-churched kids). But, in spite of all these years of experience with a fairly wide variety of children and families, I have not worked with children who were runaways. Honestly, my exposure to runaways is fairly limited . . . well, when my husband and I had been married for one year, we did work with children who were in a group home for juvenile delinquents and many of these boys were runaways at one time or another . . . but, my overall exposure was limited. I had no idea how many children in this country are runaways. This is until I added a tab to my blog for grandmas where I highlighted missing children so the grandmas (and grandpas, moms and dads) who read my blog could pray for the children and their families. I signed up with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children‘s website so they email me alerts to let me know when and where children are missing. I have to say I am shocked. There are days when my inbox is filled with these alerts. (I’m stunned how many of these children are from the state of Florida)

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says, “Every year in America, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing, more than 2,000 children each day.” More than 2,000 children each day are reported as missing. Most of these children are runaways. Does this number shock you? It shocks and breaks my heart. So many hurting children. Just as I wrote this post I’ve received five emails to let me know about children who are listed as Endangered Runaways. I’m stunned how many runaways are as young as 11 and 12 years old.

So . . . why am I writing about this? Well, first of all because it has been weighing heavily on my heart to see each and every day how many children are out there who feel unloved, unwanted, unsafe and who think running away is the “answer” to their problems. I also am writing this to raise awareness. I think it is so easy for us to be caught up in our ministries with primarily “church kids”, we lose sight of the children around us who are in such grave need of knowing, most importantly, Jesus loves them and knowing there are people who love and care about them, too. I’m not just talking about teenagers, but children . . . children who could be in our ministries or who could be schoolmates of the children who are.

So, for the next few posts I’ll write about what we can do to reach out to children who are at risk. Children who are in serious need. Children who we need to be praying for and who we need to keep our eyes open for so we are able to see and help them.

Volunteer Appreciation Gifts

Joey Espinosa — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:56 +0000

The end of the school year is an opportune time to remind your volunteers that you appreciate them. Receiving a heart-felt expression of gratitude is an encouragement for those who are serving.

A few years ago, a staff member of our church asked me for ideas for volunteer appreciation gifts. The gifts needed to be thoughtful, simple, and inexpensive, since we had well over 100 volunteers in children’s ministry.

After some deliberation, I came up with this idea: give each volunteer a lottery ticket or two. I reasoned that this gift would create a win-win-win situation:

A “win” for the staff: A $2 lottery ticket would be an inexpensive gift.
A “win” for the volunteer: The ticket would give the volunteer some excitement for the potential of winning. And if he did win, that would be an extra bonus!
A “win” for the church: If the person did win, we would know exactly how much he should be tithing.

Fortunately, the staff member did not take my advice.

Are you looking to buy appreciation gifts for your volunteer team? Here are some ideas to choose from:

Gift cards (even for a few bucks each) for iTunes, Starbucks, etc.
Chocolates. We used to have a member who made chocolates in her business. For just $2 per person, we bought some fun and creative treats.
Lottery tickets. Just kidding! Or not.
Babysitting. Team up with your youth ministry, to give out vouchers for 2-hours of babysitting (or, maybe have the first hour be free). Offer to transfer some of your budget to the youth ministry to go towards summer mission trips. Another win-win situation.
Snacks. Nothing says “I love you” like some Sunday morning doughnuts. (Food is my love language.)

For more ideas, you can also check out last year’s post Happy Volunteer Appreciation Week!

What other gift ideas do you have to show our volunteers how much we appreciate them?

Leaving a Legacy

Matt Norman — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:55 +0000

My brother-in-law passed away last week unexpectedly just a few months short of his 60^th birthday. He left behind a family that includes several grandchildren that will miss him dearly. That event combined with several things I have heard and read in recent days led me to write this article about leaving a legacy.

Legacy is defined as “anything left behind as from an ancestor.” A legacy is what we leave our children and grandchildren when we have left this earth. The best legacy is not monetary, but something even more tangible—something spiritual. The best legacy would be those memories, those spiritual values, those morals and character traits that we purposefully instill into their lives.

As volunteers in children’s ministry, we have the opportunity to build a legacy into the lives of each child we teach. Each time a child attends our class is another opportunity to build a foundation that will become our legacy to that child. We should not only teach them biblical knowledge and principles, but reinforce the fact that God loves them and so do we. If that is the only thing that they ever get out of our time with them it may well just be enough for them to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ later in life.

So I want to encourage you, first of all, to be sure that your family knows that you love them. Next, be sure the children that you serve know that you love God and live a wonderful example in front of them. Lastly, be sure the children in your class know that you love them. Demonstrate your love for them at every opportunity. And if a child is too wiggly to grasp any other thing in your class, you can still count your teaching time as successful if they leave knowing they are loved.

Tammy Jones

OC12

Tonya Langdon — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:50 +0000

I was blessed this year to be able to attend the OC12 Conference in Atlanta, GA for the first time. Wow, what an amazing conference! With 100+ workshops to choose from including eight that help us to minister to children who have special needs or learning differences! As the Special Needs Facilitator for Skyline Church in La Mesa, California I was excited to learn new ways to serve these families more effectively.

One of my favorite workshops was Meaghan Wall’s “How to Create a Special Needs Ministry Environment”. In this workshop Meaghan gave us great ideas and concepts to make our classroom environments a place where the children are safe, sensory needs are met and where they are able to learn about the love of Jesus. She helped us to learn and consider everything that a family with child/children with special needs encounters from the time they drive onto the church property to the time that they leave.

• Do you offer parking that is close to your special needs classroom?
• Are your greeters trained to help the families find the best route to get to the children’s classroom (noise, crowds, accessibility?).
• Is your self-contained classroom well marked for visitors to find?
• Once they arrive to check their child into class, how much paperwork do you require? Is it easy to check in their siblings?
• Is your room warm and welcoming?

Once the child is in your class do you:
• Provide a visual schedule for children who have difficulty transitioning?
• A visual list of the rules of the classroom?
• Are they told what to do when they need to go to the restroom?
• What is your policy on changing Pull-Ups or diapers on older children?
• Do you have an area for “regrouping” and/or quiet area for those who are over-stimulated?
• Are there adequate items to help meet varying sensory needs? Weighted blankets, trampoline, sensory wall and/or balls?
• Does your curriculum include auditory, visual and kinesthetic presentations to foster better understanding?
• In case of a child who likes to try and bolt unexpectedly from your classroom, do you have a plan in place?

After class is over do you offer?
• Meet with the volunteers to see how things went that day?
• Do you offer ongoing training? Weekly, monthly or quarterly?

Many of Meaghan’s insights and suggestions are helping me to create a more effective learning environment for the children that my team minsters to each week. I am eternally grateful for her willingness to impart wisdom to other leaders and her kindness.

Guarding What Made Us Good Volunteers to Begin With

Kaye Chalwell — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:00:15 +0000

Last week I heard a great sermon on Acts 6:1-7 that challenged me in my children’s ministry. Acts 6:1-7 describes a time in the life of the early church when the leaders realised they needed volunteers to look after the fair distribution of food to widows who were in need. Verse 3 (Therefore, brothers and sisters, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty) emphasises three things that helped the early church leaders choose volunteers. Firstly they picked volunteers from “among you”. That is, the volunteers were part of the church community. Secondly, they chose people “of good repute”; people where were known for their commitment to Christ. Thirdly they chose people who were “full of the Spirit and of wisdom”. As well as acknowledging God is in control, the people they chose would have been praying and trusting in God’s word. These are the kinds of things that people saw in us when we started working in children’s ministry. However, the problem is that children’s ministry volunteers are often busy people. We have the responsibilities of our ministry, of our family, and sometimes of another job. All this busyness can pull us away from these things.

Pick out from among you – we are so busy working in children’s ministry that we stop feeling like we are part of our church community. We never get to a service, and we can be so busy before and after the service that we end up feeling distant from the community.
Of good repute – in our busyness or as we deal with difficult situations we can be quick tempered, and our words and actions do not reflect our love for Jesus.
Full of the Spirit and of wisdom – to get everything done we sometimes neglect the time we spend with God. Our prayers can become superficial and we read God’s word less and less. We might still give lip service to our relationship with God, praying a quick prayer or quickly reading over the bible story we are going to teach, but we stop trusting in His wisdom. Instead, we rest on our own wisdom and our own control and leave God out of our ministry.

For me, Acts 6 is a reminder that no matter how busy our ministry becomes we need to spend time on these foundational things. It is important to spend time with our church community. We need to make sure that our words and actions match; and that we reflect the loving God we are teaching about. We need to make spending time with God a priority and allow God to work in our lives and in our ministry. Taking time out for these things is surely as important as the time we put into preparing our lessons, and teaching the children in our care.

How are you ensuring these things are happening?

A Leader Is A Guide

Wayne Stocks — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:00:52 +0000

Welcome once again to our series of things volunteers think but don’t necessarily want to tell their children’s pastor or children’s ministry director. For a complete listing of posts in this series, see the listing at the bottom of this article. Last time we started to look at issues related to shepherding and growing volunteers – in other words Volunteer Development. Today we continue in this, our largest category, with:

WE NEED YOUR GUIDANCE

In addition to setting the general direction of the ministry, as we discussed last time, we will from time to time need your guidance to keep us on the right path. Please make yourself available to us to answer questions, clarify expectations or reinforce the vision. We are more than willing to do the heavy lifting, but occasionally we will need you to lend a helping hand or an ear or a thought. Your volunteers want a leader. They want someone to guide them through the ups and downs of children’s ministry. They want someone to turn to when they have a question. They want to know that when something comes up, they have somewhere to turn to for an answer.

Here is a complete listing of what we’ve covered so far in this series:

PASSION

SERVICE

DEVELOPMENT

Which Way Do We Go George? Which Way Do We Go?

the Canvas Story

Matt Norman — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:12:29 +0000

www.thecanvasstory.com

In America we are very sheltered. We think that slavery was something that ended with a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in 1862. In our little world this is true. However, in for the rest of the world this is still very real.

While at the Orange Conference 2012 I met a Heather Marshall, who is doing her part to help stamp out human trafficking, what we would call slavery. Heather is the Executive Director and founder of an organization called The Canvas Story. Here is their mission statement statement and vision in their own words.

Mission: Cultivating creative ways to combat human trafficking. Through our collective abilities, passions and opportunities, we will research and execute strategies to bring freedom to victims of severe abuse/slavery.

Vision: To See individuals find healing and restoration from abuse, and to then help them pass that gift to someone else. To lower the demand for trafficking through raising awareness of the problem and cultivating solutions.

One of the ways that they are working towards this vision is with the Canvas Story 90-day challenge. Here’s how the 90 day challange works. You agree for 90 days to replace an item that you might normally by with one that is guaranteed slavery free.

Ok, so how do I know which products these are? Well, look for products that have the logo below on them.

I have to admit that prior to talking to these two very passionate women I had never even heard of this fair-trade thing. I seem to remember seeing this logo on some products, but I can’t say that I payed any more attention to it than that.

One thing that I failed to mention is that many if not most of the people that are being taken into human trafficking are children. As a parent and children’s pastor this breaks my heart. The thought of my own children or the children in my ministry being taken into slavery is almost more than I can think of.

So, what do we do about this. Well, I want to challenge you to take the Canvas Story 90 day Challenge. The products that they had listed that you could commit to included chocolate and coffee. There others out there too. So, look for a product with the above label on it and commit to not buying any of that type of product except ones with the Fair-Trade label. I committed to only buying fair-trade coffee for 90 days.

For complete details click HERE.

Defining Moment: #OC12 – The People

Matt Norman — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:23 +0000

In part one of this series I talked about how the 2012 Orange conference was a defining moment for me. The first thing that allowed this conference to make such an impact on me was the people I met. Here is a list of some of the people and how they impacted me.

Barbara Graves, Wendy Douglas, and Tonya Langdon: These ladies are part the team that I have the privilege of leading here at Kidmin1124. This is the first time that I have ever met these ladies in person, but I sincerely pray that it will not be the last. These women were each an inspiration to me already, and are even more so now that I have spent a little time with them.
Jim Wideman: I know, who is children’s ministry has not been inspired by Jim Wideman. Well, on Wednesday night I had an opportunity to have dinner with Jim and some of he folks who have been through his Infuse program. Jim had never met me before and I sure had never heard of me, but he was still willing to allow me to join his group for dinner. This type of generosity is not often seen these days, even in the church.
Tommy Campbell: Tommy was with the 410 Bridge, and Rafikimail. The 410 Bridge was one of many organizations set up at the conference to tell people about what it is they do in hopes of connecting with the attendees and with the churches they represent. However, Tommy makes this list while many other did not. You see, as a guest blogger I wanted to get to know a little but about the different organizations represented. So, I approached Tommy and asked him to fill me in. We then proceeded to have a conversation that lasted at least 20 minutes. Tommy spoke with such a passion, that I found it difficult to walk away. This conversation served to re-ignite the passion in me. I wouldn’t say that this passion had gone cold, but simply had been filed away for future use. Tommy helped me to realize that the future is now.
Amy Dolan: I consider Amy to be one of the superstars in the Kidmin world. Despite this, she took the time to sit and talk with me, one-on-one. In fact we talked for over an hour. Like with Tommy, my time with Amy helped to dig up some latent passion.
Amy Fenton Lee, Meaghan Wall, and Denise Briley: Amy is another one that I consider to the be a Kidmin super star. I am sad to say that prior to Orange, I had not heard of Meaghan or Denise. Well, I had the opportunity to have dinner with these ladies and Joe McAlpine on Friday night. While I may have never heard of these other two ladies, I can tell you that I will never forget them. Prior to this dinner I would have considered Amy to be the premier when it comes to special needs ministry. Now I would add these two ladies to the list. It is humbling to be able to sit with a group of people so passionate and knowledgeable that were still willing to pour themselves into a couple of children’s pastor desperate to do a better job of ministering to a group of people that most have forgotten.
Rhonda Haslett: Several weeks ago I wrote an article about regional conferences. Rhonda commented on that post and we then passed a couple of emails back and forth. You see, she run regional conferences aimed specifically at volunteers and this is something that God is giving me a passion for. Well, I didn’t even know that she was going to be there. During one of the breaks on Friday I walked out of the bloggers suite and started talking with a random person who happened to be standing there. That person was Rhonda. She and I went on to talk for the remainder of the break and part way into the next session about our shared passion for equipping those that give freely of their time to minister to children. With over 5000 people attending the conference God placed Rhonda literally in my path.
Joe McAlpine: At the beginning of the week Joe was just a random person that I had connected with in hopes of saving my church a little money as we split the cost of the hotel room and rental car. However, as the week progressed it was clear that God has something far bigger in mind. From the very beginning Joe and I hit it off. Of course, you would expect a couple of charismatic, young men with a shared passion for ministry to children to get along, but by the end of the week we had become friends. Then, late Friday night, hours after the conference had ended we had a chance to sit and talk. We had shared bits and pieces of our own stories throughout the week, but this conversation went so much deeper. We talked about a number of things, but there is one thing that Joe said to me that I will never forget. ”You have to pursue your calling.” I don’t yet know the full impact that this is going to have on my life, but I do know this; up to this point I have not been pursuing my calling. I have been kinda waiting around for God to give it to me. I have been working very hard, but I have not been pursuing my calling. I am not sure what God has planned for my future, but I know that from this moment on I will pursue my calling for all that I am worth. Joe had only known me from a few days, but he was willing to speak into my life.

For some this may just look like a list of people. It may just look like notes about conversations that I had, but trust me it is so much more. We speak with lots of people during the course of our lives. However, it is rare that those conversations have any lasting impact on us, rare that they define who we are. Trust me when I say that these people have had a lasting impact on my life. These people are the first part of the reason that I say that this conference was a defining moment for my life. I thank God for connecting with these people, and I thank these people for the contribution they have had on my life.

Defining Moment: #OC12 Intro

Matt Norman — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:00:43 +0000

In January 1986 The Space Shuttle Challenger was set to launch. Moments after it left the platform something went terribly wrong. The space shuttle exploded,killing all seven astronauts. This was a defining moment for NASA.

On September 11, 2001 four planes were hi-jacked and flown in the Twin Towers in New York and into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. This was a defining moment for our entire country.

Throughout our lives there are events that serve to define us. Often times we don’t even see these “defining moments” coming. If we’re lucky, these defining moments will be ordained by God. When I look back on the 2012 Orange Conference, I know that it was a defining moment in my life.

Those that attended may be thinking that this was a great conference, but that you probably wouldn’t call it a defining moment. For those that did not attend you might be wondering if it could really have been that good. Well, with over 5000 people in attendance I think I can say with confidence that it was probably not a defining moment for all of them, but it was for me.

There was great music and great lighting on the main stage. There was high quality signage, and great vendors. There was some really good FREE coffee and almost more free stuff that I could fit into my carry on bag. However, none of those things really made it a defining moment. There was some really good drama, good food, and even a well-done tribute to Micheal Jackson’s Thriller; but none of those took the event to the level of defining moment.

Don’t get me wrong I LOVED all of this stuff, but no matter how well they are done, these things alone could never turn an event into a defining moment.

So, what made the difference? What was it that makes me so convinced that my life will be different after this event? Well, let me tell you.

People: With over 5000 people registered for the conference I had a few God ordained meetings with individual people. In the next parts in this series I will tell you about the people that I met and how they have changed my life.
God Inspired Messages: There were a number of great main sessions and breakouts, but there some that really changed the way I looked at certain things.

Stay tuned for these next posts as I share with you why these things were life changing and the effect they have had on me.

Nehemiah and Kidmin. Lessons Learned from Orange 2012

Barbara Graves — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:54 +0000

In her Orange ’12 session on training special needs volunteers, Linda Martin shared about Nehemiah as he led the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem. That session started me thinking on how much this applies to all volunteers. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that Nehemiah was a builder before he was a cupbearer and the people that he was leading and directing to build the wall weren’t builders either. Chapter 3 identifies some of the people building as goldsmiths and perfume-makers. God took people who were willing to engage in something away from what they knew and understood and were comfortable doing and enable them, thru Nehemiah’s leadership, to build a wall that would allow the inhabitants of Jerusalem to live their lives without fear in the city of Jerusalem.

As volunteer kidmin, we can often feel as if we have been called to serve and/or lead people who are out of their comfort zone to a place that is out of our comfort zone! It’s not an easy task. But the reward is worth it. To build a ministry where children and families can find help to live their lives in a vibrant relationship with their Creator is a noble goal. Many days, it can be seen as an unattainable goal. But, like Nehemiah,we can say, “The God of heaven will give us success”. When we keep God as our source, He will give us success. The key is to keep our focus on God. Yes, we will find help from other leaders and quality resources, but our ultimate success will come from God.