Thursday, May 08, 2008

Vacation Bible EXPERIENCE

I know it may sound hokey but who wants to go to "School" during the summer? Mesquite Church of Christ this year has changed our big outreach event from "Vacation Bible School" to "Vacation Bible Experience." We will be be misspelling the acronym, calling it VBX. Catchy isn't it? Our theme this year is "At the Feet of Jesus" and the lessons will be based on the sermon on the mount. The whole experience will end with a Jerusalem Marketplace Festival where the children can spend the shekels they earned during the week. All the children and volunteers will be dressed in Bible times costumes. I am super excited about it and it is a real focal point of much of my workday. I am including some pictures of last year's VBS ("Splash Down: Diving Deeper into God's Word")simply because it is fun to think back on the fun times.

~JK


This was our underwater fellowship hall with life size whale and giant squid.


Beautiful woman and child (Notice Miriam getting into the theme with the goldfish on her shirt).



Our children's ministry deacon is an art teacher. he and his wife taught a class in a black light room.


Someone thought it would be an okay idea to let this guy direct VBS...




Some of the kids enjoying the underwater atmosphere! (Those older kids are trapped under the whale)
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Total Money Makeover



We're part of the cult....or maybe I am part of the cult. You may have heard of Dave Ramsey. We have become best friends. Actually he would probably yell at me for all the stupid financial decisions I made in college but now I think he would be on my side. That is basically because we are now doing things his way. We have known about his getting out of debt "baby steps" for a while but now we can officially say we have "bought the book." One of my new favorite stores, Mardell's, had it on sale for 7.99. Since it has been on the best-seller list and is regularly priced 24.99, it was a steal...especially since we are trying to get out of debt.

In case you are not familiar with the principles of the Total Money Makeover, its fairly simple. You start a small savings, you pay off all your debt, you never take out another loan, you start building retirement, you start a college fund for your kids, you pay off your house, then you give as much money away as you can to bless others. His plan is more detailed than that and it really does make sense. Dave Ramsey is a guy who made multi-millions, lost it all and has now worked his way back up to multi-millions. For now, I will trust his advice.

btw, I do not really think it is a cult. You just have to have, as Dave puts it - Gazelle Intensity...whatever that means.

~JK
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Monday, May 05, 2008

Focusing On Numbers for a Minute

I am not usually one who focuses on numbers. I tend to be more concerned with spiritual growth than numerical. Despite this, I think numbers are sometimes an indication of what areas need improvement or are going well. Today, for the first time since I began working as Children's Minister, I feel I have an acurate idea of where the children's ministry stands when it comes to DAH DAH DAH ...(*insert dramatic tension building sound effects here)...how many children we have in the Mesquite Church of Christ Children's Ministry.

Today I completed a painstaking process of collecting all the attendance forms from all 10 of our classrooms for both Sunday Morning and Wednesday Night and compiling them into one Super-Duper-All-In-One-More-Information-Than-Is-Really-Necessary-Impress-Your-College-Statistics-Professor-Microsoft-Excel Spreadsheet. Here are a few of the findings.

Based on somewhat incomplete information...From September 2007 to the end of April 2008 we had:

160 different children set foot into our children's classrooms.
50% of these are on our membership list. (That's about 80 kids for those who did as well at college statistics as me)
50% of these are visitors. (...The other 80 kids)
Sunday mornings we averaged about 28 kids in attendance.
Wednesday evenings we averaged about 33 kids.

What does all this mean?
I guess it means that now we can see that of the 80 kids who are members at our church 35% are coming on Sunday Mornings and 41% are coming on Wednesday nights.

Whether this is good or bad, I am not sure. Compiling this list helped me become aware of the fact that there needs to be more done as far as follow-up with those that visit. It also shows me which children and families could use more encouragement to be regular attenders.

Now we have to turn the information into transformation...

~JK
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Sunday, May 04, 2008

Building Faith at Home

My blogging has been sporadic at best the last year. The blog posts I have created were not even meant to be for a blog but rather a church bulletin. Each week our church puts out an 11x17 three panel brochure we call a church bulletin. Oddly with a space that size, there is still no room for the happenings of an exciting children's ministry so part of my weekly ritual is to turn a different 11x17 page into three, front/back, inserts fully devoted to the children and families of the Mesquite Church of Christ. When I do not have enough activities to describe, the leftover room I have devoted to an article I have called, "Family of Faith." The goal of the article when written is to encourage families to deepen their relationship with Christ.

So what is the reason for this post (which will NOT appear in the Mesquite Church of Christ bulletin)? Today I had a parents meeting after church in which I unleashed the summer calendar full of events and activities designed to help enrich their children's summer with a deeper and growing relationship with Jesus. A common theme among many of the activities is that I am not planning them. I have delegated much of the responsibility of the summer's agenda to the parents. This is all in an effort to jump on the bandwagon of a movement affectionately called, "Faith at Home." I am not sure what is meant when it is referred to as a movement but the book I have been reading recently (Building Faith at Home: Why Faith at Home Must be Your Churches #1 Priority) has called it a movement. I prefer to think about it as God's grand plan for raising children.

There is a huge temptation as a children's minister to build the big bad children's program that is hugely attractive with lots of prizes and incentive for children. Especially as the minister of a congregation which has never had a children's minister before, I sometimes feel the need to make things great for kids at church. I want the children to enjoy being at church. Church should be fun. Children's Ministry programs like this grow in number. I can see what will eventually happen though, we will have children who grow up thinking church is fun, as long as there is an incentive besides spiritual growth.
I am becoming more and more convicted that my most fruitful efforts at growing children and families spiritually do not lie in exciting children's ministry programs with action songs, prizes, and creative object lessons but in changing the hearts of moms and dads.


This presents a huge problem on several levels. For one, "It is not the way Church is done." Meaning, the general model for how children gain spiritual knowledge is in the Sunday Morning Bible Class (an maybe Sunday evening or Wednesday night). It seems there is a general attitude that this is where the meat of children's spiritual meal is supposed to come from. The problem is that even churches with a long Bible class (1 hour or more - Mesquite's Bible classes last 45 minutes) that is only 2 hours a week of spiritual instruction! And that is IF the children come both Sunday Morning and Wednesday. We wouldn't tolerate this if the government said that they are only going to teach our children from 9:00-10:00am Monday morning and 1:00-2:00pm Thursday afternoon. A church based model for spiritual instruction is simply not enough.

The other problem with a "Faith at Home" model is that most of the parents do not seem to be wired for it. This is not to say that they are incapable of accomplishing the goals of a "Faith at Home" model, just that it is unfamiliar and there are likely some tools missing from the tool belt to make it happen. I could go up to any parent at church and ask them if they want their child to grow more spiritually and 100% of them would emphatically say, "YES!" I could ask those same parents if they felt like had all the resources they needed in order to make it happen and most of them would probably agree that they could manage popping out a devotional once a month or so. If I asked them how often they spend in spiritual activities as a family besides praying before meals each week, I fear the answers would not reflect their priorities.

I do not feel this is necessarily 100% the fault of the parents. I think both the problems mentioned above go hand in hand. The church has not stepped up to the plate to equip parents with what they need to make it happen and the parents have been comfortable in letting the church be the spiritual teachers of the children.

So where does this leave me?

I believe it leaves me with an incredible opportunity! We have some things in place for this summer (and hopefully the next school year) which will aim to equip parents to take charge of their children's spiritual growth and development. I feel like hiring a children's minister has lit a flame in the hearts of many of our church's families. I get excited when I see heads nodding at the idea of a class designed for parents to interact with their children AT CHURCH!! I hope that as a minister to these children and families I am able to find a pace that does not outrun the church or my own stamina.

Let me know what you think. If you have any ideas how to bridge the gap in helping parents be the spiritual leaders and build faith at home, share them.

~JK
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