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When I was a kid I loved the Chronicles of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis. I still love the books, but when I was young they completely captivated me. Long before I could read on my own, my mom used to read to me. Whenever we would go on long car trips she would choose books to read to my brother,  sister and me. (these were the days before in car DVD players) She read all types of books but the Chronicles of Narnia were always my favorite.

In fourth grade my teacher, Mrs. Vincent, read us the book “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.” As she read, I recognized a lot of the names and characters. After a few days I realized that this was one of the books that my mom had read to me when I was little. Better yet, I figured out that this was the first of seven books in a series. The next time our class went to the library I checked out the second book in the series. I read the entire book that same day. The next day I got to school early so I could check out the third book. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Vincent noticed my interest in the books, and because I was “a little less than well-behaved” in fourth grade, (sorry Mrs. Vincent) she eventually made a deal with me. If I would finish all my work for the day I could read for whatever time I had left. Most days I had finished all my work before lunch because I couldn’t wait to get back to reading. It wasn’t long before I had read the entire series. Then I read them again–and again–and again.

There was so much that I loved about The Chronicles of Narnia. There was action, adventure, sword fights and talking animals. But above everything else there was one character that stood out. Aslan. Aslan was the great lion, the son of the emperor beyond the sea. He was the central character in every story and things always got better when Aslan arrived. The way C.S. Lewis wrote about and described Aslan made him come alive. As I read the books over and over I fell in love with the character of Aslan. He was so amazing, strong and gentle, wild and kind, powerful yet humble. One of my favorite quotes in the Chronicles of Narnia comes when someone asks about Aslan, “Is he quite safe?” The answer, “Of course he’s not safe, but he’s good.” As I read the books I actually got excited every time Aslan was about to show up in the story. I was so enthralled with the character that I began collecting lions. (not real lions… mostly stuffed and ceramic) There was just something about Aslan that I wanted to be closer to.

As I grew older, I learned something about C.S. Lewis that you probably already know. Not only was C.S. Lewis a great writer, he was a great theologian. Most of his books were for adults but somewhere along the line he decided to write a series for children and I’m so glad he did. What I began to see over time is that the character of Aslan was based on Jesus. Everything I had grown to love about the fictional character of Aslan was true of the very real Jesus. What I didn’t realize when I was young, is that through the writings of C.S. Lewis I wasn’t falling in love with Aslan, I was falling in love with Jesus. Over the years my love for Jesus has only grown deeper but it began because C.S. Lewis wrote about Jesus in way that went past my intellect and penetrated my heart.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. How do we do this for the kids we lead? I think sometimes we’re pretty good at teaching kids about Jesus, but how do we help them fall in love with Jesus? What are we doing for kids that helps them see Jesus in a way that is so compelling that all they want to do is be closer to Him. How do we penetrate their hearts so they get excited at just the thought of who Jesus is and what he’s done for them? I obviously don’t have all the answers to these questions. Maybe you’ve got some ideas. I’d love to hear from you. What I do know is, I’m not content to just tell kids about Jesus. I want to introduce kids to Jesus in a way that helps them fall in love with Jesus the way C.S. Lewis did for me.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Guess what… nedgable (or “nedjible”) isn’t dead. Even though it has been quite a while since I’ve posted a blog. Between Adventure Week and writing our fall curriculum I’ve been pretty busy. I’m still busy but Gina McClain has coaxed me out of hiding.

I had the chance to meet her at Orange and she encouraged me to keep blogging. She said I ought to just check out what people are talking about on cmconnect.org and post my thoughts. We’ll I’ve ignored that advice for about 6 months now but then I read something she posted about training volunteers on cmconnect. Turns out, we just accidentally stumbled upon what I think is going to be a great idea for volunteer training. So here goes…

We have several things we do to help train our volunteers.  All our new volunteers train with a master teacher for 4 to 6 weeks before they begin. We’re working to have coaches who move from group to group to provide on the job training. And we have a once a year, half-day mini conference that we call the children’s ministry summit.

In past years our summit was mostly logistical training and motivation. This year we decided to take it a step further. Our children’s team dug in and developed 8 different workshops to train our volunteers. During our summit we let our volunteers choose two of theses workshops in addition to one logistical training in their ministry area.  The results were incredible, our volunteers were so grateful for the training they received and they all wanted more.

Now, I realize this is nothing groundbreaking so far, and if you’re expecting something profound you may want to stop now.

Still reading… ok.

We’ve also found a good deal of success with holding parent meetings and volunteer orientation, called BrookwoodKiDs 101(this is another post) concurrently with our worship services (9:00, 10:30 and 11:59).  What we’re finding is that volunteers (and parents) don’t want to come out to meetings or events outside our regular service times. But they will take advantage of an opportunity while they’re already here on Sunday.  So we found a room and now we offer orientation once a month and parent classes about every other month.

Now since we’ve already developed our workshops, it’s easy to teach them over and over. So we’re planning to add these workshops to our Sunday morning rotation, about one workshop a month.  What we’ll ask of our volunteers is that they attend four workshops per year, two at the summit and two on Sundays. Outside the summit that’s only one every six months. And it’s on Sunday while they’re already here so it’s convenient.

The end result is that the average volunteer will get about 4 hours of ministry training per year. Very motivated volunteers could get a lot more. We’re thinking we could develop different tracks for new and experienced volunteers. We can even hand off some of these workshops to volunteers and develop even more training topics.

This all kind of happened by accident but I’m really excited about the possibilities. I’d love to hear what’s working for you.

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Had a great night last night. A lot of that is thanks to a couple young guys that I work with at Brookwood Church, JC and Josh. They’ve been using blogs and social media to connect with people for years. So, after watching them for a couple of months I decided to join twitter about a year ago and I started blogging about 3 months ago.

The result of all this is that last night I got to meet an incredible group of children and student pastors that I may have never met if it weren’t for social media. We’re in Atlanta for the Orange Conference and last night we joined about 50-60 folks at the Varsity for a “tweet-up.” Not sure I would have known what that was a year ago but I’m glad I do now.

I’ve been attending conferences for years. I usually float in and out. Hang out with my team, learn some great stuff, and that’s about it. But now, coming to the Orange Conference feels more like a reunion. I get to see these guys that I’ve been talking to and sharing ideas with for months. We live literally in every corner of the country but if you were at the varsity last night you’d have probably thought we had all worked together for years. Most off us we’re meeting for the first time but there were inside jokes, shared stories, great ministry conversations, it was great.

So I’m thankful to our young guys for helping me enter the twitter/blogosphere. But in the light of day, I kinda of wonder if I staying up till 3am as they hosted a spontaneous live web show was the smartest move for me. I may be too old to be that cool. That said, I’m looking forward to a great day with my team but caffeine is a priority this morning so I’ll log off for now.

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One of the volunteers in our children’s ministry is the CEO of a large company. I had the opportunity to meet with him yesterday to talk about the children’s ministry at our church. I thought I was meeting with him to help him understand what we’re trying to do in children’s ministry…


That’s not exactly how it went down.


Instead he spent an hour and a half telling me why our children’s ministry wasn’t as effective as it could be. Now, You have to know this guy to appreciate him. He’s not a jerk. Most guys who try to tell you what your doing wrong are just complaining or trying to grab power. But this guy loves God, loves our church, loves our pastor and I know he wants what’s best for us.


Even though I knew all this I was still a little defensive. Yeah, this guy knows a lot, but he doesn’t know anything about leading a children’s ministry. I tried to do what I know I’m supposed to do in this situation and just listen and have an open mind. But I have to admit I’m not very good at that, so instead I went with the “healthy debate” approach.


At one point as we were “discussing” small group environments I mentioned something about Northpoint church. The response I got from this guy was interesting,


“Who the h— Is Northpoint?”


The thing is, he wasn’t being argumentative, he really didn’t know. At that’s when I realized something, most of my volunteers don’t know who Northpoint is either, and they don’t care to. I think it’s easy for us to get caught in the church box. If you’re in ministry it’s where you spend most of your time. We go to church conferences, read ministry blogs, buy “church leadership” books. We become experts in field that doesn’t always relate to the people we’re leading. Just because I know what I’m doing it doesn’t mean my volunteers know what I’m doing. I think it’s possible that we become blind to this because when we start spouting off all our “church knowledge” to our volunteers they just assume we’re right and back off.


Fortunately, the guy I was talking to isn’t the type to “back off.” He didn’t have all the answers.  Some of his ideas we’re way off. But he did have a very different perspective and he asked some questions in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. At the end of the day talking to this guy who knew nothing about ministry helped me learn a lot about how to do ministry.


I’ll wrap this up with a few of questions for you. How do get out of the “church box?” Who are you talking to that challenges your ideas and perceptions? Who has a completely different outlook on life that could challenge your status quo? If you don’t have someone like that I’d encourage you to seek them out.


Also let me hear from you. What are some of the ways you’ve found to get an outside view of church and ministry?

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Last week I introduced a series of posts based on lessons I learned in a workshop I attended years ago. (apparently it was MANY years ago if you listen to some of those who commented on the post ☺) The workshop was called “Growing the Children’s Ministry You’ve Always Wanted” and it was presented by Gordon and Becky West. The principles I learned there have had a huge impact on my ministry and I wanted to pass them on in hopes that you will find them equally valuable.


First, an illustration. Take your best guess…


How much is an eight-foot piece of rebar worth. You know, plain old steel plugged into a mold and formed into a bar. Of course prices could vary, but usually it costs around $5. What if I took that same amount of steel and refined it a little more and formed it into horseshoes? Now it’s worth around $10.50. Ok, let’s take this a little further. Suppose I take the same amount of steel and form it into needles. If I did that it, it would be worth nearly $5000. Let’s take one final step. What if I took the same amount of steel contained in a $5 piece of rebar and formed it into fine Swiss watch mainsprings. In this case the steel would be worth nearly $250,000. That’s not an exaggeration!


Here’s the principle:


It’s not the material; it’s how the material is used that creates value.


Now a question:


How are you using your volunteers?


Are you investing in your people and doing everything you can to help them reach their full potential, or are you “plugging holes” with your volunteers? In the first five minutes of that workshop I realized why my children’s ministry was failing. It was because I thought I was a children’s minister. I mean, that was my title, right? However, the reality of children’s ministry is that if you want to grow the children’s ministry you’ve always wanted, you can’t be a children’s minister. You must be a volunteer minister.


If you have more than 10 kids in your ministry you’ve already got more kids than you can effectively minister to by yourself. Think about, Jesus chose to disciple only twelve men and He’s God. It would be pretty arrogant of me to think I could effectively disciple twenty, right?  This means, if your children’s ministry is going to be effective, you’re going to have to invest most your your time not in working with kids but in developing volunteers.


There’s much more to come so stay tuned. For now, I’ll leave you with this. What are you doing to develop “watch spring” volunteers in your ministry?

Popularity: 72% [?]

I just got back form the hospital. I was there to visit Sarah. Sarah is a beautiful little three-year-old girl who has cancer. I’m not sure there’s much on the planet that makes less sense to me than that. Never the less, I went by to spend some time with Sarah and her Mom and try to offer some comfort. I’m not sure how much comfort I offered, I could barely hold it together. Please pray for Sarah and her family, they’ve got a long road ahead and they need our prayers.

In the midst of this sad situation there was something beautiful going on. You see, I wasn’t the only visitor there. When I got there one of our children’s ministry volunteers was already there. Her name is Donna. She told me, “I had the afternoon off so I decided to come by.”  That sounds pretty unassuming, right, but think it through. After a week of work Donna decided to take her afternoon off and spend it in the hospital caring for Sarah and her family. That’s amazing!!! What’s more amazing is that I bet Donna doesn’t think it’s amazing. It’s just what she does.

On my way home from the hospital a couple of things occurred to me.

First, I think this is the real role of a children’s ministry volunteer. Our kids need volunteers like Donna. As leader’s we’ve got to stop apologizing for asking people to give an hour a week and give them a vision for ministry that is so much bigger. Sunday should be just the tip of the iceberg. Our kid’s need leaders who are involved in their lives. Yes, they need to be there in the hospital, but they also need to be at the soccer game or the dance recital. They need to know what’s happening in kid’s lives and give them a call to say happy birthday or good luck on that big test.

The other thing that occurred to me is how over-rated being a pastor is. Even with all my “pastor” training and “pastor” experience I was the least important and least effective minister in that hospital room today. Donna was the one making the real impact. I really believe it’s our volunteers who have the greatest potential for ministry not us “professionals.” I think that’s why in Ephesians 4:11-12 church leaders are charged to equip the body for works of service. The best I can do is to create an environment where volunteers like Donna can thrive, then cheer them on as they do the real work of ministry and extend Jesus’ love to others.

I wonder if our volunteers realize how critically important they are, or do the think they are “just a volunteer?” How can we help them see their incredible importance and potential for ministry?

Incidentally, Donna volunteers in my daughters room at church.  I’m excited my daughter gets to learn from someone like her.

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Last week Kenny Conley wrote a series of posts about Parent/Child Dedications. You should check out what he wrote he’s got some great thoughts.

Here’s part of my response to his post.

First let me say that I have wonderful staff. Patti Jo Mackey and Jenni Bowman are the main reasons our dedications are successful. Here’s what they do. About a month before dedication we have a dedication class for parents. This class is required and I think it is the most essential ingredient in our process. At the class Patti Jo helps families understand the significance and meaning of dedication as well as helping them lay a strong spiritual foundation for their kids. Also in the class we introduce several elements that we will use in the dedication. We have parents choose a life verse and dedication sponsors for their child (just someone who is important to the family and commits to pray for the child). We also give them a template to write a letter to their child.

We hold our dedication as a special service on Sunday afternoon where participants can invite their family and friends. We have special music, I present a brief challenge to parents then we have the families come up. Rather than just a cattle call we have families come up one at a time with their sponsors. Their sponsors read the child’s life verse then the parents read a portion of the letter they have written to the child. (If they can without crying. Some have their sponsor read the letter.) After each family has been introduced and read their letter, we close with vows from the parents and the audience, and I pray over the families. After the service we have a photographer and a nice reception.

This format is great for us. We have time to build into families. It’s personal and meaningful, mainly because families have put thought into what their doing and they come prepared. This format is also practical. We’ve had dedications with as many as 20 children and the service lasts a little less than an hour.

Here are a few things about our dedication I wanted to highlight:

Parent Class

Let me say again, the dedication class is the key to a successful Parent/Child Dedication. It’s also one of the best opportunities you’ll ever have to build into the lives of parents. Parents are highly motivated when their children are young. You’ll have a much higher percentage of parents attend a dedication class than you will most other forms of parent classes. If you want minister to parents you’ve got to bring you “A” game to the dedication class.

Dedication Letter

One of the best elements in our dedications is the parent letter. I learned this from Walter Draughon, a pastor I served with at FBC in St. Petersburg Florida. As part of his wedding services he had the couple write letters to one another and then he used those letters in the service. He brought the same concept to the Parent/Child Dedication. Walter introduced me to this idea and I’ve been using it ever since. When my daughter was dedicated my wife and I both wrote a letter for her dedication, and for us, it was the most special and personal part of the dedication. I can’t tell you how many families feel the same way. At Brookwood, it’s been a key to help make our dedications personal instead of a just being a “dog and pony” show. Nothing expresses the spirit of child dedication better than the parents’ own words. Plus, after the dedication, parents have a tangible and poignant reminder of the commitment they made that they can share with their kids for years to come.

Dedication Book

In preparation for the dedication we ask parents to: provide a picture of their child and a family picture, chose a life verse for their child, select dedication sponsors and write a letter to their child. It’s a lot to do but the parents’ preparation for the dedication is one of the most important ingredients in making the dedication significant. To help parents prepare, we created a dedication book that’s kind of like a memory book. We give parents the book during the dedication class and it walks them through dedication preparation. The book has a duel benefit. It’s a great keepsake for parents and it’s great for helping us get all the info and elements we need for the dedication in a timelier manner. Here’s a .pdf of the dedication book if you’re interested.

Hope this has been helpful for you and thanks again to Kenny for opening the dialog.

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I was blessed to grow up with VBS and it was always a highlight of my summers. So, about 15 years ago when I began children’s ministry it was a natural part of my ministry plan. Over the years I’ve been a part of some incredible VBS programs. Kids loved coming, they brought their friends and we had a great opportunity to share Jesus with kids in a creative way. But several years ago I began to see a shift. Even though the quality of our VBS program was getting better and better, and kids and parents loved what we were doing, attendance began to drop off.

As I began to talk to parents and volunteers and ask questions I discovered the problem. The two main VBS formats don’t work well for today’s families. (I believe they are working well in places but not overall) The most popular format has been a 9 am to noon program. As our culture shifts the number of single-parent homes and dual-income families is on the rise. A morning program is impractical for these families and they now make up a majority of our target audience.

Many churches have moved to an evening program to allow these families to attend. It also makes recruiting easier. And I expect the latter is the main reason for the rise of evening VBS programs. At face value this sounds like a good solution. The drawback is that with an evening program most of the people who come are already committed to your church. After a day of work, picking up the kids, fixing dinner and cleaning up, most families don’t want to get back out. And the evidence is that they don’t.

When I started at Brookwood a couple of years ago we had a choice to make. We could either ditch summer programming and pass up an opportunity or find a new way to do VBS. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, we decided to reinvent VBS.

In our reinvention we began with the need. Most families need some type of daytime childcare in the summer. So whatever we did would need to have a full day option. The core of VBS; the large group program, Bible teaching, crafts, recreation, etc… were still very viable, so we decided to keep that. In order to make it feasible and have enough help we would need a combination of volunteer and paid leaders. Finally, for a program of this scale to be affordable for a church there would have to be a cost to the participant.


What we ended up with was “Adventure Week.” Here’s how it works

Schedule
We decided to offer the best of both worlds. Our base program runs from 9 am to 2 pm. This portion of the day looks a lot like a seriously amped up VBS with extended large group programming, sites that run 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes and the addition of a hot lunch. We also have an outside program come in for one of our sites. Last year we had “Mad Science” this year we’ve invited “Wildlife Wonders.” For those who need a full day option we offer early and after care. Early care runs from 7:30 am to 9 am and after care runs from 2 pm to 6 pm. Early and after care have their own programming that is an extension of the main program, though they are more laid back.

Leadership
Our children’s ministry team and volunteers lead the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week. I was worried at first that the additional two hours would be a hindrance to volunteers, but we didn’t experience that. Early and after care are led by paid staff. For us, many of these guys were part of our childcare staff augmented with older teens.

Cost
Everyone attends the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week for a cost of $50. Early care is an additional $25 and after care is additional $50. So, if a child attends the full day the cost is $125. In our area that’s $10 less than YMCA day camp. We give most of our volunteers a 25% discount. Other volunteers with a larger role get a 50% or 100% discount. We don’t make any money from Adventure Week. Registration covers about 75% of our cost with the remaining 25% coming from our children’s ministry budget.

Of course, when we introduced a cost nobody complained. (and if you’ll buy that… ) Truth is, we had some complaints (oddly enough someone from another church who had no intention of attending Adventure Week called to “set us straight.”) but most people realized that the cost was a bargain for what they were getting. My experience has been, that it’s usually only “church people” who expect to get stuff for free. Most of our community expects to pay for things.

Result
Our first year of Adventure Week was an incredible success. We planned to start small without much promotion and registration still sold out. We had plenty of leaders and the program was incredible. The feedback from parents and volunteers was overwhelmingly positive. About 25% of our attendees took advantage of our full day option. This year we’re increasing our capacity by 50%. We’d do more but we don’t want to outpace our volunteer leadership. Registration opened last week and it appears we’ll sell out again this year.

I realize that this is not groundbreaking, but it’s working for us. I know there are lots of other successful summer ministry ideas out there. I’d love to hear what’s working for you. So, take a minute and leave a comment to let us know how you’re reaching kids over the summer.

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It’s almost that time. Registration for Adventure Week starts this Sunday. Here’s a look at our second promo trailer.

Our creative team had a lot fun making these promos. One of the great things about children’s ministry is that it’s seldom boring. One day your working on a volunteer assimilation process. The next day your dressed as a redneck (not a big stretch for me) standing knee deep in mud in 20 degree weather. If you look closely you can see the chunks of ice in the “swamp.” We actually had to break though a layer of ice to get the shot of Bubba and Cletus standing in the mud. Gotta love it.

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Do your kids have somebody? A while back, God really brought something to my attention. I started looking at our children’s ministry and realized that it was possible and sometimes probable that a kid could come to our church, check-in, go to small group, go to large group, check-out and leave and nobody ever got to know that kid. I mean the large group program was great, the small groups all had their curriculum, we had enough volunteers, but in some places kids were just drifting in and out. They were not getting connected. They were not known.

For us this realization caused a fundamental shift in our vision for ministry. Our mission became not only to help kids know Jesus—but to help kids know Jesus and be known personally.

As I started talking to our volunteers about this I asked this question, “How many of you came to know Jesus because of a program, a bible study or a curriculum?” A few had, but for most the answer was no. Then I asked, “How many of you came to know Jesus because of somebody?” And guess what, nearly everybody answered yes to that question. I’ve asked these questions dozens of time to hundreds of people and it always comes out the same way. Think about it, no one says, “You know that (insert your curriculum name here) curriculum, third grade, second quarter, fourth lesson… it really changed my life.” But most can say that Mrs. Becky, Mr. John, a parent, a friend, a neighbor—it could be anybody but it is almost always somebody who really made a difference in my life. For me there were several somebodys, but one that stands out is my junior high band director Rodger McClendon. We called him Mr. Mac, and he saw something valuable in me when there wasn’t much to see. Most of my teachers (at school and at church) had written me off, but Mr. Mac invested in me and it changed the course of my life.

Our goal cannot be to have the best most amazing programs. Great programs and solid curriculum and teaching are important. However, our primary goal must be to connect our kids to the best most amazing somebodys.

Here’s the good news. As we’ve started sharing this vision with our volunteers, they get it. They’re beginning to understand that success is building a relationship and being a Godly example even if you never get to the lesson plan. They’re beginning to realize that connection requires a commitment and most of our volunteers who used to serve once every six weeks are starting to serve every week. Even better, this resonates with the people we’re recruiting for ministry. Not many people are interested in volunteering for a program but they are very interested in joining us to make sure that every child is known personally.

So here’s a question for you. What are you doing in your church or organization to help connect your kids with great people who can invest in their lives and make a lasting difference? I’d love to here from you.

Popularity: 39% [?]