Tag Archives: service

When Do You Start Service Prep?

Leave a reply

I’ve been trying to start children’s church service preparation on Mondays. We have staff most of the morning and then a late lunch. By the time I get my workday started there isn’t much time left so I’ve been cracking open the curriculum and attempting to put my service together and done.

This has been working very well. First, I’m accomplishing something on a day that that otherwise wouldn’t allow me to. It allows me plenty of time to collect props, object lessons and recruit actors and even give away parts of the sermon to up-and-coming future children’s pastors in my volunteer staff. It also frees up the entire rest of your week to focus on other non-service stuff like policy, organization, brochures and (God forbid) planning.

I highly suggest doing service prep as early in the week as possible. It’s a little tough to want to jump into the next week just after getting done with a Sunday… but the payoff is worth it. The only negative I’ve found, if it can even be called negative, is that I find that I’ve got to add a couple of review times to my week so that I can keep the content fresh in my mind. The balance of it is that I’m giving more thought to the topic and scriptures over all then when I started on Thursday.

When do you do service prep? Do you have any tips to share? Add them to the comments!

Ever Had A “Full Moon Sunday”?

4 Replies

Have you ever had a “Full Moon Sunday”? That’s what I call those Sunday morning services where everything should have gone perfectly… but for some random reason the kids are totally wound up. You feel like every bit of your preparation was pointless. And for me it always seems to be a service topic that I really thought would otherwise have made a huge impact. We’re not talking about a few kids causing problems. It’s more of a general restless din of noise and movement. It’s most frustrating because since it’s everyone and it’s nothing you can exactly put your finger on it’s all but impossible to change the behavior. Short of putting the entire group in time-out or marching them all in to their parents you just have to put your head down and just charge through. It’ll be 1pm soon.

I call these happenings “Full-Moon Sundays” because I’ve had friends who are nurses tell me that every full moon all kinds of crazy things start going down at the hospitals. Tons of extra babies are born and lots or weird injuries come walking into the emergency rooms. There seems to be no other explanation other than the phase of the moon. So when I have a weird Sunday where everything goes right but the kids, I have to blame something… so I blame the moon. I know the moon has no inherent power. I know it’s not really its fault. But it gets the blame anyway. As Milli Vanilli once said, “You gotta blame it on something”.

I don’t know that I have any advice or tips for this particular situation. I mostly just want to know if anyone else experiences this and if you do that you’re not alone. Here are a few thoughts on Full-Moon Sundays.

1. Don’t take it personally. If you were properly prepared you can’t blame yourself.

2. Don’t change anything. You’ll be tempted to rewrite policy or at very least change your program. Don’t ever make a permanent decision to fix a temporary problem.

3. Put your head  down and charge through. Honestly, I believe the more potential your service has to change a life, the more your enemy will attempt to cause problems in your service. So don’t quit! Keep speaking, keep following that schedule! Sure, be open to what God may want to do, but don’t make a change based on how you feel in the moment.

Am I the only one who has “Full-Moon Sundays”? Maybe so. Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Both your experiences and tips for dealing and getting through are welcomed.

Children’s Church: Should it be Super Fun or Super Serious?

2 Replies

circus-lg

There are differing opinions on the level of excitement and fun that should be used in children’s church. Some would say that it should be filled with video clips, sound effects, games, object lessons and fun. Others would fight against such things by proposing we train children to be able to handle big church by giving them their own version of an adult-like service.

I find myself falling into a different category if you can call it a category at all. I think each church has to decide for itself what atmosphere it provides based on the requirements of their congregation. Even then I don’t believe that you can set the bar and walk away. My own services have changed over the years, going from one extreme at times to the other, based on what my kids needed at the time. Sometimes even within the same service.

I have an unwritten rule that I use to gauge the amount of ‘fun’ I use in my services. I often share this with my kids as a way to improve their behavior if we’re having a ‘full moon’ Sunday. Every week we make a deal:

If you promise to learn, I promise to make it fun.

There are times when fun makes the learning go smoothly. There are other times I have to rein it in in order to get my point across. I find that I have to keep part of my mind on the message… and the other part out there in the crowd. If the one part isn’t receiving what the other part is sending, it’s time to change things up. Right there… on the fly.

Sometimes fun works. Sometimes fun looks serious, like a secret club meeting in the back yard. Sometimes it’s not about fun at all… but about interest in the topic. Mostly it’s about where your kids are and what they need. Here’s the other guideline I heard somewhere:

A child’s experience with the content is as important as the content.

If you can’t get it in their heads somehow, it doesn’t really matter how good of a point your making. I refuse to slot my children’s church into a ‘fun’ or ‘church-like’ category because doing so would limit the methods I need to use to get the Word out. My hope would be that other Children’s Ministers would keep their options open as well. It doesn’t always have to be a playground… or a funeral.

Children’s Church Games Done Right

2 Replies

Lego-blocks-jumble

I believe in cutting my Sunday Children’s Church Service into segments of no more than 10-15 minutes each. One of the ways I do that is by sticking one or two games in to the mix. My games are not just distractions… I use them as an excuse to reiterate the main point of the service. In other words, my games are quick, simple, and themed.

Quick

No matter what our game is we only play it for 60 seconds. My game person chooses the children in advance during the service (watching to see who is being good and choosing at random from that group) and let’s them know when to come up and how to play. When she gets on stage, she calls up the kids she’s already chosen, briefly explains what’s about to happen to the crowd (the gamers already know) and then it’s Mark, Set, GO! Sixty seconds later the game is over, a point is made and prizes and points are given. Then it’s on to the next segment.

Simple

Almost every single one of our stage games follows this formula: “How many (or much) ___________ can you ___________ in 60 seconds?”

This formula helps us keep games simple and quick. Here are some examples of games we’ve done this way:

  • How many cotton balls can you collect…
  • How many Frisbee’s can you toss through a hoop…
  • How much soda can you drink…
  • How many puzzle pieces can you put together…
  • How many Lego’s can you stack…

Even when we don’t stick to the formula, we still keep it simple and quick.

Themed

There is no reason games should be ‘burn time’ where the kids aren’t learning. It’s simple enough to theme the games after something in the lesson or Bible story. For instance, the cotton ball game above could be used when talking about Manna. Frisbee tosses are for talking about sin and missing the target. Putting puzzles together are good for illustrating how God heals broken hearts. We’ve stacked Lego’s when we’ve talked about God being a strong tower.

The game’s theme isn’t going to be obvious unless your game leader points it out. We typically do this before and after the game. It goes something like this, “Since we’re talking about Manna today, we’re going to practice picking up a bit of Manna ourselves!” Then after the game, “You guys and girls did great picking up that Manna! This game reminds me that God will always provide what we need the same way God provided for His people in the wilderness.”

What stage game tips do you have? Leave them in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

Inflate-A-Set… A Genius Solution For The Space-Challenged

1 Reply

37-inflateaset

I met a few friend from Daytona Beach, Florida yesterday. He’s a Children’s Pastor with a lot of creativity… but not a lot of space. He shares his children’s ministry room with other ministries just like I do. He got tired of moving heavy sets each week and decided to do something about it.

The product of that need was something he calls Inflate-A-Set. It’s a super portable, light weight set frame that inflates like a moon walk but works like a rear screen and puppet stage.

I’m going to be saving my pennies to get me one. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!

They’ve just got a business card style site up for now… but it’ll give you something to look at.

Inflate-A-Set

Children’s Ministry Raw

1 Reply

36-jcservice

This weekend we recorded our JAM City children’s church service using four cameras and an portable audio recorder. I spent most of Sunday afternoon and all day Monday putting it all together and editing it down. The result is a 56 minute video cut into 10 minute segments available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube.

No set. No fancy lighting. No amazing costumed characters. Just a bunch of passion and a great group of kids (it was a ‘rain Sunday’ so not even a large group of kids). 😉

I’ve edited out a lot of our more fun segments to focus on the ministry portions… but I plan to make those available as separate clips shortly. Stuff your missing is: Rules & Regs, Jumps, Offering, Praise & Worship, and Game Time.

If you have any questions about anything you see in the video… leave a comment below and I’ll get right back to you.

Link: JAM City Children’s Church Video