Souper Bowl of Caring

The Souper Bowl of Caring is our big service project we have been doing for 4 years now with our Pre-K, Grade School, and now this year our Fusion groups at Friendship! It all started with the simple prayer of a youth group 10 years ago, "Lord, as we celebrate the Super Bowl let us remember those who don't even have a bowl of soup to eat." For Friendship Kids it started with a humble suggestion from a great friend who was frustrated as a school counselor that her corporation wouldn't allow the program because it was "faith based" so she asked me if I would be interested. Our first year 2 classes at the local intermediate school also got involved, and a few kids did an amazing thing!

We collected clothing and toys for the Wheeler Women and Children's Center. These kids blew me away, and the most heart wrenching realization was when a young man stayed behind to tell me that he used to be one of those kids living at a shelter. He and his mother escaped a terribly abusive situation, and rolled into town with a trash bag of clothes, and nothing else. He was so excited to give back, it has stayed with me ever since.

These past few years we have been so blessed to partner with 2 of our local elementary schools, and this year we added our 3rd! We are also very excited to announce partnerships with Greenwood Self Storage, and the Incredible Pizza Company! We are also stoked that the south side Walgreens stores are participating this year as well! One of our schools opened its own food pantry, and we will be able to feed so many hungry kids right in our local community.

Since the Super Bowl will be held here in Indy, we are also hoping our Service Blitz Kickoff Rally at Arsenal Tech on Feb. 4th (from 8am-10am, all kidmins welcome!) is going to be off the hook! An Indianapolis Colts player will be there to give us all an inspirational speech, then the kidmin teams are encouraged to serve somewhere in their community. We are so excited about this series, and I can't wait to post pics of the Kickoff Rally! To find out how your group can get involved go to www.SouperBowlofCaring.org

Media and Construction in The Loft!

So exciting! As we have been renovating our ministry spaces, we are now focusing on our new multi-ministry space recently named "The Loft". We have added 2 televisions to our "media wall" that we will be able to sync or use separately. We will use the R and L for video gaming systems during before/after service and arrival times as well as our Fusion youth ministry. We will be mounting everything to the walls, DVD player, gaming equipment, etc. And hope to be able to cover the TVs with something like plexiglass to avoid breaking them with a loose ball from a game or a random un-identified flying object (quite frequent when children are anywhere near). This way the floors will be clean and clear for several ministries to be able to use the space without having to transition furniture or equipment.

Our next step is removing the carpet and switching to a finished concrete floor, then we will build a loft area, drink bar, and decorate with some fun and funky stuff. I will post pics as we get each piece done so people will be able to see the progress, and how small affordable changes to your kidmin space can make a huge difference on a tight budget! Stay tuned for more exciting changes as we move ahead!

Going Orange?

Me and my PIC being goofy at Orange. So I'm totally going to name drop and say I got to just hang out and talk with Reggie Joiner yesterday. Yeah, I said it! What an amazing day. The Orange Conference came to our city for a one day experience, and I've been left drooling for more.

What was so great is getting to hear that other people feel your struggles with how to get kids, parents, and the church connected. The most stunning visual he showed was 40 little yellow beads in a little jar that looked so empty, then several jars filled to the brim with pink beads all around the little empty jar (sorry for the bad picture quality, my Blackberry doesn't zoom in an awesome fashion).

This is the comparison of the church to the family of how much time we have to influence our kids. We have about 40 hours a year, their family has 3,000. We have (in our specific ministry) been wrestling with this issue, praying over it, and now we are seeing answers and solutions being poured on us in several different ways. I am very excited about some new experiments we will be doing, and hope to share progresses and failures as they happen. Hopefully they will be useful if you guys are trying any of these as well!

To all you Kidmin people, keep up the good fight. God has specifically gifted, equipped, and called you to what you do. He is enough, and will provide the resources (Philippians 4:19)

Field Trips: Stress Inducers Stress Relievers?

In the past field trip day meant one very sure thing, bring my migraine medicine. The stress of organizing a caravan of 40 cars and 50+ kids, getting everyone buckled in, then unbuckled to go potty, then buckled back in...well, not the most stress free activity. As the years have gone by, it seems that my stress level decreases with each success. This year was a doozy! I decided to lead the caravan since I wasn't riding with another student and managed to get myself and 3 other cars lost on a very bad side of town with no "back-on ramp" to the interstate.

Seriously, the directions specifically said "veer left", then the road we were supposed to take immediately veered right! I gladly stopped at the first business I came to (A truck stop with lots of tire spikes and gates. Were they to keep you out, or keep you in?) and asked for directions. They directed us down the road, only to come to a very confusing construction detour! I almost lost it, but decided to try laughing it off. It worked, thanks to the very go with the flow passengers in my car and we finally made it to the pumpkin patch 15 minutes behind everyone else. Oh, did I mention no one could get in without me? Yeah, 70 people standing in the rain waiting for me to show up, let's just say not my finest moment.

Although I thought picking pumpkins in the rain in 60 degree weather wouldn't be a great time, the kids had other plans. Instead of whining or complaining, they loved it! Shock me! Then some of the parents started commenting about how they hadn't been out in the rain on purpose in years, and it seemed to change the whole day. The kids loved the pumpkin picking, they kept the pony rides open just for us (Bless those people and bless those soggy ponies!), and the petting zoo was amazing. I was challenged to do the straw maze, started it, then immediately panicked and backed out. This thing is a cave of straw bales, pitch black and sound proof. Bottom line, I knew I could have an asthma attack in this place, die, and they wouldn't know for a really long time. Then a couple of 5 year olds pushed me out of the way laughing and dove in. Ego shattered, time to try again. So, I did it! Trusty cell phone in hand, I conquered my fears and was really proud of myself all day. And really soggy. Soggy and proud, proud of being soggy! So, long story short I didn't give myself a migraine from stress, petted a llama, and watched a few kids (this one included) try something for the first time. Epic success.

Fire Truck Day!

So, what job could you possibly have that would allow you and your entire staff to wear pink plastic firefighter hats all day? You guessed it, PRESCHOOL! We held Fire Safety Week on the last week of September. The kids learned all about how to get low and get out when there is a fire. We also learned the classic, STOP, DROP, and ROLL if you are on fire! Thanks to the Greenwood Fire Department and some wonderfully patient medics and firefighters, 60 kids made their way through an Ambulance and a real life Fire Engine!

We have the awesome privilege of getting to be big kids ourselves. If they would have let me, I totally would have put the whole outfit on! Well, I will have to save that for another day... but I digress! Fire Safety is such an important part of every family no matter how big or small. My husband and I experienced a house fire about 5 years ago when a log rolled out of our fireplace one evening. It was a terrifying experience, but now we have a plan to rescue our animals, call 911 (we didn't realize you should do that when your house is on fire!), and get out. Yeah, I seriously didn't even think to call 911 at the time, all I could think of was "the sink sprayer won't reach that far!" It was pretty crazy. Until next time!

How Do You Hype Your Kid's Series?

I was having a chat with Pastor Dustin (our Creative Arts Pastor), and he had some great questions and some great answers that really got my wheels cranking. So here goes:

Q: When promoting a series do you target the parents or the kids?
A: Both! So now what?

Q: How do you target a kid?
A: Hit them with what they get excited about, put a piece of candy in a tiny baggie with a cool promo card about the next series. Include "preview" games with the last one or two lessons of the series leading into the next one. Get the kids pumped with teasers, like only telling them what ingredients will be involved in the games next week, then saying you are going to have to come back to find out!

Q: How do you target a parent?
A: Create a Facebook event, create a web page with a challenge, like "tweet about this series using #tribal", use anything you can to get the parents involved in what their kids are doing! In the past to create a buzz for our Summer Break (huge summer outreach event)event, we put balloons with a nut (the kind that goes on a bolt, not the kind you eat!) inside. When you spin the balloon, the nut will roll creating a buzzing noise. The adults remembered what it was like to be a kid, even if it was just for a few minutes, they were talking about it for the next few weeks! #winning

Q: What do we want kids to feel like after the promotion?
A: "What we want kids to leave with is 'Mom! I can't miss next Sunday!' "

So my question to all you bloggers, church goers, non church goers, and everyone in between is, how do you hype your next Kidmin series?

Upcoming Series, and Oh the Places We Have Gone!

Oh my! So we have been renovating our Children's Ministry spaces, added a new Preschool classroom to our Preschool and Childcare ministry that runs Monday-Friday, moved offices, and have painted just about everything! We are now looking at some funky designs for our Multi-Ministry space, and finishing the special touches on our classrooms and offices.

So, the biggest change is that we have hired an Associate Director of Children's Ministries! My new PIC (Partner in Crime)is Jessica Seelye, so you will probably hear me refer to her often. We have been making some diabolical plans for our upcoming Children's series, and wound up message planning for the next year! Our Christmas series is going to be amazing, we are going for a Nightmare Before Christmas- black light poinsettias and trees- and totally non traditional with the decorations. I can't give too much away, our graphics aren't ready yet, and we are still fleshing out our message titles, but I am so pumped!

We are also going to be doing an amazing worship series with the kids leading into our Easter series, which is going to be medieval! No seriously, m'lords and m'ladies! Oh, I forgot to mention Jessica likes to break into random accents just as much as I do, whether a back-in-time conversation, British, or Australian, so....yeah.....
Anywhoo, our worship series is going to feature a quiet time built into the lesson where we light candles, and have incense going, quiet praise music playing, any other ideas for facilitating quiet time? This is something I didn't even know really existed until I got saved even though I went to church on and off my whole life. I am hoping to show kids that by using different elements they can have a quiet time where they can feel the presence of God. Then giving them practical ways they can create a quiet time with God everyday at home! Well I'm Audi-5000 for now! Until next time bloggers...