My current pastor gently corrected a colleague recently when she referred to our servant-leaders as ‘volunteers.’ PTA recruits volunteers. We recruit servant-leaders.  Most of my conversations with colleagues at other churches revolve around building their servant-leader team. Anyone else feel like a new church start? Yep, we all do!

I had a great conversation with a new-to-director Children’s Ministry champion last week and we chatted through several ideas:

Open House – Invite all kids and their parents/grandparents to a 30 minute open house after a Sunday service. Build it up, think sandwich boards worn by kids to promote. Post jumbo post-its on the walls in the kid’s area with “Sunday Morning”, “Hospitality”, “CLUB345”, “Missions”, and “Special Events” with cups of crayons below each one. Pull a Vanna White sharing a 1 minute elevator pitch in front of each one inviting those in attendance, “If you’d like more information about >>>, write your name and email/phone number on this post-it note (their choice for how to be contacted), and our team will get back to you.” Every 10 minutes, play a game of rock, paper, scissors for prizes OR pull carnival tickets for $5 RaceTrac/QT gift cards for tasty beverages. Prizes for kids AND adults in attendance. End in a fun interactive prayer and make those phone calls by week’s end.  Lots of energy, music (bluetooth speaker, even), and have your kid’s space shine!

Chill & Chat  or Taco ‘Bout – Promote this 1.5-2 hour event as a time to ‘get more information’ about the church’s ministry with kids/families.  Put up the jumbo post-it notes with similar headings as above and offer  a similar 1 minute elevator pitch followed by inviting someone in the room to share a story about their experience in that area. Lots of other voices will be telling great stories. Offer a take-away book with some meat to it that speaks to how the ministry will support them as parents, grandparents, etc.. Your current servant-leaders are your best recruiters so give time for some general chatting. Follow up with thank you notes to everyone who attends and especially those who shared a story. Offer a tour of the spaces, too. I have Ambassadors take care of this part. This is also where parents/grandparents get the first-look at what’s coming in the ministry for the upcoming season or school year.

Mission Field – Bring a suitcase and visit an adult Sunday school class. Say, “This is what I know about you. As a Christian you always wanted to be a missionary.  But you had to work, had little people, or maybe were taking care of big people. Perhaps now is the time. What if I were to offer you a 1-year gig (big hairy ask!) and you wouldn’t have to take shots and you could sleep in your own bed? Would you consider it? Being a missionary, I mean?” Give pause. Say, “I’m asking you and a friend to serve as a missionary, one month on and one month off, to serve in the mission field of children’s ministry on Sunday morning for 1 year.”  “I ask for you and a friend because Jesus never sent our his disciples one at a time, but in pairs or threes or up to 70 to do what He asked, and He asks in the scriptures for us to lead the littles to Him.” Oh, and come bearing goodies by bringing a box of biscuits or donuts along with the suitcase.

Church Committee Meetings – Find out when the Trustees, Staff-Parish Relations, and Finance Committees are meeting next. Leave a box of yummy goodies, a bowl of ice, cold water bottles, you get the idea. Add a note or picture signed by kids in your ministry inviting one (and a friend…see above) to serve together at an upcoming event, or say THANK YOU for making the ministry possible by the decisions they make. It will delight them to know you appreciate their hard work of ministry, too.

Lord, Who? Prayers – Write Lord, who? on your car windshield with a sharpie and as you drive pray for a name to reach out one-on-one. One-on-one invites are the best and really should be done all the time.  Whoever the Lord gives you, make contact. Don’t’ talk yourself out of it. You never know how the Lord is working in that person’s life and they are just waiting for the invite to do something about it.

Youth Milestone – If you have access to your church’s youth group, make serving in Children’s Ministry a faith milestone of one month on and one month off for a year. Make them jump through the hoops necessary for training and equipping so they are aware of the expectations to be a great servant-leader. This is first-job training kind of stuff. Talk to them about what they’re doing well. You can talk to them about how they can do something better. Speak into their lives the opportunity to serve others well and with excellence and be sure to tell them WHY something is important. Remind them they’ll need reference letters for jobs and college program applications in the future and you can help them with that.

Faith Milestones and Grandparents – Faith Milestones are those once a year special events which mark a remarkable season of life with a spiritual training like Bread & Juice, I Can Pray, Acolyte, I Love My Church and the like. We require our students to have an adult with them at most Faith Milestones. If that adult is a grandparent, that grandparent is all-in to support and join in sharing sacred experiences. I will always reach out the next week to invite him/her to serve at something their grand might participate in.

“We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” Romans 12:5

Everything I’ve ever done effectively has been within the community of a small group. From the local PTA to Bible study to my accountability group, I’m a better wife, mother, employee, coach, citizen, disciple of Jesus because of the efforts of sharing life in small groups. This is beyond chatting around a table. I’m talking REALLY sharing a season of life as friends-in-the-Lord or people-in-community-with-a-shared-goal. Though Jesus started the gospel of Matthew with a large group at the Sermon on the Mount, it’s what was discussed and wrestled to the ground in small group that made the content come to life, over time.

The most recent research coming out is telling us that the days of stadium preaching the gospel is giving way to sharing the gospel life in small groups. We can get great preaching and teaching beyond the 11am Sunday sanctuary ‘in our hands’ and ‘in our earbuds’, but small groups in our backyards, front porches, and parking lots is going to be the place to be for the local church’s message of the gospel to be effective as invitational, hospitable, relational, and necessary to grow in Godly wisdom and pass on our faith in Christ. It may be old school, but the local churches doing it well with systems and pre-discipleship will be schooling the ones who don’t.

I’m not responsible for small groups in my local church. I’m not even on the team that gets to have those conversations. So what can I do knowing a healthy small group system is effective ministry in my local church? I can have face-to-face conversations in the hallway, at the lunch table, and online before-hand. I toss out ideas and start conversations and ask questions. I’m interested in how others are keeping their minds on Jesus. I pray the Lord will let me show interest in how others are ‘small grouping’ in their context and within my own local church. I consider this pre-discipleship.

Pre-discipleship is walking directly into the obstacles and hurdles that stand in the way of the disciples of Jesus who want to grow in their faith in community, but are unable to because they’ve already decided their family commitments by the time we tell them what we’re doing.  Just because we announce it won’t make it a win. Christianity is fundamentally a text-based religion based on an historical event: Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Everything else we wrestle with, think about, discuss, practice, respond, experiment in devotional practices so that we grow in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man in community guided by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, but how do we fit it all in?

James Bryan Smith writes in The Good and Beautiful Life, “We live at the mercy of what we think about. What we think, determines how we live.” My families have way too much consuming their minds, but we can help if we prepare the way in pre-discipleship. Recalling the Bible account of the boy and his lunch feeding the 5,000 by the hands of Jesus, it was the boy’s Mama who prepared the way by making his lunch that morning.

Okay, enough about the why and the fruitfulness. Here are a few thoughts on how to keep the pre-discipleship conversations going….

Make it convenient – Think of ten people you’d like to know better and begin asking, “Hey, I’d like to spend more time getting to know you. If you were to be in a small group this fall, are days or evenings more convenient for you? I’m not asking you for a commitment right now, just trying to figure out what is the best timing for you.”

Make it relevant – What’s happening right now?

1.  The Chosen TV series – This series is free on my phone with The Chosen app, I can throw it on my Roku tv for the family from my phone, and Season 1 is on DVD. For those folks who don’t like that it’s not ‘true to the Bible’ in every scene, remember that it’s not a documentary. But IT WILL start some great conversations with anybody no matter where they are on their journey. It’s a great story! Our culture is made up of image-driven beings and we can use this well-done resource for some powerful conversations. They’ve put out an interactive Bible study on season 1 which has some great discussion questions. In the words of one of my local church saints, “Three good discussion questions make for a fabulous small group.” Families could watch the episode on their own, then come together for sacred conversation.  Intergenerational conversations. Another local church I know is doing this and rotating homes, locations, for a summer ‘pop-in’ small group. This could easily be rolled out church-wide.
2. Current sermon series – If your clergy team provides a sermon series, it’s low-hanging fruit to pull the livestream section from the YouTube channel and provide three good discussion questions on both social media and in-person. It’ll get the whole church talking about the series. Kidmin champions can locate an already-done-well video clip to make the content more developmentally appropriate for the littles and again, easy inclusion for intergenerational sacred conversations and makes mom and dad or grandparents the best sacred coaches.
3. Think of an August or September start up to the time change for your season. When the time changes, it’s dark earlier and it takes everyone longer to get from point A to point B. I live in the Greater Atlanta area so factoring in time and traffic are constant considerations.

Make it a partnership for a season – Plan to co-lead a small group. You’ll make a new friend or enjoy a deeper friendship with an old friend. Then, don’t take over! Be a full-on participant, but with keys. Count to 10 before you jump in. Listen a lot. Ask more questions than make statements. Support the small group by making room reservations and promoting it like you’re recruiting for VBS. I’ve discovered that when people are personally invited to be in your small group, your small group will either have enough to make OR you’ll learn why it won’t (inconvenient day/time, too long, too short, the subject matter isn’t relevant right now no matter how good the material is.)

With post-COVID culture, I’ve pulled out Chris Surratt’s Small Groups For The Rest Of Us: How to design your small-groups system to reach the fringes from Next Leadership Network. If ever there was a time to reach the fringes, it’s now.

“Everyone needs community, and we have to make it easy for them to find it.” – Chris Surratt, Small Groups For the Rest of Us

The International Network of Children’s Ministers has been one of the more faithful voices speaking over those of us in truth and love in the trenches of the local church who point littles and bigs to Jesus. Last week they published data specific to millennial parents of faith. You can read about it here. Millennial parents span birth years 1981-1996. My adult children are in this amazing, generous, Jesus-loving, and overwhelmed generation of young parents. This is personal.

INCM reports ‘they want their children to love Jesus, but most of them don’t fully understand what discipleship means or looks like for themselves.’ We lead littles in children’s ministry, but what does it mean to lead their bigs? Here are a few ideas…

Intentionally plan to provide ‘church’ other than Sunday mornings. Faith communities can provide consistent, excellent faith formation experiences other than on Sunday mornings. This is one of the reasons we provide weekly, intergenerational experiences in ‘seasons’ alongside a family’s seasonal rhythm like Thursday evening family drive-in services in the summer at two different times: 6pm & 7pm. We may not have the numbers of a Sunday morning, but we have consistent attendance of weekly and seasonal guests because we make it easy, short, energetic, relaxed and kid-friendly to practice the holy habits with us as a guide and parents or grandparents as the lead and hero. We are there every Thursday, rain or shine….kinda like we’re also there on Sunday mornings.

Story: B and E have careers (retail management and law enforcement) where regular Sunday mornings are every-other so that their boys don’t go to day-care during the typical work week. Because the familiar faces of their weekday preschool staff are sprinkled through the church throughout the week and weekend, they and their boys are loved on by a consistent faith family. They attended a different church before the pandemic. This ‘preschool church’ is now their church. INCM and Barna reported not long ago that parents will put up with mediocre preaching and music as long as their kids are known by name and are hearing about Jesus.

Story: B and K’s work schedule is every-other (nurse and law enforcement) and are consistent attenders to the weekly Thursday evening summer drive-in services, offered at two different times, and now bring their parents (the grandparents) so the entire family sings, plays games, prays, and hears a Jesus teaching as an intergenerational team for the sake of their littles. They even brought the dog last time! Connection and content have equal weight in priority of planning.

Intentionally plan to communicate in lots of different ways. Email is still king, but make it short, friendly, less formal, and relative. Digging for info is not helpful and no one’s got time for that. Social media basic image consistency, but post so that these parents don’t have to dig through the feed. Sending personal texts the morning of makes us real, personal, and communicates, “I’m in this with you, friend, and I really want to see you and your littles.” Old school still works, too. Update bulletin announcements because parents are looking for ways to grow with their children’s faith and are looking to us to help them do that easily and developmentally appropriately. New people read bulletins. New people are looking for new friends. Make posters to grab a kid’s attention. Post pics almost immediately afterwards for the purpose of recording memories and building a desire for those who weren’t there to want to be there next time. Pictures and images tell stories best. A quick review of your photos of an experience can let you know if families are all–in in that area of the event or checked-out and an edit might be in store for next time. Always edit your communication and event to excellence, but the basics of when, where, how, and who are consistent and reliable.

Intentionally plan to build community by interacting with families where THEY are. Figure out where your parents are and be there. If they’re online, be there. If they’re not online, they still have phones so plan to regularly text or email. Parents want the best for their children. All of them! Even if we don’t see them on a regular basis because they are doing other great things, we should keep up with them wherever they are. Decide to not make them feel guilty for not coming to your stuff, but rather feel they haven’t missed a beat when the do come. Four weekends in a row at a dance competition or a travel ball tournament? I’ve got something to chat about when I do see them and a handwritten note of ‘missing you’ or ‘congratulations’ goes a long way in relationships. You know that friend who no matter how much time has passed you can pick right back up where you left off? We want to be that.

Story: Mom works in the medical field and I haven’t seen her nor her girls since before COVID, but I’ve texted her every Sunday morning since COVID. She responded a couple of times, but I still texted. She and her girls came to last week’s drive-in service and our team didn’t miss a beat making sure they felt they still belonged and we had lots to chat about. Finding the girl’s Sunday school teacher at the same drive-in service, we were able to get them re-connected face-to-face and the chatting was over-the-top.

I eagerly await for INCM to continue reporting how we can walk alongside our millennial parents. These folks are leading the ultimate small group. We’d train our small group leaders, right? Can we do any less for these amazing disciples who want desperately to point their small group of little people to Jesus?

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” Isaiah 40:11

Summer 2020 we were shooting from the hip when it came to family ministry programming. While everyone was trying to figure out what in the world was going to happen next, we were throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick so that our families did not grow accustomed to doing life without us. Not even focused on content, we were focused on connection. Not even focused on the delivery, we were focused on a reliable and consistent weekly celebration of Jesus, no matter what, which was developmentally appropriate for littles and worth leaving air-conditioning for adults. With all the safety protocols and boundaries given, we rolled out a weekly drive-in service for littles with bigs in the vehicle. Families are the ultimate small group, so we gave them tools and practice to lead their littles in the holy habits of prayer, Bible reading, sacred conversation, and play. It was crazy fun, memory sticky, and fruitful in growing our reach to our community with multiple new families now part of our church family. Insert the confetti cannons!

When it came time to plan for Summer 2021 we chose to continue riding the wave of fruitful connection and revisit the weekly drive-ins. We had time to plan and make deeper connections into the other ministries of the church. 

Updates, edits, and ‘jacking it up’ looks like this:

Visual elements to resemble a VBS-look and feel
* Car lot vinyl balloons lining the parking lot ‘stage’ (it’s a sidewalk) and “Welcome” feather flags in blue and red lining the main road, all assembled by a small group of retired engineers. Lightweight enough so that the 4th & 5th grade Ambassadors could safely set up.
* Wild blue air dancer found in the consignment sale closet.
* Winshape-Camp-welcome for extreme hospitality with hula hoops, pool noodles, people, noise, and signs.
* Tshirts and McEachern Kids aprons for everyone serving.

Bold Follow-up
Registration forms are on paper asking for family name, how many in the vehicle, and an email address. We roll around a huge trash can/basketball net for kids to wad up their forms and toss them in before they depart which is another opportunity for personal interaction. If we get the form, we get the email. If we get the email, we get an invite to communicate. We will communicate the next morning by asking questions and trying to make a new friend. The Walk to Emmaus teaches ‘make a friend, be a friend, introduce a friend to Christ.’ Especially in this season of post-covid, people are looking for new friends so I’m looking to make new friends. Friends share life and know their kids by name. We’ll chat almost weekly because that’s what new friends do.

Entire summer theme: We Are Family
Yep, think Sister Sledge which is our ‘everyone assume your positions, we’re starting’ song. Each week we’ll honor and recognize a member of the family with a ministry connection taking place within the next two weeks for a ‘check us out’ opportunity.

First week we honored the girls and women in our families. The Bible story was Baby Moses who had his mama Jochebed who trusted the Lord, his sister Miriam who was brave, and the Pharaoh’s daughter who showed compassion. We chalked the parking lot with the names of the amazing girls and women in our families. We also scheduled a Paint & Praise Party to take place the following Tuesday evening for any little person who brings a big person with them. Not a drop off, but rather a true ‘let’s paint and praise the Lord together’ event for all ages. 

The second week drive-in we will honor our senior saints so we invited our senior saints choir (who would’ve been singing at nursing homes, but can’t) to lead our music. Just heard from them they’ll be at the drive-ins all summer long…because they want to sing and they want to be together. Because we’ve already set the song list with YouTube videos with motions, those have been shared with all the members of our Joyful Singers.

It poured down rain during our first service. Our team still showed up and showed off in hospitality, dance, and story from the covered Gaga Ball pit and in the rain. Families still came. The second service was dry and we played games with beach balls and laundry baskets because families working together can accomplish anything. Families still came.  More than fifty in attendance…in the rain!

With the goals of connection and reliable celebration, we practice being a family of faith. We laugh. And we dance!

What are your goals for the summer?

“He said to the crowd: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does.'” Luke 12:54

Anyone else still running full steam ahead? Anyone else unable to turn your brain off for all the logistics, demands, expectations, and rhythms which come with today’s local church life? Your office has been your kitchen table or your phone, learning new things has an edit almost daily, and the many voices coming from all around directing you right now to make ministry with families look just like ‘before’.

I love my job, my calling, and my church family. Where I used to be able to draw distinct boundaries for sabbath, rest, and the brain break necessary to ‘run my race,’ I have not been able to consistently reset those boundaries and practices for a healthy me in over a year. Though I made substantial physical changes to lose 95 pounds during quarantine and have kept it off, I know I can not sustain another year running like this in my head. How do I get a new rhythm?

When Church Communications offered a free two-day, online, on-demand summit entitled Thrive & Cultivate to support the mental health of church leaders, I signed up and shared it all over social media for anyone who would listen. This professional organization led by Katie Allred and Kenny Jahng consistently provided the very best in education, support, innovation, and community over the last year. I knew this educational opportunity would meet my needs and they didn’t disappoint.

For instance…

Dr. Merry C. Lin shared about our Resilient Zone – when and where our natural nervous system manages life’s ups and downs. We can get stuck in a high and a low of our nervous system. Our great Creator has given us the tools to signal our minds and bodies, “I am safe,” when we over-function. 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world (my self-directed over-functioning), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2 My mind. Our gracious and merciful Creator has already given us the chemicals we need to tell our bodies, “I am safe,” so how can I get my mind to run those chemicals to say, “I am safe”?

Dr. Lin called these happiness hacks….

Dopamine – the reward chemical. How to turn it on? Complete a task, receive affirmation, celebrate a win.

Serotonin – the mood stabilizer. How to turn it on? Exercise, pray, meditate, be around nature, get some sun.

Oxytocin – the love hormone. How to turn it on? Hug, play, cuddle, give someone a compliment.

Endorphin – the pain killer. How to turn it on? Laughter, smell essential oils, eat chocolate, watch something light-hearted.

Chuck Mingo spoke of thriving in a perfect storm and invites us to be a trustworthy guide without stone cladding. Stone cladding is a construction term for a structure which looks like stone and feels like stone, but is unable to bear the load or weight like real stone.

Debra Fileta shared, “Just because I feel something, doesn’t make it true.” My deep dive into apologetics over the last 18 months reminds me often that there is no real truth except God’s truth. He is who He says He is, He can do what He says He can do, and I am who He says I am. That truth. Again, just because I feel it doesn’t make it true. Whew! Deep breath.

THEN, Ashley Aucker asked a question that made me press pause to return to the other talks another day because I was done….and grinning. 

“Am I God’s employee or His child?”

So what am I going to do about all this? First, I shared the happiness hacks as the staff devotional last week. Second, I’ve gotten my creativity on where I can fully complete a task by painting an old dresser in our grandgirl’s signature color: bright azure blue. Third, I’m listening to music on my long commute home each evening rather than podcasts to give a healthier transition time to reset my brain. New music for a new season: 

http://

How are you resetting your rhythms?

“Now the first to resettle on their own property in their own towns were some Israelites, priests, Levites, and temple servants.” 2 Chronicles 9:2