Preparing for a new school year in the local church is like celebrating New Year’s Day. It’s a new year of planning, recruiting, vision-sharing, and hopefully more laughs than tears. If you’ve already reached out last spring to those who were on your team last February/March, you are a huge step ahead. If you’ve got your school year calendar ready for publishing by mid July, you are a great gift to your families. If you’ve been editing your excel worksheet of everyone who has EVER served on your children’s ministry team with those who have done ANYTHING this summer, you are ready for the ask.

What’s the ask? Would you prayerfully consider serving on the Children’s Ministry Team this school year? Be sure to add to your email/letter celebrations of how the Lord is growing the ministry and a few teasers of what is new and updated. Everyone loves the energy that comes from starting something new. Be sure to add new parents/grand parents of kids to your excel worksheet/database of potential champions who’ve become involved over the last year. People get involved in a local church because they WANT to get connected. Invite them!

“As we prayerfully prepare a new school year for McEachern Kids, I hope you’ll consider coming to a free training dinner on Wednesday, July 17 5:30pm-7pm in room #F147.  We’ll TACO-bout the many different opportunities to serve Jesus on the McEachern Kids team. This is for you if you’re all in, if you want to get more connected, and even if you’re just curious and unsure of making the commitment.” There’s the ASK and the INVITE to TACO-bout it. We will use Moe’s Southwest Grill to cater a taco bar and mustaches for everyone!

Promotion Sunday for us is the first Sunday AFTER school starts, so we’re on a mission in July to champion ministry with children like a Dallas Cheerleader without the uniform…with joy, in every conversation, with personal stories, and an elevator pitch.

Prepare an email to go out after July 4th. I include a Parent Calendar for the upcoming year. The calendar is the greatest challenge of having it ready and prepared to share by mid July, but so worth it. With our calendar in the hands of the parents first, our parents have gone to task with the PTA and their kid’s schools to change their dates and it’s worked! Print several hard copies of the email and the calendar to hand out to folks you see on Sunday mornings or who the Lord brings to your mind. Pray, “Lord, who?” then act on it. Don’t argue with your Holy Spirit. Know that you’ll have to coach and do it well and often. Prepare for the ask. It’s what we’ve been called to do, invited to do, hired to do, and expected to do well. If this has you hyperventilating, order a copy of Sustainable Children’s Ministry. A blog post of this amazing resource can be found here. If you serve in North Georgia (or can get here), come to the Children’s Ministry Institute this fall so you won’t be hyperventilating next year.We’ll cover this exercise at the last meeting. You can do this!

Want a copy of our email and calendar sent just last night? Email me directly at dedereilly@comcast.net.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

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

Just a few weeks ago I got a phone call from a fellow Kidmin champion who was crushed and ready to quit. After prayer and some ‘laughter through tears’, she backed away from the ledge. My heart hurt for her as she was on the receiving end of neglect, disappointment, and feeling humiliated by her immediate supervisor. Just a few days later I received in the mail a flier from a local book store. When I saw The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People as one of the books highlighted, I stopped on my way into the office and purchased the last two copies.

Steven Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People states, “Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.” Gary Chapman of The 5 Love Languages fame has partnered with Paul White, a psychologist, speaker, and consultant who helps make work relationships work to offer a tool on how to encourage your co-workers/staff with intentionality and efficiency.

There is a distinct difference between recognition and appreciation. Recognition is about acknowledging behavior, improving performance which focuses on what is good for the company, and comes from the top down in an organization. Appreciation focuses on what’s good for the company AND affirms one’s value as a person which can be communicated in any direction – colleague to colleague, supervisor to team member, even team member to supervisor. Quoting a ton of research, they found that most people leave their positions not because of money (12%), but rather because of not feeling appreciated or valued (88%). (pg 35)

There are 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace.

1. Words of Affirmation – Global praise does very little to encourage (“I appreciate you.”), but specific verbal praise for a specific job well done, affirming one’s character, and praise for positive personality traits will make the difference. The greatest tragedy is while most people genuinely appreciate the people they work with, they often neglect to verbally, or on paper, express that appreciation. This might be your language of appreciation when words shared have an edge, are not personally affirming, and you feel ripped to pieces by the words that ARE shared. This the language of appreciation of my friend above because words can cut her to the quick. And they have.
2. Quality Time – If you enjoy people dropping by your office (or you dropping by theirs), sitting down in the chair, telling stories, checking on one another, this may be your primary language of appreciation. The key element to Quality Time is not proximity, but personal attention. “I don’t need a lot of time. All I really want is for someone to stop by my office occasionally and see how I’m doing. After five minutes, I’m bootin’ you because I’ve got a lot to do!” This might be your language of appreciation if you’re the one to coordinate “Taco Tuesday” with colleagues, enjoy quality conversations, weekly meetings, regular ‘touching base’, and shared experiences.
3. Acts of Service – When others reach out to help and assist in getting the job done, this may be your greatest language of appreciation. If you get twisted when someone agrees to take on something to help the team then leaves it unfinished or drops the ball, this is you…this is me. Argh! This is my language of appreciation. When we can share in the task for the good of the organization and everyone does their part, I feel appreciated and I feel a sense of camaraderie with the staff as a whole. I’m all about the team, the big picture with many hands and faces, and everyone on the same page in service.  This is why a team approach to VBS, Fall Gathering, summer camps, and even Sunday school thrills me to the bone. When someone volunteers or signs up to take on something, then completes what they’ve taken on, I’m doing the happy dance! This is me! #bettertogether
4. Tangible Gifts – Small items are given showing you know your staff personally. “Tangible Gifts is the least chosen language of appreciation through which individuals want to be shown appreciation. (6%)” This isn’t good news since most employee recognition programs put a heavy emphasis on ‘rewards.’  If your co-workers have an assortment (a LOT) of similar gifts on display all over their offices, this may be their language of appreciation. The greatest gift appreciated by most all staff? The gift of time. Time off. Permission to come in late or leave early. Having the freedom to take a longer lunch break. A supervisor trusting the staff member to get the job done without punching a clock. Comp time.
5. Physical Touch – Though many conversations around physical touch in the workplace is controversial, all touches are not created equal. Touches of spontaneous celebration (high five, fist bump, congratulatory handshakes, pats on the back, side hugs) and those which communicate care, concern, support, and empathy can all communicate a variety of positive messages in relationships: a sense of trust, connectedness, and caring.

Want to discover your co-worker’s or supervisor’s language of appreciation without taking the assessment? Observe what they ask for over time (What did you bring me? = tangible gifts) AND listen to their complaints (How are they most easily offended, hurt, frustrated, disappointed?).

“In our work with church staff members and individuals who work for other non-church ministries, we consistently find a deep hunger for appreciation. These people are not looking for financial reward and rarely desire high levels of praise. But they honestly express the need to be appreciated for their time and efforts.  When appreciation is not forthcoming, they often become discouraged.  In fact, In our research on toxic workplaces, we sadly found churches and ministries to be over-represented, ‘missing the mark’ in their efforts to show appreciation.” (page 191)

Regardless of your position within your organization, you can make a world of difference in your organizational world by beginning to encourage and show appreciation to your colleagues and supervisors. What will you do this week to start the process?

“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14

The insight reports share that most of the students in my immediate community are 2nd grade and older which inspired us to begin CLUB345 for 3rd-5th graders six years ago. The 2017 CLUB345 theme came from Children’s Ministry Deals presenting the life of King David in colors. Each night we gathered with a color theme matching the life of David. We’ve been waiting all year for this very night to close out the 2016-2017 school season with our CLUB345 families.

We were blown away at the generosity of Team Smith who provided a taco bar with lots of color for family dinner for us all. Each fifth grader was presented with our traditional parting gift of their first names in scriptures that are timely for wisdom and continuing to grow in the knowledge of our great God. 5×7 frames come from Amazon, decorated lunch bags serve as the background, and a long list of scriptures collected over the years make for an inexpensive yet personal gift for each fifth grader. If you’d like the list of scriptures, send me an email at dedereilly@comcast.net.

Families went on a color scavenger hunt – gotta fit in the white lunch bag and can only collect from the children’s hallway. THEN, 20 seconds to return it all! Afterwards, it’s outside to play our two favorite games: the shoe game and a pool noodle sword game.

Amazon offers a Color Powder Party Box we ordered in January for around $50 for fun beyond belief, then continued the messiness with kiddy pools filled with water and Dollar Tree water shooters. Our BEST idea was to put out on social media a request for a free, amateur photographer to take the photos. Mamas weren’t getting anywhere near the color powders and we wanted colorful photos to use for the remainder of the summer for various purposes. Ms. Martha took AMAZING photos and had a dvd dropped off at my office door before I arrived with keys at 9am on Monday.

The littles in the family got a chance to play with ‘the big kids’ and it is the best thing we do to build their excitement for when they start third grade.

“The end of a thing is better than it’s beginning.” Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV

It saddens me to see a season end, but thrilled to see how God will use His young disciples I have watched grow in their knowledge of Him and personal history with Him. We just celebrated the end of the season for CLUB345. These are our 3rd – 5th graders, so I technically get to play and pray with them for three years before they head off into middle school youth group, confirmation, and beyond.

We meet on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month from August through April. The schedule looks like this: 5-5:30 snack meal, 5:30-6 games, 6-6:30 lesson, 6:30-7 response activity. This year we used Abingdon Press’ Live It! curriculum on Family (last fall) and Making A Difference in the World (this spring). We’ve had special guests who are ministry colleagues who actively engage the students with their toolbox of goodies relating to something they are passionate about. We’ve gone on field trips to other local churches and had them come to ours to give our kids a ‘big experience’ that is always more fun with more, giving them the experiences of our connected system.

We just celebrated our last night of the season with a special guest who spoke of ‘what we need to live’ and we prepared and learned about UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief) Sewing Kits. We ate dinner from a taco bar and enjoyed what we call, Wesley Chapel’s Got Talent when any of the students are free to perform a talent.  We even had one juggling this year!  We invite the youth to attend the talent show and then make a presentation of a gift.

The gift is a framed copy of their name in scripture.  I purchased the inexpensive frames from IKEA (3 to a bag) through Amazon.  Then used gift bags purchased from Hobby Lobby for the background using my handy-dandy paper cutter.

I have a huge list of scriptures that I’ve gathered over the years to copy and paste that begin with each letter of the alphabet, some with multiple scriptures because the letter is used multiple times. I choose the ones I think offer wisdom and hope as they enter middle school.  If you’d like a copy of the list, send me an email to dedereilly@comcast.net.

For 2017: Our end-of-year celebration will look like Color Wars at camp since we learned about the life of David with Crayons. I also ordered black frames from Amazon to order in larger quantities and they look fabulous!

What do you do for the end of the season?

“The end of a thing is better than it’s beginning.” Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV

It takes a lot of courage for lay and clergy leadership in a church to invite consultants in the house. A humble spirit of “Yes, I’m willing to allow fresh eyes on my spiritual heart and my physical presence,” doesn’t speak of failure or defeat. Rather it speaks of a rumbling of the Holy Spirit within the Body of Christ that says, “We want different God-honoring results, so we have to be willing to do something different. And we need a little help with knowing some ways to do it differently.” I get to do that in the area of ministry to children through a great group, Proactive Ministries (https://www.facebook.com/Proactive.Ministries.)

In the words of Rick Chromey, author of Energizing Children’s Ministry in the Smaller Church, he calls it an opportunity to stand as a guide from the side, rather than a sage from the stage. This guide-from-the-side spent last weekend with a church that needed some ideas to market their ministries to little people.

I totally get those folks in the local church who express displeasure with marketing ministry like “the world.” But if our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, we gotta have kids to make disciples of. We have to get them in the door. I am shameless for what I love. I love Jesus and I love the local church. I am a shameless promoter of both.

Last week I spent a few days with a precious church in east Texas who graciously invited me to share in that particular area. The personal coaching time I shared with the current KidMin Director probably looked more like throwing a huge pot of spaghetti against the wall and hoping something stuck. It’s been my experience that marketing and promoting opportunities for kids to grow, tell, serve, worship, and belong with the goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ is worth it’s own strategies, and maybe it’s own budget line-item. Here are just a few of what we came up with…

– Pray for “more”.

– Ask other groups in the church to pray for “more,” especially the saints of the church who gather for prayer meetings.

– Pick one or two opportunities as a focus each month to promote. Even the ones that take place all the time, like Sunday School, need a time of promoting.

– On the church’s website or web presence, know that new people recognize what a church sees as important by the order in which the staff are listed. Any staff specific to children must be close to the top. The photo needs to make him/her look attractive, kid friendly, and the bio should express who he/she is, not just what they do.  New parents want to know who is on the bus with them as they travel the roads of spiritual parenting.

– The job description of the person responsible for KidMin in the smaller church should include a large percentage of his/her time in marketing, promoting, and communicating what’s going on. It’s been my experience that smaller churches hire their super volunteer who are the hands and feet of the ministry.  But smaller churches really need a mouth to move to the next level. Shamelessly promoting any experience to my kids takes about 25-30% of my time each week.

– Coordinate open-house-like field trips, aka meet and greet opportunities, a couple times of year, especially if the children’s area is distant from the tall people areas. We use Pentacost Sunday at WC with the kids and youth inviting every Sunday School class or other small group to a birthday breakfast in the gym during the Sunday School hour to bump elbows, as one opportunity.  The kids do the decorating, setting up, cleaning up, and we teach them how to “work the room.”

– Prioritize website, bulletin, and before/after service PowerPoint slides with photos to include children and youth.

– Offer a photo and facebook release to be signed by parents/grandparents so the families will be expecting to see these photos among the promotional materials.

– Access support to develop a KidMin Info board in the main hallway to highlight 1-2 major focuses for each month, but not everything…visual overload makes it hard for someone to find the info they need about a special opportunity/event. Make it big and colorful, but visually easy to get the info while walking past.  A Mom with a toddler hanging on her leg and an infant on her hip with two diaper bags doesn’t have time to read everything on her way to the nursery or to the car, so we need to make it easy for her.

– Acquire and use acrylic folder stands to display flyers for the next major “community invite” event and place on any table where a group meets, i.e. Sunday School, scouts, coffee pot, Weight Watchers, conference room, library, etc.

– Expand postcard ministry for all children and families related, even distantly, to the church (preschool, scouts, basketball league, Sunday School, VBS, special event – have a “guess how many” location at each event where someone gives you his/her name and email, etc.)  Postage and professional looking postcards cost money (though they can be purchased inexpensively online) and a budget for marketing will give permission to the KidMin Director to do just that.

– Sandwich board promotion in the hallways enlisting youth to wear and walk around without saying a word.

– Increase personal touches and communication to any paid staff who support other community ministry to little people (preschool, daycare, etc.)

– Introduce and communicate to the church family who is serving in the children’s areas through photos, newsletters, bulletin boards, etc.

– Address church-wide publicity such as name of the church van, signage outside, signage inside.

– Engage in regular, frequent (at least quarterly) opportunities to collaborate with everyone involved with ministries to children (preschool, Sunday School, VBS, music, etc.) to develop relationships and guide decision-making, shared resources, written/verbal/image-driven cross promotion opportunities.

– Plan for special Sundays when the kids are on stage in big church (scouts, preschool, choir, worship art exhibit, etc.) at least quarterly.

– Prepare fliers to go to all the nearby daycares and education centers.

– Encourage 2-4 “all hands on deck” community-invite experiences, or piggy-back with like opportunities already on the calendar, that offer elbow-bumping between those already in the church and those we are inviting.

– Quarterly emails of upcoming “specials” to everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, on your email list.

– Photos and teasers in newsletters.

– Photos and teasers on facebook pages (yours personally AND everywhere you can).

– Announce it from the pulpit.

– Put it in the bulletin (did you notice where this made the list?)

What else would you do?

“Jesus said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.'”  Mark 10:14