“The local church has adopted the language of our education system, but not the practices,” said Rev. Jeremy Bannister at the Discipleship Begins at Home online conference. He goes on to share that our school system has metrics to measure academic standards, regular conditioning for team sports, and accountability measures for every extracurricular commitment our families engage in, but not discipleship and followership of Jesus.

As leaders in the local church our job is to equip the saints to do the good work of following Jesus and making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Parents and grandparents are on the front line. Parents and grandparents know their desired outcome: for their kids to love Jesus with their whole hearts for their whole lives. It’s up to us, the Christian education professionals, to give them the tools and the metrics of what is developmentally appropriate and be honest about what it’ll take.

Be honest that one hour of Sunday school will never be enough to learn the skills necessary to beat the devil and grow a robust faith over the other 167 hours of a week.

Be honest that most Sunday school curricula offers the basic foundation of God made you and Jesus loves you over and over and over again. Repeated every year. Year after year. This will not nurture a robust faith able to engage with a loud and angry culture coming at them through every means possible.

Be honest that some parents and grandparents haven’t been trained in their own discipleship with the same standards, commitment, and metrics to confidently know what will make a hill of beans by the time their child walks across the graduation stage for that 12-year diploma or takes on their first job with a Godly resilience.

Be honest that we can do our own discipleship better by modeling our own consistent holy habits of systematic Bible reading, tithing, serving the world for the greater good, engaging in robust conversation by asking good questions, and not forsaking gathering together in Christian community in ways beyond what our jobs require.

Be honest to ask ourselves, “If every disciple of Jesus is just like me, where will God’s kingdom be here on earth?”

This is the good news. There’s no time like the present to get started.

Prayerfully consider an accountability partner to begin reading the Bible in a systematic way. How can you teach from a textbook when you haven’t experienced it as a whole to be reasonable and applicable? 

Tip: Once a child begins reading chapter books, they can read a chapter of the Bible. Not as a study, but to read. Read to learn the whole Jesus story, to learn the language of our Creator, and to recognize the voice of our good shepherd. Read the book aloud. Find an easy-reader Bible and just read. If a full bible, begin in Luke because it’s a narrative. Dr. Luke wrote what he researched from eye witnesses.

The Next Generations Ministries offers a a fabulous Discipleship for Life edition of metrics for developmentally appropriate holy habit practices beginning at birth-one year old and every year following. Not in a legalistic, check off the box way, but a gentle reminder of what starting and continuing looks like for a disciple of Jesus. They also have a 5-year plan for students and adults who haven’t begun the Discipleship for Life edition for an intentional start or re-start. These resources were shared at the Discipleship Begins at Home conference. I’ve been able to roll some of these out easily and effectively.

Prayerfully consider along with your significant other how you can grow into regular, systematic tithing. 

Prayerfully consider who you’d like to spend time with (someone older and more spiritually mature) and invite him/her to co-lead a small group Bible study for the fall. There are three seasons for small group Bible study: fall, winter/spring, summer. You will grow in deeper relationships, sacred conversations, and Biblical wisdom in community with healthy accountability. If you’re a young-married, co-lead with another who has been married for a long time. If you’re a mom, find a mom further down the road and more mature in her walk to co-lead. If you’re a more-mature, find a younger to co-lead with.

Prayerfully consider offering parents and grandparents this fall a couple of metrics for daily (Bible reading, prayer), weekly (fellowship, giving), monthly (service) soul training to be experienced at home, along the road, at the table, with conversation prompts to grow a healthy confidence in discipleship. Offer a Parenting With A Purpose class to roll it out, then follow it up with, “How’s it going?”

So. How’s it going?

“May I stand before the throne of God able to say, “Lord Jesus, I did everything I could do to make sure my children are well-founded in the person of Christ.” – Rev. Jeremy Bannister, Discipleship Begins at Home Conference, http://www.TheNextGenerationMinistries.com 

When I downloaded Kevin Williams’ book, Irrational Kindness, I didn’t anticipate the fire it would ignite in me. Kevin is the franchise operator of three Chick-fil-As in my town. We knew each other years ago as parents and active members of our home church located in nearby Woodstock, Georgia.

I always knew him as joyful, reflective, kind, over-the-top generous, and Mr. Positivity. His book did not disappoint. He reads the stories on Audible of his successes, failures, family road trips, driven competition, and experiences through a faith-in-Jesus lens and laugh-out-loud ridiculousness. The book is an absolute delight. He shared of his grandparents, his family, his Chick-fil-A Canton team, and shines the light on so many people in a Forrest Gump kinda way that he is not the focus, only the thread of all of these experiences of irrational no-holding-back, all-in plays. I was so inspired I went directly to one of the restaurants and purchased almost 20 books to give away to kidmin champions and colleagues at my local church and in my kidmin network before I even finished listening to the Audible version. In true irrational kindness and super generous fashion, each book was personally signed and included two stickers along with a gift card for a free sandwich.

Irrational behavior is ‘one of the most difficult behaviors to deal with. When someone is being irrational, they don’t listen to reason, logic, or even common sense…And until that need is fulfilled, or they snap out of it, the irrational person can be unpredictable and sometimes even dangerous.’

I was so inspired, I called a friend who is accustomed to my ‘I’ve got an idea’ and the Irrational Taco Tour began to take shape.

Every local church I have ever known has a nearby, favorite place for Taco Tuesday. Inspired by Kevin, I look at the faithful disciples leading littles and their bigs in the local church as needing a shot of irrational behavior in their lives, so we’re headed their way.

We set up a Google form with some basic questions like name, church name, district in North Georgia, and the address of their local taco joint. There are 8 districts in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. We had 9 responses within the first 6 hours with all districts represented.

Yeah, we’re doing this! 

With a copy of Kevin’s book in hand, some moustaches, sombrero headbands, and who ever wants to road trip from our district or picked up along the way, we’ll meet over a table for tacos with encouragement, no-fluff, irrational challenges to live out the life of an irrational disciple who has a platform, a local church, and influence to push through, grow resilience muscles, and make some noise for Jesus in their hometown.

This I know. Everyone wants a story. “A crazy pursuit of an extraordinary life,” writes Kevin. A big story. An Esther, Shadrach, John, Daniel story. I want stories of irrational behavior with Jesus friends who behave irrationally to love littles and their bigs to Jesus. 

Kevin writes, “Failure becomes opportunity. Frustration becomes persistence. Deformity becomes strength. Being last becomes being first. Old age becomes a second wind. Uncertainty becomes a chance to dream. Problems we can’t control become an invitation to start looking up to a big God who controls everything.”

I hope I never snap out of it!

What is inspiring you to pursue an irrational, extraordinary life? What are you doing about it? Who are you inviting on the journey?

Our first stop? Los Mezquites Mexican Grill in Adairsville!

Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” 

There has been a great deal of movement in the local church’s children’s ministry world. Relocations due to reset priorities, drastic budget changes, and the need for pioneers has opened and closed doors like nothing I’ve ever seen. Lots of open positions and a willingness to courageously grow into how we’re naturally bent has made for many conversations with clergy, laity, and staff from all over the country.

Last week I shared three areas of considerations for churches as they determine their goals for the next 1-3 years. You can read about that here.

I closed with “Realistic and reasonable expectations make for a much more enjoyable workplace. Hiring new and retaining effective staff is a disciple-making opportunity, and we must always be looking for ways to make the experience better. Next week I’ll share more about hiring a pioneer and the most important question every candidate should ask.”

Are you looking for a pioneer who enjoys starting things? Are you willing to give them the parameters and be okay with letting them creatively hit the ground running? Or are you looking for typical children’s programming? Not everyone can live and work with a pioneer, an innovator, but would prefer a project manager. No judgement here, but don’t be disappointed when a new hire isn’t both a pioneer and a project manager unless they are very experienced and have stories and evidence of such. 

When hiring a pioneer, clearly communicate shared goals, shared resources, walk alongside in the areas of your giftedness and skillset, and help unruffle feathers. Inform your pioneer that it’s okay to network, get the lay of the land, and build relationships in the first three months, six months, and touch base often both informally and formally. Offer a weekly standing meeting to be informed, offer encouragement, and coach him/her without micromanaging.

Coaching is involved in everything. What is the senior pastor or supervisor willing to coach and what are they not? Remember that people don’t quit their jobs as much as they quit their supervisors. Do your best to set up everyone to win in a candidate’s giftedness and natural bent. A teachable spirit on all fronts and clearly communicated parameters can stop the cut of stained glass beforehand. Hiring and leading staff is discipleship work. How patient are you?  It’s unrealistic to think you are hiring for a lifetime. Churches, decide what you want for the next three years and start there.

One of the best questions a candidate can ask of their future/current supervisor and the senior pastor is, “Who is the best children’s ministry person you’ve ever worked with?”  Wait, then follow up with, “What made them so great?” The first couple of statements shared right here are the lens through which the candidate/staff member will be quickly measured and these are hardly ever part of the job description. Clarity is an expression of love. Your first response bears the greatest weight.

Consider a lead in children’s ministry to be a ministry with families instead. From the research coming out of the parents we serve today (this changes every 5 years), families want to share experiences especially as kids get older whether it’s on the ball field, Disney World, camping, or faith formation in the local church and along their way. Equipping parents and grandparents to love their kids to Jesus as they go, wherever they go is what they’re asking for. And it’s what God had in mind all along. Deuteronomy 6. We’ve either gotten really good at this over the last year or we’d better start. Parents want their kids to belong, be known by name, and no longer entertained in a herd. Large group is amazing, but it’s in the small group setting where kids are known and can chat about the life questions they are wrestling with, dwell on, and take up space in their heads and hearts. They want and need to build deep relationships with people who will model what loving Jesus looks like, sounds like, and acts like. Kids drive where their families will go, but they don’t drive. Let nothing happen that doesn’t not engage minds and hearts to love Jesus and God’s Word more with the whole family in mind. 

If I could relive my life, I would devote my entire ministry to reaching children for God. -D.L. Moody

On August 1st, I’ll celebrate 4 years serving in full-time ministry with children on staff at my local church. I’ll also be celebrating 31 years in professional Christian education in the local church from south Louisiana, New England, and the southeast. Of all the seasons of ministry I’ve experienced, THIS season is definitely the one for which I was truly created. God’s faithfulness, His word, and the saints of seven local churches have modeled pioneering discipleship and Godly relationship for this follower’s life.

Ministry with children is done best in community as equippers of the saints. Parents and grandparents are the saints and God-ordained disciple-makers. They are the true heroes, the cape-wearers, the torch-bearers in ministry with children and families. Yeah, we can make a VBS happen, but how will we do THAT? Our Heavenly Father has only invited us to play in His sandbox. 

I’ve got my shovel.  Insert the confetti cannons!

“The idea of changing the world is utter nonsense…unless you’re a children’s pastor, then it may be possible.” – Roger Fields

Hiring a Lead in ministry with children used to be about hiring a teacher with creative decorating skills, training in behavior management, and a Vacation Bible School coordinator. Not anymore.

In my conversations with search teams and pastors over the last few weeks, these have been just a few of the questions we have chatted about…

Do you live in the community? If the pastor’s answer is YES, then it opens the door to consider an experienced candidate who is a connector who may commute. If the lead is expected to pull daily office hours, a commuter won’t fit. Ask what would it take for the hired lead to be trusted to get the job done without daily office hours? Everyone wants someone with experience, but what kind of experience would permit him/her to work from a home office at least one day each week? I commute an hour plus from my home to the church building, typically three days per week, but I connect by phone, social media, email and more, plan, research, collaborate, and learn all the other days, except Friday Sabbath, at tables all over the place including the home office.

If the pastor does not live in the local church community, then it would be wiser to hire someone who does. It’s important to have someone on staff living in the community the church serves. That person will know the rhythm of the community, attend the local school meetings, the cross country meets, and will know the holiday parade schedule, among all the things which make that community special. They’ll know how the community shops, drives, vacations, learns, and plays. 

Hint: Go to the next couple of PTA meetings and watch who ‘works the room’, chats with lots of people with a resting face of ‘joy’, or has great kids who enjoy being in groups of people.

Story: An innovative kidmin lead was hired from a school event as she worked the room. It was discovered she was a connector who ran local political campaigns which made for a perfect fit for a new church start’s children’s ministry. She earned a Christian education certificate to get the theology part down. After 3-4 years she handed off a healthy, vibrant ministry and a new kidmin church building to a supportive church when she moved on to pioneer a new endeavor. I learned so much from her about marketing, packaging, vocabulary, and sustainable energy.

As the local church’s head disciple-maker, as clergy, willing to teach someone how to do ministry? Not as a micro-manager, but would you be willing to hire a networker personality and not be annoyed because they don’t yet know how to build a ministry budget? The amazing kidmin community of the North Georgia UMC Conference can walk alongside a teachable networker to build a candidate’s skillset like budgeting, calendar management, collaboration, Safe Sanctuary, curriculum decisions, and more. There are some skills a kidmin lead will need to be part of his/her nature like connecting outside their department/local church with other ministry leads, making new friends, team building/recruiting, gratitude, helpfulness, communication clarity, a learner, generosity, a great sense of humor, trustworthiness, a desire for other disciples to succeed, to equip the saints to do the ministry of the church, goal setting, and loving people. There is a big difference between event-planning and really loving people to Jesus. Skills are important, but personality traits may be more important. Know what the pastor team can teach, what he/she is willing to teach, and what will annoy the daylights out of them to teach. 

Hint: Whatever the job description in your hand, it’s outdated. Post-COVID has set the pace and priorities of families we serve on it’s head. 

Look at the printed job description understanding there may be too much to ask of one person, especially from the get-go. Be okay with a dream list of tasks. It may be more reasonable to bullet-point the top, most important 5-10 tasks from which to grow the job description with the natural giftedness/bent a candidate can bring to the table. You’ll be surprised at what could be fabulous. Evaluate and check-in from those items every 30-60 days. Let the job description grow into the ministry you dream about for the future for your families. I re-evaluate my job description every January because a healthy ministry is always growing and changing to the audience we serve. Read more about that here.

Hard question: Do you really want your kidmin to look just like the one that can be found at every other church? When a person serves the local church in their natural giftedness and bent, what could burnout one person might just energize another. 

What are the three most important things that have to happen in your context within the next year if the church were to start from scratch? – VBS? Christmas Eve kid’s service? Sunday morning numbers? Midweek? New people? Retention of volunteers? Folks on-ramping in the kid’s area then getting connected in another? Full programming (whatever that means)? Returning numbers? New numbers?

What about the first 90-days? – connecting with a monthly networking group, already engaging social media, in-person detail, evangelism (be specific with a definition), mission (defined), a clean database, priority programming, marketing, event planning, reading a book on ministry systems?

Hint: Break down your church year into quarters. What has to happen in that quarter no matter what? It may not look like an event to plan, but a opportunity to piggy-back, partner, share, and not even on a Sunday.  This is especially helpful with a small to mid-size church when resources feel more limited and you will need whole-church buy-in.

This we know:

There is lots of movement this year. Hardly anything moved last year due to COVID, so if nothing else, this year seems extra.

• COVID has caused people to reassess their priorities, so people are relocating into and out of the area. Use all the means possible, not just church staffing sites, to post the position and network, network, network.
• There are lots of open positions, many of them part-time in smaller to mid-size churches. That’s okay. Our current societal structure encourages side-hustles. You’d be surprised at the work and elegant art that can be attended to with excellence by someone trained in other fields like counseling, teaching, preschool, real estate, etc. which can rock the church house in growing a ministry with families.
• Consider hiring for a period of one-year, then reassess. 
• Require networking and specific continuing education as part of the job and allow time for it.

What else?

Realistic and reasonable expectations make for a much more enjoyable workplace. Hiring new staff is a disciple-making opportunity, and we must always be looking for ways to make the experience better. Next week I’ll share more about hiring a pioneer and the most important question every candidate should ask. 

Other Resources:
UM Discipleship Ministries: Recommendations for Hiring a Children’s Ministry Director
HR Daily Advisor: How to Spot Talent
StartChurch: Hiring Church Staff
8 Truths of Hiring Church Staff

We were flying by the seat of our pants last summer when we came up with the summer drive-in services. Our goal was to offer a weekly gathering of developmentally appropriate faith formation experiences for littles with their bigs in the vehicle so that our community wouldn’t grow accustomed to doing life without us, the local church.

Each week was a theme, a Jesus story, games to build visual, sticky memories for kids, and short teachings, with practice, for bigs to lead their littles in the holy habits of prayer, conversation, music, service, and play. At the end of the summer, we offered weekly camp chair meetings on Thursday evenings and Sunday morning programming in the parking lot. Still doing whatever it took for our families to not grow accustomed to doing life without us.

With the incredible fruitfulness of last summer of new families becoming active in our local church and already-connected-families growing more in relationship with each other and the local church, we chose to continue the summer drive-in services in 2021 in place of the typical vacation Bible school with edited criteria in mind: 

1. Summer-long theme of We Are Family 
2. Celebrate different members of our families
3. Invite other ministries to be highlighted by serving and speaking each Thursday

The drive-in services we saw were for adults with kids in the car. Ours was for kids with adults in the car. 20-30 minutes in length (because it’s hot and considering the attention span of a little), at 6pm and 7pm (because families have different schedules), every Thursday rain or shine (because families need dependable and trustworthy expectations), and we just provide the environment (big visuals, kids want to come, parents/grandparents are the heroes, and we are just the coaches).

All of these have hit the mark. 

It’s the bonuses which have helped us sharpen our intentions moving forward:

1. Every week we have new families.
2. Every week our families are inviting other families.
3. Every week we have purposeful intergenerational relationships growing through service similar, but greater than, a week-long VBS.
4. Every week we have current ministries growing because they’ve had a new platform to introduce and ‘work the parking lot’ in extravagant hospitality with the community.
5. Every week we have new servant leaders joining the children’s ministry team as they learn we are prepared, organized, have trustworthy systems, are irrational in hospitality and innovative faith formation. And we laugh our heads off.

What’s next? 

An innovation ideation team has formed to add to our Faith Milestone initiative… Faith Milestone: I Can Worship With My Family. 

We’ll start by bringing in the developmentally appropriate faith formation experiences of the summer to an indoor space filled with visually traditional elements for the first Sundays in October and December. Both Sundays lend themselves to intentionally using all five senses (World Communion, Advent). 

Resources we’ve studied include…

Mark Burrow’s Children First at Ft. Worth
First UMC, Sadie Wolfhart’s Children’s First in Bentonville, Arkansas, and Kevin Johnson’s UMC Discipleship webinar.
Children First: Worshipping with the Family

In answer to, “What’s in our hand?”, we have the original sanctuary we can use to make a small group feel like critical mass. We will have Ambassadors leading different elements, American sign language for the Apostle’s Creed and Gloria Patri, irrational hospitality by our families intentionally inviting another family they share life with to experience worship as a family. It’ll be an intentional on-ramp to what our much larger sanctuary service offers in the weeks immediately following the Faith Milestone. Other Faith Milestones are already in place, so this would be a place to practice all of those in a teaching environment for little people. Intergenerational in message delivery, doctrinally-sound energetic song choices with motions upper elementary kids will love, and in 45 minutes. With color and interactive throughout, older kids will serve, little kids will learn, new families to our rituals will share in the experience so that we learn in a safe setting not just that we gather but why we gather: Jesus.

All discipleship programming should offer an onramp or an invite to take the next step in discipleship, another relationship within the local church. How has your summer discipleship programming made a way for families to take their next steps in your faith community?

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your  mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:18

It’s impossible to survey kids. I’ve tried. From cries of, “How do you spell….?” and the look of test anxiety on the faces of my littles, typical surveys are not helpful.

But I need to know some things. I need to know if what we’re doing is sticking. I need to know if the vocabulary we’re using is sticking. I need to know what they’re feeling about a few things. I need to know if we are on target or just a clanging cymbal. I need to know how we are missing the mark. I need to know who they know. I need to know from their minds and hearts and not just those who represent them.

As part of a Why We Worship lesson….

We worship because we’re wired to worship. We can’t get away from it. We will worship something, so how do we stay the course to worship God, our Creator, Jesus, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, Teacher, and Great Remind-er over and above all other things? We practice holy habits! One holy habit we do to stay the course of worshiping the Lord is to gather every week at the local church. We need the at-least-weekly reminder that we’re better together. Anything we do, think, or say which tells the Lord, “I love you!” is worship.

…we posted five jumbo post-it notes along the walls with five questions. Ambassadors distributed golf pencils. Ambassadors were partnered with kindergarten and first grade students to help with spelling, and relationship-building. Then we set them loose to give us their answers. 

These were the five questions:

What do you HEAR at church? 

Where do you GO at church? 

What do you SEE at church? 

How do you FEEL at church? 

WHO do you know at church? Kids were instructed to write the name(s) of anyone they only see or talk to at church.

This survey exercise was fun, hopeful, encouraging, surprising, and made us smile. The jumbo post-it notes are now hanging on the church staff hallway for fun, hope, encouragement, and their delight. We did indeed get the information we needed and then some. 

How do you survey your kids? What do you need to know?

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