Brooke Barksdale serves the families and community of Marietta First United Methodist Church as the Associate Director of Children’s Ministry. She leads Wonderfully Made: Loved by God programs and co-leads the Bible study component of the annual Rock Solid 5th Grade Retreat held at Camp Glisson in Dahlonega, Georgia for the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. She’s a wife, mom, daughter, friend, disciple-maker, and a great teacher.

In her own words, Brooke rocks it at “Coffee, postcards and thank you cards, engaging Bible studies for upper elementary, willing to be a whole lot of EXTRA for Jesus and food – maybe not preparing it or serving it, but definitely great at gathering around it to network and collaborate and listen and learn!”

When asked to offer her top five hacks/tips for adding EXTRA for Jesus with upper elementary disciples, she shared…

#1 Go big and fun!! They are kids – play games, do crafts, but tie in that deeper meaning.

#2 Be silly and loud and over the top in your presentation – when they see I am so sold out for Jesus that kind of joy and excitement is contagious! That excitement and contagiousness applies to adult volunteers, as well.

#3 Don’t underestimate upper elementary kids. They are dealing with some deep problems themselves so don’t think they aren’t willing to go deeper or have meatier conversations. 

#4 Provide opportunities every time you’re together for small group conversations. If you always meet in one room for large group, create smaller turn-and-talk environments. 

#5 Incorporate worship when you gather. This is the age where they begin to learn there are so many ways to give praise, thanks, and love to God Almighty! If you can have a volunteer provide live music that is awesome, but if you sing along to a CD or a YouTube video that’s great, as well. Encourage the expression of worship as singing, dancing, moving, waving arms, or just reading the words and the lyrics to yourself in your head. As a leader, if this isn’t your comfort zone, get out of it! This is where kids see the adults around them model that it’s okay to lift hands or stand still, but always be 100% in for worshipping God! 

Brooke went on to write, “I could talk more about specifics of the curriculum, but it’s your enthusiasm and how you present anything that is going to get the kids hooked and sold.” 

If you’d like to learn more, reach out to Brooke Barksdale on social media or by emailing brookebarksdale@marriettafumc.org 

Grandparents hold a special place in the hearts of the grandchildren. It goes both ways. Grandparents are part of God’s continuing plan to grow up disciples of His son Jesus. Take a look at Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78 to get a small glimpse of that plan.

We are leveraging that relationship and intentionally helping with a Grandparent’s toolbox to share their faith through a closed Facebook group entitled Faith Grandparenting and four in-person opportunities each year to share stories and resources to help them along their way we call Grandparenting With A Purpose. “You cannot be a Christian family if you are not a disciple-making family, because your family can’t truly follow Christ if you are not doing what Christ commanded – trying to become more and more like Him and leading others to do the same.” (Family Discipleship by Chandler & Griffin)

Last week’s Grandparenting With A Purpose: Holiday Edition, shared in-person and through a Facebook Live event on the closed Faith Grandparenting Facebook group, was a very special time to share life and some great ideas.

We serve a God of celebration! Through festivals, special food, visuals, decorations, and community we stop and remember the faithfulness of God: Passover, Festival of Tabernacles, Feast of Purim, Harvest time, Holy Communion. We celebrate with our five senses with special sights (lights, tablescapes, decorations), smells (food, spaces, candles), sounds (music, words), tastes (food), and touch (clothing, expressions of affection). Traditions offer rhythms for connection and belonging for which we are wired by our Creator.

Holidays like…
Thanksgiving – table cloth with names of who has shared the Thanksgiving table over the years; favorite foods and the magic of the “how” to make it; handwritten recipes and sharing the faith of the ones who started the family recipe.
Christmas – Ask “What three things will make Christmas Christmas?”; three gifts (Magi)
New Year’s – Do overs; time capsules; goals for physical, spiritual, family faith experiences.
Mardi Gras – Looking for the baby (Baby Jesus) in a King Cake; masks (God knows all of our mysteries).
Valentine’s Day – The greatest love story in all the world is John 3:16.
St. Patrick’s Day – story of St. Patrick; the color green reminds us to ‘grow in our faith’ continually and discussion of how we will do that this spring.
Independence Day – visit patriotic/historic places and share the stories of the faith of our founding mothers (Harriett Tubman, Abigail Adams, Susanna Wesley) and Christian heritage (John & Charles Wesley, George Washington Carver, Jimmy Carter).

Milestones like…
Birthdays teach our kids to celebrate others. On #1 Son’s 16th birthday we collected gifts of tools from Godly men who wrote him notes of wisdom for the tool they gifted. On Baby Girl’s 16th birthday we collected letters of wisdom from Godly women, teachers, and local officials we knew who knew Jesus and compiled a ‘Book of Wisdom’ she carries with her to this day.
Anniversaries teach kids to revisit big family moments. We will share that #1 Son and his lovely wife went to church for worship on their first date after greeting her at the end of the preschool Sunday school class she was teaching.
Spiritual Birthdays – annual celebrations of making their decision to follow Jesus with a gift, donuts (life without Jesus is like a hole in the middle of your heart), balloons (God is round about His people), they tell their faith story of when they decided to follow Jesus and how they’ve grown in the last year as we prepared a plan to move forward in the next year.
Gotcha Day – celebrating when an adoption came through to become part of the family.
Driver’s License – hold a ‘blessing of the license’; laying on of hands and speaking truth of this new responsibility.
New Home – praying through each room before moving in; a New Year’s home blessing.

Moments like….
Rediscovering the wonder of the everyday – my granddaughter remembers me when she smells biscuits and bacon.
Time to linger – breathe & sip; chill & chat
Gifts of time – my step mother checked me out of high school just to take me to lunch and we talk about the great issues of my teenage life.
Gifts of words – handwritten notes; postcards; journals; recipes; scribe the scriptures; gift a Bible.
New skills – teach about tea; take a cooking class, power tool class; shadow a church saint (Baby Girl shadowed an ER nurse from her home church to discover if nursing was really what God was calling her to. It WAS!)

For those in-person, they enjoyed an ice breaker with The Visual Faith Project, took home confetti cannons and their own Share the Love Drive-thru bags of goodies we’d prepared for our Children’s Ministry drive-thru that had taken place the Sunday afternoon before.

If the average age of a first-time grandparent in the USA is 47, this is a demographic who is leaning into Christian Grandparenting with tenacity. These are amazing disciple-makers and I want to be on their team.

How else can you build up your grandparents with a purpose of intentionally sharing their faith with their grandchildren?

“We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done.” Psalm 78:4

Listen to this and other posts on the In The Trenches with DeDe Reilly podcast.

Choosing paint colors was supposed to be the biggest challenge of the project. Not even close. The biggest challenge of updating the children’s space at the local church I was serving was removing a small, 9X12 banner attached to a stairwell leading to the space. This small banner was brown (used to be white), hung from a stick (from the woods), with about 10 small painted hands. Think preschool art…hung 20 years ago…in a huge stairwell…taking up the center 5% of the space. This banner had no names and no one could tell me who the painted hands belonged to, but the pushback of removing that banner was fierce and loud. I had no idea that trying to do something new or doing a new thing would be a tipping point in my life about sacred cows and growing into a spiritual entrepreneur.

If ever there was a time when we can do things new and do new things in the local church, at work, and at home to further the cause of Jesus, it’s now. Yes, we will always have challenges, but “that’s the way we’ve always done it” is no longer one of them. If ever you had permission to do stuff differently or not at all, now’s the time.

When the Pandemic began last March, I learned about the Spanish Flu Pandemic in the early 1900s. It took America about 2 ½ years to cross over into a more relaxed pace of change. 2 ½ years. That’s a good time frame to look beyond the typical and expected, and just try stuff. It’s in the experimentation and editing to excellence where you’ll grow your innovation muscles.

Carey Neuhoff calls us ‘spiritual entrepreneurs’. Neuhoff reports that spiritual entrepreneurs have a radical determination. They’re wired for innovation and show an apostle-Paul-like fierceness fully understanding they will get push-back and more criticism than praise, even to the point of sabotage by really good people. Yes, we submit to the authority over us (Romans’ biblical mandate), but we know without a doubt that God is at work in the world and we want to be part of it.

A spiritual entrepreneur is a leader who pushes forward in a state of experimentation. They are driven to gather, equip, and mobilize God’s people to obediently make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world in innovative ways. A spiritual entrepreneur is a disciple of Jesus who sees opportunities instead of obstacles.

But what about the obstacles? Let’s go to the Bible.

From the first chapter of Genesis, we learn that creation is good and God is good. Being fruitful and multiplying is the charge of God upon Adam and Eve, and even Noah and his family. God made millions of things, for which only one was necessary, but the creativity of God is ‘to infinity and beyond’. As image-bearers of this good and creative God, we not only have permission, but a cultural mandate to develop things in excessive goodness.

What things? As followers of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, we are entrusted with the gospel of Jesus AND the giftings to make the good news of Jesus real in the areas of the world we live so that others will know Him, too.

Do you like starting stuff? I do! If ever there was a time to start new stuff or make some good stuff new, NOW is the time. All of those institutional and cultural systems like church only on Sunday or all large groups have to be done in the fellowship hall are no longer.

Doug Paul is a bi-vocational pastor and innovation strategist. He wrote the book, Ready or Not: Kingdom Innovation for a Brave New World published in, you guessed it, September 2020. He repeatedly offers that “Innovation is a skill you can learn, but it’s a spiritual process.” It’s a spiritual process, because it must bring glory to Jesus.

How to get started? Prayerfully ask good questions? Lots of questions of the people you are serving or want to serve. Make no assumptions, and ask even more questions. The best answers will come not from a paper survey, but questions asked in relationship.

As you are asking good questions, let this question be one you ask yourself of your world, “What’s in your hand?” God asked Moses this question at Mt. Sinai. Moses had plenty of excuses for not obeying the voice of God coming from the burning bush. But God wouldn’t let Moses go. The turning point? A good question: “What’s in our hand?”

Whether you are a Christian, grandparent, a parent, or on staff at your local church you have permission to creatively share the life and love of Jesus with those around you with what’s in your hand.

I challenge you to prayerfully consider using this time frame of 2 ½ years from last March to ask, “What’s in my hand?” and experiment in small increments of time like 60 days or 90 days. Prayerfully consider, because we are reminded in big John, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”

“I’m neither clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.” – Albert Einstein

Listen: In The Trenches podcast 

There are seasons when the decision-making takes on such a rapid pace that it helps to write a few down for accountability and clarity. Here are a few decisions I made last week:

Lead a small group in 2021
The church needs more teachers today to share the journey of following Jesus. Not more content, but rather coaches who can engage in robust conversation over the scriptures. I’ve partnered with a younger mom to co-lead James Bryan Smith’s A Good and Beautiful God. We will learn and practice weekly soul training which will direct us to become more like Jesus, not just learn about Him. We start on Thursday, January 20 at 11:30am-1pm to specifically target our preschool families and will offer it on zoom on Wednesday nights for our non-preschool friends.

Hang up only what is important
One of my bucket list items for Mr. Bob to consider retirement to do something different was to have the inside of our home painted…even the closets. What a hot mess! But I love our new alabaster white walls. As I rummage through the piles of what came off of our walls and out of the closets, we’re not putting up everything we took down. A whole lot is going into the basement because we are in a different season of life. Without going all Marie Kondo, we are only putting up what brings us joy, is a major part of our story, and what we want our grandchildren to recall as visual memories of Mimi & Pop’s house as they grow older. 

Stay the course in healthy habits as I follow that yonder star
I lost almost 100 pounds during quarantine. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I made a decision last January to be ready for whatever God had in store for me next, but I desperately needed to get healthy in my body, heart, and in my head. A friend who got healthy several years ago and kept it off coached me through a program which would compliment my schedule, my calling, and my temperament with some quick wins and a community of like-minded pilgrims. I made my own sausage for that Thanksgiving dressing with sour dough bread rather than white bread. I’m able to take stairs without needing oxygen and feeling much better about my testimony.

Pursue leading a podcast
Following beaucoup promptings and affirmations from my tribe, I will put out a podcast in the new year. Edited to less than 20 minutes, I want to hear how YOU are loving kids and families to Jesus in your local church and in the ultimate small group = your family. A silver, sparkly composition book is filling with practical ideas, names of children’s ministry champions serving in the trenches of the local church as well as those serving their families as grandparents prioritizing the sharing of their faith with their grands, and needs. “For with God, nothing is impossible.” Luke 1:37a

What decisions will you be making as you prepare for moving forward in your next steps of discipleship and serving your local church?

“But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5

When we sing together of the Lord and His great works, we are reminded of our common dreams, our common trust, our common beliefs that our God is an awesome God, He is mighty to save, and His grace is amazing how sweet the sound. Christians singing reminds us where we came from and to whom we belong. We share our beliefs in our great, creator God, our friend, savior Jesus, and our guide and comforter the Holy Spirit in shared lyrics, in rhythm. We etch these thoughts and beliefs in our memory banks because rhythm and long-term memory are right next to each other in our brains. Thank you, O great and wise Creator!

Our Bibles are filled with the songs of celebration and lament shared by God’s people. Of all the things that made it into Miriam’s backpack when she was told to pack to leave Egypt and head into the desert, she brought a tambourine. A quick evacuation was hardly the time to think of singing and dancing, yet she and a whole bunch of women thought to bring instruments for at some unknown point, they’d be singing before the Lord in praise and thanksgiving. They were right! An evil spirit took over King Saul until the boy David played his harp. The songs of a child kept evil spirits at bay! Acts 16 has Paul and Silas broken, bodies torn, chained, hungry, hurting, thirsty, dark, sore at midnight breaking into song to equip them to persevere. Colossians 3 reminds us to sing to one another of the Lord to teach and grow a heart of gratitude. When we sing, we are praying in rhythm from the depths of our souls and it pleases the Lord.

I know of small gatherings of Christians in this country who gather for worship and shut the blinds, turn off the lights, and pull their children close….just to sing praises to the Lord. They sing acapella because instruments are too loud and they’ll be heard, reported, arrested, fined, and imprisoned. This is not an act of rebellion, but rather a weekly measure of sustaining mental and spiritual health. Just think: entire genres of music have come out of human history of oppression, sorrow, disappointment, and despair to offer hope. Hope is felt when we sing these songs together.

Beth Moore wrote Entrusted: A Study of 2 Timothy in 2016. She teaches from 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, “This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” The word servants here comes from the Greek huperetes with hupo = under, beneath and eretes = a rower. Think of the third-tier rowers, the under-rowers, of those days were men crammed into the bottom of a sailing vessel rowing without knowing where they were headed, backs to the front, all moving in sync to a common destination, moved by the muscles of many in tandem without much light, weary, sweaty, in repetition, but moving onward against the tide, together. The speed and synchronicity of movement was set by song. A song sung at times by one, at times by some, and at times by all of the under-rowing sailors.

Singing in community is a super spreader of the pandemic and who knows what else. I confess it’s terribly awkward to sing in the living room or to a laptop. When I sing, I’m just loud unless I’m in community. Then I sound pretty good. Anyone else sound better in a choir or with others or is that just me?

If we, like Paul, profess to be slaves to Christ, we are under-rowers. I’ve got to sing! Beth Moore says, “Sometimes the song reminds us it’ll be worth the work.”

A dear friend who listens to me wrestle with these tensions said just last week, “My voice has changed because it’s not being used.”

I’m not sure I want to wave the banner of rebellion. I’m a rule follower and I submit to the authority over me. Like everything else, I must find a way to do it differently because that’s what love requires of me. I have committed to sing every day in my home, in my car, and with my family. I will encourage my ministry families to sing each day. I will do my best to do no harm, but I will sing….I must sing. My heart needs to sing, my head needs to hear the music shared with the saints who have gone before me, our children know there is joy in the home when Mama sings.

I’ve brought out my CDs from the 90s and early 2000s of gospel hymns, Amy Grant, Sandi Patty, Phillips, Craig & Dean, Michael W. Smith, 4Him, and Point of Grace. I know all the words and I can sing as loud as I want in my car with tears streaming down my face in ugly cry for these were my helps when I was teaching my own children the language of our shared faith. 

We are about to enter a season which is defined by bright lights, evergreens, the babe in a manger, and seasonal music. These words repeated year after year stick in our minds and hearts with personal memories attached and are filled with the language of our faith. The apostle Paul reminded the young Timothy to remain trained in the words, the language, of our faith. We have always used music as a vehicle to pass along the language of our faith in Jesus to littles. Music makes words and language sticky. Especially for littles. And if it’s good for littles, it’s good for everyone. It’s just going to look different.

I’m packing my tambourine….

“Standing on the promises of Christ my King, Through eternal ages let His praises ring; Glory in the highest I will shout and sing. Standing on the promises of God.”

“He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

“Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise His name; proclaim His salvation day after day.” Psalm 96:1-2

This season of intense yet innovative faith formation looks nothing like the job description I was given when I was originally hired. What about you? Each of us brings something more to the table once we get our sea legs under us after the first year. When we dock our fishing boat at a new harbor we are given that original job description, then we typically don’t see it again. Understanding church culture, I got into the habit of updating my job description, even if only for myself, each year in January.

In that update, I assign percentages of how much time it takes weekly to accomplish each task with many bullet points assigned “seasonal”. Each year we learn new skills, adjustments take place in organizational charts, new services or buildings or leadership are added to the mix. All affect how we live out our roles and the realistic time it takes. I’ve heard of churches making a person’s job description a one-liner, but it’s not been my experience. My one-liner might read, “to create safe, irresistible and transformational experiences for children to love the Lord their God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and love their neighbors as themselves for their whole lives.”

We are naive to think that local churches aren’t going to be making changes in the weeks and months to come. Changes in leadership, budgets, space, updates to organizational charts, processes, systems, security, safety, school schedules, all have a part to play in the rhythm of church world. Rather than waiting with anxious breath and fear taking up space in your head, take an hour this week to take a fresh look and edit your job description.

No one knows what you do, but you. Make it a matter of prayer and release your leadership from knowing all that you do or how long it takes to do it. They already have in their heads what you do and it’s not even close. In all fairness, we don’t know what all they do either, and that’s okay. Don’t get caught in the comparison trap or the weeds of disappointment.

I spent time with a dear Kidmin champion recently who lost her admin and her part-time hours were cut in half. There is no animosity. She gets it. Her only instruction for what she should focus on moving forward was, “Just pick something and do it really well.” Well, part of her original job description included Safe Sanctuary compliance for the entire church, all-church special events, as well as all family ministry education in addition to typical children’s ministry tasks. Just since March she’s added online weekly children’s moments which include script writing for others involved, weekly recording and editing film, coordinating weekly practices for online church, parking lot kids events, an online family ministry presence, personal visits and various connections to her volunteer team and her students. How does she just pick something?

Re-writing her job description of what she is doing before the cuts can help her partner with her leadership to choose and communicate priorities #1, #2, and #3 moving forward. It’ll give her and them a starting point to move forward to organizational health. They already have in their heads what #1 is. What if her #1 is their #52 or wasn’t even on their radar? Remember, the goal is organizational health. Her personal goal is ensure ‘surely goodness and mercy shall follow her all the days of her life,’ and wholeness. 

What are you doing and how long does it takes to do it? A fresh look at your job description will help. One way it’ll help is to see how far you’ve come, what you’ve learned, and the amazing way in which you have pivoted to continue sharing Jesus in fresh, new ways. Insert the well-earned confetti cannon here!

Where you are in September 2020 is way different than where you were in September 2019, and it’ll look differently in September 2021. Fix a cup of something warm and tasty and take an hour this week to update your job description, even if just for yourself. Editing your job description now will help you and your leadership prioritize when and if any adjustments need to be made in the future. 

You Just Gotta Know: Struggles and challenges look differently today. I’m standing in the gap for you. Perhaps you are facing your Esther moment, your Daniel moment. That moment when you feel a push to bravely speak up, wave the banner for your families with a louder voice, even fight for spaces and places to love your kids to Jesus. I’m standing in the gap in prayer and support for you. This blog post is the result of someone reaching out. I fully believe God wants to hang your picture in the gallery of faith between Hebrews 11 and 12. Can I help? Need a Mordecai or a Shadrach or Meshach to your Abednego? Let’s share the journey, the struggle, and the celebrations. You are in the World’s Toughest Race!  I’m on your team! Let’s give ’em something to talk about! If you can get to me, let’s do tea on my back porch. Who’s in? Reach out to dedereilly@comcast.net. 

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:3-6

Mr. Bob and I have just finished watching Amazon Prime’s World’s Toughest Race. 66 teams of five, four team members and an assistant, navigating over 500 kilometers/350 miles with nothing more than a map, a compass, and each other. Where the Ironman is an individual race, this is a team endeavor all the way. There are multiple checkpoints in the Eco-Challenge where they all engage in hiking, running, biking, swimming, paddle-boarding, repelling, rowing, sailing, rafting, climbing, and more all to be completed in eleven days hosted by Bear Grylls.

The co-ed teams are made up of various extreme sports athletes of various ages and stages in life. There is an 18 year old racing with his dad, a dad racing with his two daughters, men who have shared life in sports for more than 25 years, twin sisters, and even a dad with early onset Alzheimer’s racing with his son and two friends who is an icon in the Eco-Challenge community. The assistant team member provides clean clothes, racing equipment like mountain bikes, hot food, and all the cheering encouragement they have in them at each checkpoint to support the racing team members. Broken bones, concussions, cuts, boats falling apart in the dark, hypothermia, jungle rot, infections of every kind are treated by medical volunteers all along the way. If and when they cross the finish line the assistant team member is there to meet them and they cross over together. It takes planning, preparation, and sometimes sheer grit to finish the race. Their reward? A medal and I’m sure there’s a t-shirt in there somewhere. 

We in ministry with children and families are on the world’s toughest race. We are called to provide, secure, implement, and follow up the sharing of Jesus in multiple modalities, in multiple developmentally appropriate ways, in an unknown land, with nothing more than a map (Bible), a compass (prayer), and each other. Where many in the local church are just now trying to get their ministries off the ground after being on the sofa for almost six months, we’ve been at it like extreme athletes. We grieved for what was lost in April, we pivoted to build new servant-leader teams in May, we have the scars of repelling into summer on the sharp rocks in June, the weariness of rowing in rhythm in July, the hypothermia of frigid and frozen leadership in August, yet we continue to do what we didn’t even know we couldn’t do heading into fall.

Phone conversations with my peers this week included “I don’t want to be part of something that is dead,” “They called me and told me I share too many ideas in the staff zoom meeting, so I need to pull it back,” and “I feel I’m in a Whack-A-Mole game and all of my fellow staff members have a quarter.”

Hear me clearly….YOU were created for such a time as this! YOU were a Jesus-follower before you were a staff member, so you have permission to share the love of Jesus in whatever way possible on a personal level. Release any expectation you have for the people you are waiting to hear from. Really! Sing the song, “Let it go! Let it go!” Take a day and both grieve and celebrate the ministry you led before. Write it down. Look at the pictures. Then get up and go big by thinking small.

How do you go big by thinking small? Like the teams on The World’s Toughest race, there will be times to row, to climb, to swim, to hike, to bike, to eat, to rest, to keep going at multiple checkpoints in a new way. Keep moving. Only those who will speak life and live out innovation and creativity with a can-do, positive attitude and who are moving can speak into your life. Oh the eye-witness stories we have read and studied of that short season when Jesus led his closest disciples. He taught them, rebuked them, loved them, lived life with them, and died for them. We’ve been reading and studying those stories for two thousand years and people have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus because of them.

Jesus healed one at a time. Jesus taught most effectively in small groups. He walked. He slept. He ate. He laughed. He prayed. He took time alone, then because of His compassion, He lingered with the lonely, the wandering, and the lost.

For those in large churches…. think old school and lots of really small groups. Jesus’ smallest group was three: Two Sons of Thunder and the one who said, “Lord, if it’s you, call me out on the water.” A small group and in a small amount of time, they rocked the world for Jesus! No bells and whistles (technology). They used what was in their hands like fishing, stories of fiery furnaces, eye-witness testimony, a boy’s lunch, dreams and visions as they met along the way (parks, driveways, parking lots, text messages, phone calls, postcards, notes, and chalked neighborhoods.)

1. What’s in your hand? (Exodus 4:2)
2. Who’s on your team? (Matthew 18:20)

Sonja Wieck, a multi-Ironman competitor, heard about “the race that eats Ironman for breakfast.” She took it as a personal challenge. I won’t tell you what happened, but something she said stopped me in my tracks, “I was made to do hard things.” 

Because YOU love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart, soul, mind, and strength and love YOUR neighbor as yourself….. go into all the world and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. YOUR world. It’s not going to be easy, but you were called for such a time as this and you can do hard things especially among the remnant of the exiles.

The World’s Toughest Race is not easy and we run our race for so much more than a medal and a t-shirt. Just think of the stories of God’s faithfulness you will have doing hard things! Let’s give ’em something to talk about for years to come! Because WE WERE CREATED TO DO HARD THINGS. I’m on your team and I’m cheering you on! And I’ve just placed an order for new t-shirts.

“My zeal wears me out.” Psalm 119:139a

Liminal space is a crossing-over space. Limen, a Latin word, means threshold, doorstep, entrance. A liminal space is a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not fully in something else. Liminality has the quality of ambiguity, disorientation, the letting go of an end of one thing so you can get on with another, transition, waiting, and not knowing. 

The phone call was to ask for a kidmin creative champion to decorate a drive-thru space to honor the outgoing pastors. I asked several clarifying questions and made a suggestion about the traffic flow since our kidmin team had put on a successful drive-thru for our families for nine weeks of quarantine. His response, “You did? Y’all did a drive-thru for nine weeks?” Insert a head shake and heavy sigh here.

The brains and minds of everyone, EVERYONE, in your local church experienced quarantine in a shockingly fast way. They all, ALL, had their own life adjustments to deal with. So, how will they know what your work life and the fruitfulness of what your team has been doing since mid-March? It’s been my experience that when folks talk of re-launching church, their focus is on what will happen on Sunday morning in the worship space, but we all know that kidmin and family ministry takes place every day and Sunday is no longer game day.

Though quarantine has be upgraded to new terms like social distancing and masks mean love, we remain in a liminal space. But we are working. We are planning. We are living out our call to equip families. We have pivoted from grade-level in-person faith formation to family ministry at home. If my guy who considered himself an expert in all things of our church had no idea what we did the first nine weeks, how will he know? Are you ready to tell your stories? Let’s do this!

What do we tell?
Share the narrative with as few words as possible in numbers, names, lessons learned, a timeline, and stories. Offer links for more information either for social media, the church database, or wherever you’ve told your stories. Tell why you chose certain days, responses, and grew or adjusted your team. What does your typical week look like now? If you are responsible for Safe Sanctuary or other ‘all-skate’ areas in your role on staff, tell that, too. Speak into why and how you pivoted to offer excellent programming, training, and planning with your team remembering that our job as staff is to ‘equip the saints.’ Don’t forget all the mail, the phone calls, the emails, the social media, the remarkable moments of life (hospitalizations, funerals, births, etc.) Prepare the report, edit it, proofread it, and edit it again. Release the desire to tell every story and tell the stories which you could tell if given five minutes for an elevator pitch. No complaints, no comparisons, no slights, no innuendo. Include the books you read, podcasts you listened to, the online continuing education you experienced.

How do we tell?
One eye-catching page with clear bullet points, a time line, and a couple of stories. Have it proofread, because that’s what professionals do. Then follow it up with posts on social media to your families, so they all see and hear their stories and can trust the leadership has been informed of how your area has been the Body of Christ to them. We have put together a clear report of what we’ve done, what we are doing, what we are preparing for, and a couple of stories which we will share by email, along with a hard-copy placed in church office mailboxes, and a few in office chairs with a treat to enjoy as they read. Not cutesy, just something to make the ‘reader’ smile and make reading the report memorable. Be sure to talk about your luminal space experiences at every table, every lunch, and in every conversation. 

Who do we tell?
We are getting new clergy leadership and they have a whole host of voices speaking into their spaces for worship, history, hospitality, things they ‘need’ to fix, things they need to prioritize, etc. Most times kidmin peeps don’t want to add to that plate, but then kidmin voices are not part of the mix at all unless there’s a problem. Set aside that ‘there’s enough he/she needs to address’ and be a healthy voice to toot the horn of your team. When I realized this person who serves on various committees and considers himself an expert on what we do at my local church had no idea what we had been or were doing, he would be one of the first on my list to be informed. Everyone wants to be in-the-know, so make sure they are.

Why do we tell?
Telling the story is part of healthy evaluation, invites others to join the team moving forward, and let’s those who have seats at tables champion the discipleship you’re offering in the life of the church. Your families need voices at Finance meetings (funding, appropriations, staffing), at Trustee meetings (space allocation, resource priorities), and Staff-Parish Relations meetings (staff reallocation, fruitfulness, initiative, team dynamics), at Staff meetings (visioning, sermon series, partnerships). It’s been my experience that the church saints who serve whole-heartedly as members of most committees are rarely serving in the deep end of the Children’s Ministry pool for no other reason than what season they are in their lives unless it’s VBS or a church-wide endeavor. They need to know. They want to know! You have to tell!

How will you tell the stories of your time spent in liminal space, especially as we are still in it? Read more about liminal space and storytelling here and here.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those He redeemed from the hand of the foe.” Psalm 107:2

If you were to just look at the pictures of last week’s drive-in service which offered stations rather than a ‘park & stay’ it’ll look like we didn’t follow the rules or protocols, but we did. It’ll look like kids were on top of each other, but they weren’t. It’ll look like we had kids and cars moving at the same time, but our parking lot guards (and we had lots of them) blocked off with orange barrels and their own vehicles to be sure even how vehicles parked were the safest way possible for little people. It’ll look like kids and adults were everywhere, but entire families ran the stations, so there are kids under the tents and on the other side of the yarn tied as a boundary around three sides (which look invisible in the pictures) to keep others outside the tents for proper social distancing. We only used tables for one station offering more distance and that station leader wore a mask.

We painted the parking lot with watered down tempera (which fully washed off after the second rain the following week, but I wished it didn’t because it took more than three hours to put it there and it was awesome.) We used glass rather than plastic coca-cola bottles for the science experiments, because they were cheaper and heavier to stay upright on the ground. We used salad spinners for the spin art, but wiped off each spinner with Lysol wipes after every child touched them along with the pool noodles for the water balloon station. There were Lysol wipes (stocked-piled and provided by a generous family) at every station and used after every child touched anything. Some kids, parents, and grands wore masks, but most didn’t. The station leaders basically ‘restocked and chatted a few steps back’ as each station was kid-directed rather than leader-directed. There was a dog…it’s a therapy dog.

There was so much that took place at the last ‘Jesus is different so we are different’ drive-in service which could never be seen by a photo:

• Space for parents/grandparents to verbally process in community the public announcement made that very morning about county schooling choices for the upcoming year.
• Space for me to greet each family with, “How was your last week?” and hear that a mom’s dad had a stroke and this is one time each week they can forget what’s happening in the world and just play.
• Space for some parents to just be dad or mom and not wear their vocational uniform which makes being in public with their family uncomfortable.
• Space for a mom to share her story of the challenge of celebrating Father’s Day when the typical dad is not present, which I would’ve never known.
• Space for dads to chat with other dads about college football and car troubles and super-soakers and for families to invite their cousins and their grandparents.
• Space for other kidmin leaders to bring a family’s kids from her church to give a set of parents a desperately needed break.
• Space for boys and girls to be rough…and loud….and messy…and soaked…and laugh.
• Space for five new families to come who probably heard about it through the Food Share line on Fridays or MUST summer lunch program on Wednesdays without being interrogated with, “How did you hear about us?”, but rather, “Hi! My name is DeDe. Tell me about your family.” #dignity 

The photos won’t show any of this, so please refrain from making assumptions. The other thing you won’t see by the photos? The capes worn by every leader and every parent/grandparent present because these are the superheroes in our kid’s lives pointing them to Jesus every single day.

“Courage gives us a voice and compassion gives us an ear. Without both, there is no opportunity for empathy and connection.” Brene’ Brown