Archive for 'Early Childhood'
Children’s Ministry in Portables: Part 2
Posted on 17. Dec, 2008 by Kenny.
I’ll be frank. I hate portable buildings. I think it sucks that we have to move into them. There, I said it.
However, there is another side to this. I love that we have to move into portable space. That means we are growing. I’m also glad to be a part of a church that is willing to do it right. I’ve seen some crappy looking portables and I thank God that by the time we move in, these portable rooms will be very similar to any of the other rooms in our kid’s area.
The first thing we had to decide was who would go into the portables. Typically I don’t know that my first choice would be early childhood.… Read the rest
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Children’s Ministry in Portables: Part 1
Posted on 16. Dec, 2008 by Kenny.
I know there are a lot of churches who have all or part of their Children’s Ministry in portable buildings, so I thought I’d blog a little about our process of getting and outfitting portable buildings for ministry. When I first started talking to Gateway, I knew they were talking about getting some portables due to space issues. Gateway’s demographic changed substantially when the church moved into the building in it’s current location. As our auditorium filled to capacity, our children’s ministry exceeded capacity. We have kids in a few rooms that were never intended to be kids rooms. So, last spring the process began. It’s been a very long process (mainly working with the city to get permits) but we are only a few weeks away from moving into the portables.… Read the rest
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Policy Question: Lap Sitting
Posted on 18. Sep, 2008 by Kenny.
We’re currently revising some of our policies at Gateway Church. Being new I bring a different perspective to the team. At previous churches I have had the policy that once a child is in Elementary, we strictly enforce the policy of children not sitting in adult volunteer’s laps.
However, the policy in writing at Gateway is that even Preschool (which includes out 2.5 through 5 years olds) has a not lap siting policy. I was a little surprised by this policy. This policy is not currently being followed or enforced at this time, but as we revise our policies we will be having follow-up training and communication. I just wanted to find out what others have as policies for preschoolers. I understand drawing a line for the safety of our children and adults, but is this too young?… Read the rest
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Operation: Name My Trailer
Posted on 15. Aug, 2008 by Kenny.
Our facility is full and we’ve resorted to portable buildings… otherwise know as modular buildings… or as we like to say in South Georgia… trailers.
We have such a nice facility but for the meantime we needed to provide some extra space for our kids. Adding two of these portables will give us space for up to 120 kids (but comfortably at 80 more kids). We’re not really expecting a bunch of new kids since our services have been pretty full. It’s more about offloading space and redistributing kids. We’ve had kids meeting in spaces that were not really intended to be meeting spaces. So, in a few more weeks we’ll be moving into these buildings. They’re being painted to match the color decor of our existing buildings and the interior is being decorated to look fun and exciting like the rest of our rooms.… Read the rest
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Orange 2008: Rethinking Family Ministry
Posted on 02. May, 2008 by Kenny.
Like the Rethinking Children’s Ministry, this breakout was more of a round table discussion. On the stage was Mike Clear from Discovery Church in California, Daren Kaiser from Scranton, PA, Dave Fox from Indiana and Reggie Joiner. Each of these men serve as the Family Pastor at their churches (except Reggie of course).
Reggie began by explaining some of the different models of family ministry. One model is the departmental approach. This is where each department (student and children’s ministry) does it’s best to connect with parents. Another model is the supplemental approach. This is where a family pastor is hired to add programs to supplement parents ministry. This pastor more or less informs the other staff members (children’s pastor and student pastor) what he/she is doing.… Read the rest
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Orange 2008: Family Ministry Around the Table
Posted on 28. Apr, 2008 by Kenny.
This was the first pre-conference breakout I attended. It was led by Dave Fox, the Family Ministries director at “The Bridge Church” in Decatur, IN and Darren Kizer, the Family Ministry Director at Parker Hill Community Church in Scranton, PA.
The heading for this breakout were guided by these statements:
“We will be focusing on an integrated strategy for family ministry. In this strategy, leaders and parents are leading with the same end in mind.”
Darren started things off by bringing out a bottle of Diet Coke and a Mento. Yeah, we know what that does. He explained that the the Mento represents the influence of the church in 10 years. the Diet Coke represents the influence of the family in 1 year.… Read the rest
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What’s your VBS philosophy?
Posted on 11. Jun, 2007 by Kenny.
My post last week on reinventing VBS was quite popular with a handful of comments. It does sound as if those in the blogosphere are or have reinvented thier VBS… or ditched it all together. Now, I know that many of you would agree that the methods of VBS is a little “old school.” If’ you’re reading this blog, chances are good that you’ve moved beyond flannel boards in Sunday school. So, my posting an inquery on a blog about reinventing VBS probably doesn’t reach every demographic. But, it was good to hear what you guys are doing as well as churches in your area.
It seems a common thread among rants about VBS (including some I’ve heard from staff at my church) is something like this: “Why would we invest the time and the money into something that is little more than baby sitting for our kids and the kids of our neighbor churches?” Absolutely true.… Read the rest
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Reinventing VBS
Posted on 07. Jun, 2007 by Kenny.
Are these isolated occurrences or the beginning of a new trend? Several years ago, leading churches like Fellowship Church and Saddleback church ditched VBS as we knew it. Their replacements? Shiney new events like Adventure Week and Summer Spectacular! They’re still pretty much VBS, just with a fresh and new approach.… Read the rest
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Phil Joel: A “Boom-Chaka-Laka” Rockin Good Time!
Posted on 02. Jun, 2007 by Kenny.
I found out about Phil Joel’s new CD, “DeliberateKids” from someone last night… I just can’t remember who. I finally sat down and listened to the samples on the website! Subsequently I went to itunes and bought a copy. I haven’t listened to it enough yet to decide what age group will get the most out of it. I think there are a few songs that the 3-5th graders will like, but definitely some K-2nd grader songs.… Read the rest
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Interlocking Foam Pads to supplement flooring needs
Posted on 29. Apr, 2007 by Kenny.
Just a quick post to plug a company that really took care of me this last week. As I wrote in my last post, a large portion of our facility was ruined by flood water, including all of our nursery space. Since the carpet was pulled up (leaving only concrete exposed) we had to put something down for this weekend. I know I had seen these interlocking foam pads at Home Depot for years. I stopped by on Thursday night only to get the strangest looks when explaining what I needed. I tried Wal-Mart too. No luck.… Read the rest
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