Archive for 'Elementary'
Kids caught in the porn trap
Posted on 20. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
So this week I’ve broached the subject of sex, porn and Children’s Ministry, but I mostly opened the conversation about parent driven sex talks and resources. I haven’t said much about pornography though. Hopefully, thorough parent-driven sex talks will address pornography and prepare kids for when they’ll be exposed to it. However, is there a way for the church to help address this problem more intentionally?
The numbers speak for themselves. 12-18 year olds are significant consumers of pornography. The average age of first exposure is eight. All of us have children in our ministries who are being exposed to porn and many are developing addictions. Many of these kids are already caught int he trap. They’re lured back to it time and time again because of their new-found appetite, but they’re also carrying this shame and guilt they’ve never carried before.… Read the rest
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Fun stuff for your elementary rooms
Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
Over the years I’ve always tried to look for great activities for elementary age kids to do before and after the service. Many years ago I simple had the room set up with theater seating and I’d play cool music videos for the kids to watch while they came in. Although some kids may like this, don’t do it unless you have to. The best way to engage kids is with hands-on fun. So, I create activity/play centers/stations where kids can have fun. Not only will they have fun, they can get to know their small group and their leader better while they’re at it.
In my lower elementary rooms, I usually use boardgames and things like that. In the older elementary rooms we have foosball tables as well as video game stations (something the younger kids look forward to).… Read the rest
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The Lock-In (Part 4)
Posted on 11. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.
So, what ever will you do with a bunch of kids for 12-13 hours? We’re masters at programming for 60-90 minutes, but all night it totally different. Don’t worry, it’s not that hard. First of all, you need to think smaller. Think in 30 minute increments and it gets so much easier. Because registration can tend to take a long time, I usually try to start the evening off with a movie. Doing this gives everyone time to arrive, check-in and get to one place. A typical schedule would be to have the doors open at 6:45. While kids are registering and dropping off their sleeping bags and such, I’ll have an MC keeping things happening in the auditorium. I’ll do a short welcome at 7:20 and then start the movie at 7:30.… Read the rest
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The Lock-In (Part 3)
Posted on 10. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.
Structure and organization are necessary for fun. Without structure and organization, you’re volunteers are going to hate you. Without structure and organization, the kids will experience too much freedom which leads to fights, injuries and hurt feelings. In the end, they won’t have fun either. You must have this in place!
First of all, every minute of the lock-in must be scheduled. Your volunteers want a plan. They love a plan. The idea of being with all these kids all night scares them. They think in their heads, “what am I going to do with these kids all night?” However, when you give them their schedule which outlines a different activity to attend with their kids every thirty minutes, they can get excited about that.… Read the rest
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The Lock-In (Part 2)
Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.
I only have one ingredient to my recipe for success. All you need is the same ingredient and you’ll see success. Want to know what that ingredient is?
The ingredient is… FUN!
Okay, that sounds kinda obvious and cheesy, but I say it for a reason. I’ve seen a lot of church’s suck all the fun (or most of the fun) right out of an event like this. I’ll tell you what the fun-suckers tend to be.
- Over spiritualizing the event. Just because your event is a church event doesn’t mean you need to program it into a VBS/Sunday School/Kids Church filled event. I’m not saying any of those things aren’t fun. I’m just challenging you to the idea that you can gather a group of kids at your church and not do ANYTHING overtly spiritual.
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The Lock-In (Part 1)
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.
I have a love/hate relationship with lock-ins. I’ve been doing them since I became a children’s pastor over a decade ago. I’ve done small and highly unorganized ones (in the early years) as well as huge and highly organized ones (my biggest topped 300 kids) and I’ve learned a few things along the way.
So why do I hate them? They’re so FREAKIN’ long! Now that I’m in my 30′s, it takes me a week to recover. By the time it’s over, I just want parents to not be late so I can go home and fall asleep on my couch. Yes, this is selfish, but it’s a perfectly acceptable reason to hate lock-ins.
Why do I love them? Because kids FREAKIN’ love them!… Read the rest
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The Lock-In
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Kenny.
This week I’m doing a little series on Lock-Ins. Over the years I have found them to be incredibly powerful events for the Children’s Ministries I lead. I thought I’d write a quick series on why I do them and how to pull them off.
I’m going to include how we plan, what resources we use, how much they cost and everything else you might want to know. I’ve got a lot of information and I don’t think I’ve really blogged much about my lock-ins up to this point. So, if you’re interested in taking a peak behind the curtain, tune in to the posts this week about lock-ins.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms: Are we focusing on what is most important?
Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Okay, I thought I had finished this little series, but the conversation in the comments in this post has continued and has prompted me to write one more post.
I’ll be honest. I’m still really wrestling with what we’re going to do here at Gateway. For us to prevent kids to be baptized when it’s happening spontaneously like this seems very anti-Gateway. I don’t feel comfortable with it. However I must admit that every day I think about this, I dislike doing what we’re doing even more. I think I’ve narrowed it down and reached a conclusion on what is most important.
I feel it might be dangerous to allow kids to decide to get baptized because they feel like it the day we’re doing it as a church.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms: Post baptism summary
Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
So last week I shared what we’re doing for baptisms at Gateway. This weekend we actually had our baptisms at both our South and North Campus.
I met with a 9 year old girl for about 30 minutes to talk about baptism (she couldn’t make any of the classes). She knew lot’s about faith, but hadn’t ever made a decision to follow Christ. So, it was cool to pray with her and her mom and she was subsequently very excited to get baptized. I baptized her at one service and a set of twins at the next. At the North Campus I baptized four or five kids and assisted two sets of parents in baptizing their kids.
Glorious!
We actually didn’t have any last minute kids show up.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms: Parent assisted baptism class
Posted on 12. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Lately I’ve been blogging about how we do baptisms for kids here at Gateway. My last post yesterday pointed to how I’ve changed things to where parents have a more active role in the class. Click here to read that post if you haven’t already.
So, here’s what it looks like. I set up the room with round tables with 6-8 chairs per table. Families or multiple families sit around the table. Once everyone has arrived and we’re about to begin, I pass out the Baptism Class – Parent Guide. I explain to my parents that everything I talk about is in this parent guide, including all the scripture fully typed out. I express my hope that parents will pull this out again to review with the kids later.… Read the rest
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