Archive for 'Elementary'
Kid’s baptisms: Letting my parents drive
Posted on 11. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Last year I was really challenged with thinking Orange, specifically as it related to baptisms and children making decisions for Christ. See, I’ve had this baptism class thing down. I’ve been teaching it for years. Between teaching a class full of families to individual kids in my office, I could teach this thing in my sleep. Like I said yesterday, 15-20% of the kids I meet with haven’t yet made decisions for Christ. So I would usually offer an opportunity for kids to make that decision at the end of the class or right in the middle of the discussion if meeting with them one on one.
However, the night before leading my first baptism class at Gateway, I decided to re-write the class.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms: The exception to my personal rule
Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Okay, here I posted about my personal rule. Kids have to meet with me or a pastor before they get baptized. I just want to make sure that kids know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. However, since coming to Gateway I’ve had to become a little more flexible. I think there is room for compromise here, I just haven’t spent enough time thinking about it. So for now, it is what it is. However, I do anticipate changes by next summer. Perhaps you have some good ideas for me to consider.
In this post I shared how Gateway does baptisms. On average we’ll have 100-125 people baptized at one of our baptism services. Of that number, about half sign up in advance or go through a class.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms: My personal rule
Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Children can’t be baptized until they meet with me or one of my leaders.
That’s been my rule for the last 5-6 years. Occasionally I’d stick my head in the auditorium and I’d see another pastor baptizing a child and I’d put my foot down. Turns out at my previous church, the receptionist would actually schedule baptisms each weekend. So, if someone called in to be baptized, she’d schedule them with a pastor. Once I learned this, the receptionist knew to ask if there were children and to run them through the Children’s Ministry before scheduling the baptism.
Why is this so important to me? Because if I didn’t have this rule, about 15-20% of the kids being baptized haven’t yet made decisions to follow Christ.… Read the rest
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Kid’s baptisms
Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
This Sunday we’re having baptisms at Gateway. We typically do baptisms three or four times a year. We have one of those big inflatable pools that we set up in a grassy area in front of the church and hold baptisms after the services. This Sunday we’re doing them all after our Sunday evening Deepen service.
For the last four or five years I’ve offered baptism classes. Before that, I usually met with the children and parents individually before they wanted to be baptized (this was also at churches that did baptisms every Sunday). On occasions (usually twice a year) I’d have a Kids Baptism Sunday were we would baptize 15, 20 or 30 kids in on one day. Leading up to these weekends I would hold a baptism class so that I could go through this just one or two times instead of 15, 20 or 30 times.… Read the rest
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The problem with Sunday small groups
Posted on 20. May, 2009 by Kenny.
I’m not being a Negative Nelly. I’m sharing the difficulties that come with these models. Yesterday I shared the difficulty with the Sunday School model. It has big enough difficulties that I’d prefer not to be at a church with Sunday School. However, the small group difficulties I’ve faced can be overcome with a little creativity.
I’ve had great success with small groups on Sunday nights or Wednesday nights. They were discipleship/growth focused. The kids were pretty consistent and all my groups had 8-12 kids. However, once I decided to launch small groups during Sunday services at Gateway, I knew I would have a problem. Kid’s attendance on Sunday is not consistent. I would be creating a small group model around irregular attendance.… Read the rest
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Elementary small groups
Posted on 20. May, 2009 by Kenny.
Yesterday I wrote about how small groups are where it is at in Children’s Ministry. I also wrote a somewhat controversial post about how Sunday School doesn’t work. So, how do you do small group?
It depends on your purpose.
Are you small groups relational based or discipleship based? Or are they both? Is the point that kids connect with a leader who can speak into their lives or is the point that the kids dive deeper into God’s word and a more personal atmosphere?
When I first started small groups, I was following Craig Jutila’s model. Although my small groups were relational (kinda unavoidable) I wanted the focus to be discipleship. I wanted the kids to go deeper. So, I created my small group program on Wednesday nights.… Read the rest
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Palm Sunday Baptims
Posted on 14. Apr, 2009 by Kenny.
This post is over a week late. However, I just got my hands on a video that I thought was worth showing to the CMO audience.
On Palm Sunday we had our first baptisms of the year. We do our baptisms outside, so we only do them once it starts getting warm. The day before baptisms was a very warm day, perfect for baptisms. On Palm Sunday, it got cooler and was super windy all day. I was excited that I had kids and adults to baptize for every service. However, that also meant I would be in the cold water and then in the cold wind for all three services. Yeah, it was COLD. Once the baptism were over, it took about three hours to get my body warm again.… Read the rest
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Small Group Leader Success
Posted on 03. Apr, 2009 by Kenny.
How do you know when one of your small group leaders is doing a good job?
The evidence is usually pretty clear. The group grows. You see kids swarm around the leader when not in the kid’s building. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. However, I saw a level of success this week that made my heart swell with pride.
On Sunday night I held a baptism class. We had about 15 kids participate with their families. At the end of the class parents fill out the required paperwork. One of the parents waved me over to their table. They asked me if it was okay if their daughter’s small group leader baptized her. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Of course it’s alright! I LOVE IT!… Read the rest
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When God works in spite of you
Posted on 19. Mar, 2009 by Kenny.
I love a good plan. Strategy and tactics, they get the blood pumping. I think that careful planning brings honor to God, but sometimes he like to mess with us and work outside of our plans. If anything, he likes to keep it interesting.
This last Sunday was an exciting day. I found out only three weeks ago that we were having a baptism on April 5th. I immediately booked our only available meeting space on Sunday morning for a baptism class. Unfortunately, I only had 10 days to promote the class. By the time Sunday rolled around, we had about eight kids registered for the 9:30 class and three for the 1:00 class. Recently I modified the format of the baptism class where I allow parents to take the lead.… Read the rest
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Should I play spin the bottle?
Posted on 27. Oct, 2008 by Kenny.
We’re in the middle of our Soul Revolution push as a church and so I’m creating a Soul Revolution activity for each Sunday during the 9 weeks. Normally the kids would do 3 separate activities in small groups that go along with the 252 Basics curriculum. However, right now I am writing one of those to be a Soul Revolution activity.
I’ve got one activity that is tripping me up. I want the kids to randomly select another kid in their group to encourage. Then the next kid will randomly select another kid to encourage. I really don’t want to spin a bottle, but what better “random selecting tool” is there. Simple. Cheap. But unfortunately loaded with connotations.
So, the big questions?… Read the rest
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