Childrens Ministry Online

Orange Leaders Forum (Part 2)

Posted on 26. Apr, 2009 by Kenny.

Reggie spent a few minutes talking about why students are dropping out of church.

We haven’t given them a better story as they aren’t as intrigued by our story. They’re more intrigued by the world’s story.

As a church, our power is that we can give them a better story. When they engage in this story, it’s less likely that they’ll walk away from their faith.

Reggie came back to this later in the day as he was talking about the three Dials:

• The Wonder Dial: Faith
• The Discover Dial: How truth affects my life
• The Passion Dial: How I serve

Too often in Student ministry, the wonder and discover dials are maxed but not the passion dial. This is a serious mistake. Teenagers need to know and see God work through them.

“Until you give a teenager something significant to do, they’ll never feel significant.”

I’m no expert in student ministry. All I know is what I experienced and some of the things that I have seen. However, as a teenager I got really involved in a mission agency and from the time I was 16-19, I spent nearly six months in India, Venezuela, Morocco and Russia. These trips impacted me to the core and no other experience shaped me like these did. Here is where I know in my heart that there is some truth to this. As a 16 year old I came back from a life-changing trip to Venezuela. While there I personally led hundreds to faith. I had a tangible sense that if I died the next day, I knew I would stand before God and I knew the words that he would say. “Well done good and faithful servant.” That’s pretty significant for a 16 year old.

Since then I’ve seen many different ministries. I’ve seen some really good kids invest a LOT of time and a LOT of money in Christian Leadership programs for the purpose of equipping them to be phenomenal leaders in the church. However, I’ve seen dozens of them flounder in their faith and make decisions that will lead to huge set-backs. They may come around eventually, but I’m seeing potential squandered. They’re great leaders, but their hearts haven’t been captured. What would it look like to capture their hearts first and let the leadership stuff come later?

So, how can we amp up that Passion Dial?

Continue Reading

Chad Swanzy: Creativity is his middle name.

Posted on 24. Apr, 2009 by Kenny.

I thought I’d introduce someone to you in case you didn’t already know him. Chad Swanzy is the Student Ministry Pastor here at Gateway. He came on staff about six weeks before me last year and I really enjoy working with him. Unfortunately for me I haven’t gotten to work as closely with him this last year as I would have liked (that’s changing this year though). One of the things I admire about Chad is his creative genius.

Perhaps it’s his need to be resourceful that sparks creativity, always maximizing resources on a shoe string budget. However, he connects very well to the students he leads and he connects through every medium possible. He’s constantly building sets, creating environments, designing totally insane games or filming promotion videos. He also connects to kids through every medium possible. He connects to the kids through the ministry blog and through facebook. Every message is published to iTunes and available via podcast and he’s streaming Wednesday night services through Mogulus. Actually one night there was supposed to be bad weather for small groups, so he broadcast the meeting over Mogulus and many from the group participated that way. Absolutely amazing.

The inspiration for this post was a recent video he pushed out to his kids promoting his next series. The video was very cool. Then a few days later how wrote a blog about how he made the video. Wow! I didn’t know he made it, I thought he got it from somewhere else. His blog post will show you how creative and resourceful he really is.

choices series intro from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

Here’s his blog post explaning how he made the video.

Here’s a video he made a few weeks ago to prep kids or baptism. Again, he connected to them through his blog, facebook and every other medium.

What is baptism? from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

Last of all, here are two of his camp promo video. One of them yo0u may have already seen on my blog, but it’s funny enough to be on here again. Enjoy.

Did somebody say Summer Camp?! from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

Uprising Presidential Camp Promo from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

You can follow Chad here:
Website
Twitter

Continue Reading

Obama goes to camp!

Posted on 19. Feb, 2009 by Kenny.

Our student pastor just posted this video on his facebook account. So Awesome!

Continue Reading

Promotion Sunday

Posted on 26. Aug, 2008 by Kenny.

This last Sunday was the infamous “Promotion Sunday.” Of all the “Promotion Sundays” I’ve had in the past, this one actually saw the least promotions. We’re in the process of getting portable space added to our facility (like how I termed that… it was a really sophisticated way of saying we’re getting trailers… ha!) Last year the Kindergartners were a part of elementary and this year they’ll stay with preschool… so kindergarten didn’t actually promote.

The only two things I really had my eye on was the implementation of small groups in elementary and the promotion of our 5th graders into middle school. We had two big wins!

First of all I’ll talk about the small groups. One of the first things on my plate from the moments I began at Gateway ( We even talked about it extensively during my interviews) was to launch small groups in elementary. We’ve been working very hard all summer to plug small group leaders in. The goal is about 31 small groups. We’re still not quite there; however, most of our leaders were in place during the 9:30 and 11:00 services. There was a great energy in the room and kids were connecting with their leaders and other kids in their groups. We still have a lot of work ahead of us… but it was beautiful to see.

Second was the promotion of our 5th graders. This was a little big of a double whammy. Chad Swanzy, our student pastor has been working really hard on making this a success. He came on staff just a month before I did and one of the first things on his list was to fix the middle school program. Gateway only had one middle school service and it was at the worst attended time. So, in this church of 4000, we had about 30-35 attend. Before I was even on the scene, Chad was already hard at work to get services added to the 9:30 and 11:00 time slots. By the time I arrived, we only had to work out where to put the Middle School. The main reason middle school only met at 12:30 was because there wasn’t any space at our facility except for at 12:30. Since I knew the portables would be available to us, I gave up our oldest preschool room which was located on the same floor as elementary aged kids and would accommodate the middle school kids. Once all this was set, Chad and his team began working on getting middle school kids who just sat in the service during 9:30 and 11:00 to come to these new service times. Chad had already talked to the previous elementary director about getting in to talk to the 5th graders a few times over the summer. I also was already on this wavelength. The family pastor at a church in interviewed with explained that for them, promotion wasn’t a date on a calendar, but a process. My hope was that we could connect Chad and his team with these 5th graders as many times as possible over the summer. So, we launched about 4 preview services throughout the summer. Unfortunately we ran anywhere from 15-20 5th graders those Sundays. Yeah, that meant only 5-7 per service on our preview Sundays. During our higher attended Sunday’s we would average 30-35 5th graders… but in the summer our numbers were way down. However, this Sunday was totally different. We had at least 35 5th graders (now 6th graders) attend. In addition, 7th and 8th graders showed up for the 9:30 and 11:00 services as well. In all, Middle School had about 95 kids.

I’m really proud of Chad and his team… they pulled it off BIG TIME! We talked at the beginning of the summer of how he could very easily triple the middle school program… and they did! The cool part is that they just got started, I’m absolutely convinced that they’re going to grow. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they hit 150 before Christmas. How did they do it? Well, first of all they just made space available (If you build it, they will come). Second of all, I know that Chad and his team worked hard to get them there. They were making phone calls and sending out post cards. Last of all, they really upgraded the quality of the program. Seriously, it looks so much more polished than it did 3 months ago. It’s a great service and the kids who attend are having fun and getting a lot out of it!

Read about it from Chad’s blog here!

Continue Reading

The first promotion I’m really excited about

Posted on 16. May, 2008 by Kenny.

I’ll be honest. I’ve always hated “Promotion Sunday.”

I’ve always hated losing my 5th graders. By the time they’re ready to move on the 6th grade, I just love them too much to want to let go. I’ve invested so much into them. I’ve also hated promotion because inevitably, many of them won’t make the transition. Because the program is so different, some of the kids don’t adjust well to the difference. Sometimes it is even the parents who resist sending their kids to a program that is so different with teenagers that are so much older. So, many of these kids who don’t make the transition end up sneaking back into kids church for a few weeks or months. Eventually, many of them feel like they don’t fit and eventually stop coming. For many, it may be a year or two before they end up showing up in Student Ministry. Some never do.

That is why I hate Promotion Sunday.

However, this time I’m really excited. Well, since I don’t really know any of the kids yet at Gateway, I’m not attached to those 5th graders. But that’s not why I’m excited. I’m excited because for the first time I feel like a strong plan is being put into place to capture “most” of our 5th graders. Our student pastor will be offering middle school programs during all of our weekend services. The Middle School service isn’t going to be so totally different that the 5th graders can’t relate. So, for the 5th grader to make the transition, he/she simply has to walk down the hall to another room. That’s it.

Chad, the student pastor and I have been talking about how if we can make this transition successful, his Middle School program could triple. In addition, if we continue to create tight hand-offs every year, his entire student ministry could be 3 or 4 times larger in just a few year just by kids growing up in the programs. What’s not exciting about that? I’ll continue to post about how this transition is going. We’re planning several “preview events” throughout the summer to make those 5th graders beg for promotion day!!!

Continue Reading

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. The Orange model is an integrated model. There may or may not be a family pastor (best if there is) that helps family ministry integrate through all the ministries.

Through a family ministry approach (integrated), the goal for teenagers is not perfect attendance in student ministry, but that they become fully integrated into the fabric of the church.

Reggie perfectly answered the question, “How do you effectively make a children’s ministry team and student ministry team feel like a unified team?” The answer? Meet together. Duh!

In an integrated strategy, you remove ministry silos and territorialism. In this strategy, student and chidlren’s teams work together on budgets, calendars and other things.

Reggie shared that there are three dials that need to be turned in the life of a child. The Wonder Dial, the Discovery Dial and the Passion Dial. The Wonder Dial is the understanding of faith, creation and who God is. The Discovery Dial is the understanding of how I personally fit into this knowledge of God, specifically relating to having a relationship with Jesus Christ. The Passion Dial is understanding my relationship with those around me.

So, when an integrated family ministry operates with the knowledge of these dials, the team can work together to turn these dials at the appropriate times within ministry. For instance, the Wonder Dial will be turned most during the preschool years, and only a little beyond that (mainly for outreach opportunities). The Discovery Dial is turned the most in elementary ministry and and student ministry and the Passion Dial will be turned the most in student ministry. Implementing this in an integrated strategy allows everyone in multiple ministries to be on the same page.

Here are a few more points made by the presenters:

• When you believe that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church, your calendar will slim down (from events).
• Who owns the strategy to “educate” the parents? It’s owned by the whole team, led by a leader.
• Every parent wants to have the right relationship with their kids… every kid needs a right relationship with a parent.

Oh, there was one more thing. Reggie shared four words and said that most parents fall into one of these four categories:

• Acquainted
• Connected
• Engaged
• Invested

Acquainted are usually the parents outside of your church… they don’t come. They aren’t against God or anything… they just don’t come. The Connected parents are attending your church. Engaged parents are ones that assume responsibility for spiritually raising their kids and Invested are those who are actively involved in discipling their kids… they’re doing this regularly.

Continue Reading

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. This is very Orange-ish! What happens when you strategically and intentionally combine the influences of the church and family? Yeah, great point!

They spoke about several key ingredients for integrating strategy:

• Know you vision
• Direction: who is part of your team?
• Developing a “Espirit de Corps.” All for one and one for all… a pride of belonging to something.
• Defining “wins” for each area and ensuring that each area knows and understands the wins of each area.
• Plan collectively so we can impact specifically.

They also spoke about questions that invite teamwork and intentionality (great questions for a family ministry staff meeting)

• Are we connecting with parents?
• Are hand-offs crisp and tight? (The relay race is won or lost in the hand-off)
• Are small groups a big deal?
• Are we making volunteerism attractive?
• Are students serving strategically?
• Are we synchronizing the calendar

By asking these questions we:

• Fuel productive tension
• Reveal unstated expectations

Continue Reading