photo(15)Although this title sounds like a movie, it really just describes a great meet-up Sam Luce and I had with two great Children’s Pastors. Tony Kummer is a Chidlren’s Pastor in Madison, IN, which is a small but beautiful town about 45 minutes North of Louisville, KY. He’s better known for his web site, Ministry-To-Kids which is currently the largest Children’s Ministry site on the web. Along with Kummer, we met with Jared Kennedy, who is the Children’s Ministry pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Lousiville, KY. You can find his site here.

IMG_0444-1We met these two guy at Sojourn Church, took a quick tour of their children’s space and then headed down to Bardtown Road (a funky and eclectic part of Louisville) for some coffee and Quills. For the next hour or so, we got to know each other, learn about each other’s journeys and wrestle through what we’re experiencing in our ministries. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay very long as we had to move on to Nashville, but we could have sat and talked for hours.

It was great getting to meet and know Tony. He was pretty quite, but I think that was due to a rough day. I didn’t realize how funny the guy is. His sense of humor is pretty dry and quick, but we cracked up quite a few times due to his remarks. He’s a very intelligent guy, which shows when reading posts from his blog. Although he serves in a small church, he thinks big which also shows from what he’s done with his website. It’s not an accident that it’s the biggest kidmin site on the web. I’ve shared many emails with Kummar, now I’m glad to be able to match his face and personality with his messages.

I first connected with Jarred about six months ago when he wrote some really nice things about me and this site. Since I first connected with him, I was very intrigued about his church. In many ways, Sojourn reminds me of Gateway. It’s very eclectic and arts driven. All down the hallways of their church, which used to be a school, is original art from local artists. The church doubles as a community center where artists and musicians display and perform their craft for the community. On the other end, Sojurn is a liturgical church. I don’t know if I can describe it well as I’ve never been to an actual service (Jarred, feel free to help me out). It appears that Sojurn puts a lot of emphasis on the best parts of the Christian tradition, something that many people are drawn to and something that the typical “seeker” church overlooks. What they’re doing has been very successful and it comes across as very refreshing. They’re currently expanding into the world of multi-site within the urban areas of Lousiville, KY, so we talked quite a bit about multi-site in Chidlren’s Ministry.

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I’m grateful for the time we had with Tony and Jarred. If you find yourself in the Louisville/Southern Indiana region, you should do what you can to connect with these two guys, you’ll be glad you did.