Happy Birthday #KIDMIN! Tomorrow, KIDMIN turns eight years old.

It’s fun to watch something born, something created out of nothing and become something ubiquitous. That’s been true of kidmin. It was eight years ago that myself and a handful of friends coined the moniker. It took a few years to to gain traction, but now the term kidmin is synonymous with all things children’s ministry.

A simple search on google or amazing reveal dozens of books, resources, conferences and programs that contain the term in their name. There’s been a kidmin revolution and it’s beginning wasn’t the result of a marketing campaign or an expensive think tank. No, kidmin was born from the merger of collaboration and technology.

On February 3rd of 2009, my friend John Mullis (@johnincolorado) sent me a message asking me if there was a hashtag for children’s ministry on twitter. Twitter was still young, but the conversation around children’s ministry was strong. The community was active, but the only way to stay connected to the conversation was to follow the people you knew. Hashtags were just becoming a thing and it was after the 2009 Super Bowl (the conversation around the super bowl on twitter was amazing) that John asked about a children’s ministry hashtag.

I quickly responded, “no, but there should be.” I then published this post to the children’s ministry community. I suggested at hashtag like #CM or even #kidsmin. Within hours, #kidsmin was shortened to #kidmin and it was adopted. The same day I announced to the interwebs the official adoption of the hashtag. 

That’s how KIDMIN was created.

Children’s Pastors were seeking a way to collaborate. A way to encourage one another. A way to grow and share innovative ideas. The best place to do this was through twitter, a technology platform that encouraged brevity.

Children’s Ministry > Kids Ministry > Kidmin

Happy Birthday kidmin! May the conversation continue for years to come!