Tag Archives: Child Dedication
The Story of Hannah
Posted on 04. Dec, 2011 by Kenny.
Currently my church is doing a series called Unlikely Heroes. It’s a sereis that focuses on various heroes fromt he Bible. It’s been a great series. However, last Sunday was spectacular. Over the years I’ve collected a handful of messages that I’m sure I’ll hang on to for the rest of my life. Last week’s message was on of those.
Ted Beasely, one of our teaching pastors, delivered an incredible message about the life of Hannah from the book of Samuel. I think what interested me most in this message was the subject of Hannah. Ever several month when teaching about and leading child dedication services, I tell a synopsis of this story where Hannah physically dedicates her only son to the Lord.… Read the rest
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Animoto: Still one of my favorites
Posted on 30. Nov, 2011 by Kenny.
Over the years you’ll see me post about various tech solutions for life and ministry. Some of these apps stick, others lose their luster over time. Back in 2008 I discovered Animoto, a slideshow application and fell in love. Of many of the things I find, Animoto has remained one of my absolute favorite tools. I know that there are many who read this blog who didn’t back in 2008, so I thought I’d visit this little app again and talk about what else it does as well.
When Animoto frist came out, it was an intelligent and simple slideshow creator. You simply upload photos and music and it would create a randomly generated slideshow using amazing transitions that seem to just move with the music.… Read the rest
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Child Dedication nuts and bolts (File management)
Posted on 18. Nov, 2010 by Kenny.
This week I’ve been writing out every detail of our Child Dedication process. This post is my last entry in this series, and probably one that’s just a little shorter. 
With the system and process that we have in place, it’s very important that we keep all the files nice and tidy so that when a class or dedication comes up, everything is easily accessible. I thought I’d give you a sneak peak into how we store all the files pertinent to our process. For the past two years, I’ve kept these files neat and orderly, but not in a convenient place for anyone but me. Yeah, they’ve been sitting on my desktop. If I’m being totally honest, the fact that these are sitting on my desktop is what inspired this entire series.… Read the rest
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Child Dedication nuts and bolts (Information management)
Posted on 17. Nov, 2010 by Kenny.
This week I’ve been writing a series of nuts and bolts posts about how we do Child Dedications here at Gateway. I love establishing processes for things that are done over and over so that excellence happens ever time and so that things get easier every time they are done. Yesterday I wrote about the registration process and today I want to explain how we manage the data so that multiple people can know exactly what is going on and who is involved.
As I described in my blog post yesterday, we have a two part registration. One is for the Prep for Child Dedication Class and the other is for the actual dedication. The first registration is a Google form focused on getting information about the parents, family and situation where the second is a Fellowship One registration focused on getting information about the children being dedicated.… Read the rest
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Child Dedication nuts and bolts (Registration process)
Posted on 16. Nov, 2010 by Kenny.
As much as possible, I try to automate as much of our processes as possible. I’ve gone back and forth on several methods but have finally arrived on what I feel is a pretty effective model for Child Dedication that is simple and efficient.
We used to be overwhelmed by questions about child dedication or child baptism which prompted me to put every bit of information a parent might need to know about what we believe and do on our website. Click here to visit our dedication page. Currently it isn’t very pretty, but it’s functional. I’ve trained our receptionists, admins or anyone else who might get emails and phone calls about dedication to direct people to the dedication page on our website.… Read the rest
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Child Dedication nuts and bolts (Service details)
Posted on 15. Nov, 2010 by Kenny.
This week I’m writing about the nuts and bolts of how we’re doing Child Dedication here at Gateway Church. Today’s post centers around the actual dedication service. So, I’ll tell you exactly how we’re doing it… right now. By the time we do our next dedication in June, it may look a little different.
Our services is pretty simple Click here for the actual schedule.
Currently we host our dedication services on Saturdays at 11:00 AM. We have several reasons for this.
- Due to the nature of our Sunday services, there just isn’t any time or availability to do a dedication like this as a part of a service or after the morning services
- Saturday seems to be an ideal time as it give family and friends time to easily come and go from out of town
- The morning time works great as many of the kids are in good spirits and families can go out for lunch right after the dedication
Typically we set the service to begin right at 11:05.… Read the rest
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Child Dedication: Stuff we are doing
Posted on 14. Nov, 2010 by Kenny.
Here at Gateway, we’ve been doing some cool stuff with Child Dedications for the past two years. If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you will notice that I’ve written a lot about child dedication. However, I recognize that there are always new people, so I won’t assume everyone knows. To catch up on the process of refining Child Dedication services here at Gateway, click here (it’s the “child dedication” tag and should pull up any post I’ve written about Child Dedication).
So, here’s a little bit of what we’ve been doing over the years.
- We require a Prep for Child Dedication class.
- We place parents at tables with a prayer leader (the person who will pray with them the day of the dedication service).
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Phonics Phail
Posted on 20. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
On Saturday we had a Child Dedication at Gateway. It was awesome. We dedicated over 30 young children to God and it was unique and special for all of our families involved. Every time I host a Dedication service, I learn something new. Here’s what I learned this time.
Try not to butcher some one’s name.
I have four kids where I wasn’t sure how to pronounce their name. I had my Early Childhood coordinator ask the parents when they signed in, which meant I got the pronunciation just a few minutes before I went on stage. Not enough time for me to remember. Two of the four names I massacred.
So, in the midst of my pain I realize that I need to be proactive in making sure I pronounce the names right.… Read the rest
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Child dedication gift
Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
Quick question for those of you in the community. I’ve got another child dedication coming up in a few weeks. In the past we’ve given out gift bibles to the kids. We pay $6-8 per Bible. I’m re-thinking this. This $6-8 Bible is not a children’s Bible, so it’s likely to sit on a shelf somewhere for a decade or more before it’s ever really used. Seems like a waste to me. I’m thinking about giving every parent the book, Revolutionary Parenting. I know that every parent wont read it, but at least I know that if they did, it would challenge them to the core of what it means to spiritually lead kids.
So, what do you give to your kids/families?… Read the rest
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Another Child Dedication under wraps
Posted on 01. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve re-invented the way we do child dedication. Three months ago we did our first one under the new format. It had a few kinks, but overall the whole process was so beautiful. Just search “child dedication” on this site and you can read about all the changes we’ve made.
Two weeks ago I wrote about the changes we were making for the dedication we held last weekend. We made those changes and they went great. I’d say the dedication was near perfect. Here are some pictures.
I can’t tell you how happy I am about how we do our dedications. However, I’m not finished. There are some components that North Point does in their pre-dedication process that I want to add to ours.… Read the rest
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