Childrens Ministry Online

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. This story always resonates with me because I truly identify with this woman as my wife and I endured so much pain and frustration in our effort to have children. My two children are wonderful and precious gifts. It seems more and more as I lead child dedication classes, other women tear up when I mention Hannah’s struggle because their journey was similar.

In this message, Ted pointedly addresses the struggle of when our deepest dreams and aspirations seem to go unanswered. Although this message penetrates to the heart of a couple struggling with infertility or miscarriage, the message will speak to anyone who has dreams that seem too far off to ever come to fruition. Enjoy!

Continue Reading

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. Well, over the years they’ve made adjustments and you can also add video. So, you can turn photos and short video clips into an amazing presentation.

I use Animoto for every child dedication, for many of our baptisms, and promos for many of our events as well as for personal family slideshows and video clips. Below are several videos I’ve made so you can see for yourself.

The great part about Animoto is that it’s so inexpensive. For the dedications, I’ll pay an extra $5 to export the high rez video and it’s absolutely brilliant. Now you even have HD options, which I haven’t tried yet.

Bottom line. For a lot of your video stuff, you don’t need to spend hours learning how to use iMovie or other programs. You’ll save a lot of money… and a lot more time using Animoto to do what you need… and it will probably look better than anything you’ll put together yourself (unless you’re really good and have spent a lot of time learning the tools).

To check out and start using Animoto, click here!

Continue Reading

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. On Saturday after finishing our most recent Child Dedication, I finally decided that it was time to move the files off my computer and onto the church’s server. However, I figured that I’d write this series before placing all the files on the server for safe keeping. I know, it doesn’t totally make sense, but that’s the way my mind works.

So, in my Child Dedication folder, I have four sub-folders.

Child Dedication Service, Media, Prep for Child Dedication Class and Service Files. I just hit one at a time for you.

Child Dedication Service Folder

This one is pretty simple. It has three documents in it. The first document is the Service Outline. These are my notes for my short talk. The second document is a service schedule. I make modification to it for every dedication and pass it out the the musicians, staff, and volunteers. It has timelines and cues for the service. The third document is an outline for dedications that I might do in someone’s home. It’s one document that I need to develop further.

Media Folder

The media folder currently holds three songs that I use for the slideshows. I picked all three of these songs two years ago and to this day haven’t found any songs I like better (but I am on the lookout for new songs). “This Very Moment” is a song by a guy in our church that I’ve used several times. “In My Arms” is a great song by plumb and “Little Wonders” is from Rob Thomas. They’re all here because when I’m making my slideshow, I don’t want to have to search through my entire computer to find one of these songs.

Prep for Child Dedication Class Folder

This is my quick, go to folder for the Prep for Child Dedication Class. I’d be lying to you if I told you that all the handouts and my notes were always printed out the Thursday before Sunday’s class. Probably if I didn’t keep all my files on my own computer, someone would have done this for me. Needless to say, my version of the handout as well as the parent handout is in this folder which I can quickly print out. In addition is a video I made of a class two years ago (it’s posted on this site on one of my earlier posts about Child Dedication. I’ve hung onto this video for other staff or volunteers who need to know what is said or need to prepare for leading their own class.

Service Files Folder

The final folder in my Child Dedication file system is the Service Files Folder. In it is a folder for each Child Dedication I’ve done in the past two years. Within each dated folder is one excel spreadsheet and two more folders. The excel spreadsheet is a copy of the google spreadsheet I wrote about yesterday. Although I keep the file in the cloud, I also download a copy to put in the folder for offline storage so it is with all the other files associated with that service. One of the folders are of dedication pics. Every picture that parents send to me are in this folder. I put them here until I need to upload them to Animoto for the slideshow, but I’m also a digital pack rat. I never throw away these pictures. The last folder is the Dedication Slideshow. I’ll upload the pictures to Animoto and let it mix a slideshow with one of the songs from the media folder. I’ll usually do the “one click remix” to see if I like the remix better than the original. I might even use the pictures with another song just to see if I like it better. Every slideshow that Animoto makes is unique. Once I find my winner, I purchase the high resolution video and download it to this folder.

Continue Reading

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.

The first form is feeds to a google spreadsheet that is always live. After classes have passed, we just edit the “class selections” to new dates or put “Classes are TBD, but we’ll contact you as soon as they’ve been scheduled.” This way we always have a place for parents to sign up. Nothing bothers me more than a note saying, “registration is not yet open, come back later.” With this alway live form, parents can sign up and know that they’ll be taken care of once we get our dates set. This google spreadsheet is shared with my staff, so they can always see how many have signed up for a class.

Once all the classes happen, I will literally cut and paste all the data from those who attended one of the classes to a new google spreadsheet exactly how it appears on the original spreadsheet. Those who didn’t show up to a class will remain on the original spreadsheet so that they will be contacted the next time a class happens. I will clean up the document a little and add a few extra columns like “registered for dedication, Pics and table/prayer leader.”

I will add a new page to this spreadsheet calling it emails. I will cut and paste all the emails of moms and dads from the first page and put them on this page. I will probably have to send out 2-3 emails to all the parents who attended a class, so I can just copy and paste all the emails from this page and paste them into my email editor.

Once I’ve sent all the parents links to the actual dedication registration, I just wait for registrations and pictures to come in. Once they register, I put a “yes” in the “registered for dedication column.” Once they send pictures, I put a “yes” in the “Pics” column. Oh, I almost forgot. I also type in the name of the prayer leader sitting at their table at the child dedication class in the “table/prayer leader.” Parents are busy, so it usually takes 7 to 10 days for all the parents to do these things, so every few days I might emails parents reminding them to register or send pics. Many parents register but forget to send pics, so it requires extra emails.

Once registrations begin coming in through Fellowship One, I’ll run report M6017E. This report gives me the final bit of information I’ll need for the dedication. I’ll paste these registrations to a new page on my google spreadsheet. This page contains all the data pertinent to the actual dedication. These are the people who have attended the class and have registered (and hopefully sent their pictures). Since registrations trickle in, I’ll add them to the page line by line as they come in every few days.

On this page, I’ll add a few columns in the front like “Assignment, Round, Verse and Meaning.” The “Assignment” is the prayer leader who will pray for that family/child (It isn’t always the prayer leader who sat at their table at the class). The “Round” column tells me what round that family will come up for prayer in the service. The “Verse and Meaning” columns are were we put the meanings of their names and a verse that goes with their name/meaning (which will also go on their certificate).

For the actual service, I’ll usually sort this page by round and assignment showing the full name of the child, meaning, and both parent names. I’ll give this to all my prayer leaders so that they know in what order they’ll be praying with families as well as have a little cheat sheet with the names, meanings, verses and parent names.

I’ll also make one more modified version of this page (adding an extra page to the spreadsheet) creating a check-in sheet that a volunteer or staff member will use as families are checking in. I rarely have any no-shows for a child dedication, but I want to know who isn’t here if thats the case.

Last of all, I typically have one last sheet with the names and phone numbers of all my prayer leaders for quick and easy reference.

So to review, my master dedication spreadsheet has the following pages:

• Prep for Dedication registrations (copied from the google form) with added columns for registration, pics and table leaders
• Dedication roster made from registrations that came in through Fellowship One with added columns for assignment, round, verse and name meaning
• Email addresses of those who attended the class
• Email addresses of prayer leaders
• Email addresses of those who registered (I forgot to mention this one)
• Check-in roster to mark off families as they come in

The beauty of all of this is that google docs are sharable. I have some staff that refer to the document to know how many books to order. I have other volunteer leaders who access the document to begin looking up meanings of names and coming up with verses. I have a graphic artist who access the page to see kid’s names and verses to create the certificates.

One last thing. If parents attend the class, but decide that they can’t attend the dedication, I mark their row red on the first sheet. I do the same if they go through the whole registration process and don’t show up for the dedication. I’ll let these families know when the next dedication is scheduled and as we get closer to that date, I can open up this spreadsheet and contact them giving them links to the next dedication registration. It’s important to me that people don’t fall through the cracks. If you don’t have a system for everything, people who don’t fit in one category or another will get missed.

It’s a pretty good system that works when everyone does what they’re supposed to do. It’s taken us a lot of dedications to refine this process, but for now, it’s working.

Continue Reading

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. From here, families can lean what we do, why we do it and register for the next available class.

Registration for Child Dedication is a two step process for most families. Let me explain what I mean. Attending a Prep for Child Dedication Class is required to participate in Child Dedication. So, on the website they are directed to register for a class (I usually offer 3 classes for convenience). However, I usually have one or two families who have already attended the class, but want to dedicate new children. I usually don’t require them to attend the class again, but send them a link to the registration for the actual dedication (I’ll get into the diference later).

I’ve found that it is easiest to create a google form for people to register for a dedication class. I’ve used both google forms as well as Fellowship One registrations and have found the google form to be most efficient. Essentially, I can always have one form active. Once a class is over, I can remove it from the choices of classes to attend. If I’ve just finished a series of classes and don’t yet have dates for future classes, I can still keep the form live, but change the choices to “put me on the list and contact me once you have firm dates.” Because google forms populate a google spreadsheet, I can go in and edit classes they want to attend later. I can also share the form with others on my team as well as volunteers. Last of all, google forms timestamps submissions, so I can know when people registered. It really does everything I need and is incredibly simple.

Here are the questions I ask on the form:

• Mother/Guardian Name
• Mother/Guardian Phone
• Mother/Guardian Email
• Father/Guardian Name
• Father/Guardian Phone
• Father/Guardian Email
• Address/City/State/Zip
• What class do you plan to attend?
• How long have you attended Gateway?
• Are you in a small group?
• Please describe your family. Who lives at home? What’s the spiritual environment in your home?
• What is your reason/motivation for having your child dedicated?
• Name of first child being dedicated
• Name of second child being dedicated
• Name of third child being dedicated

All this information helps me know who is going to attend the classes, what the spiritual/family environment is like and how to prepare for the classes. During the class I actually have every parent in attendance write down their name, email and phone number. Sometimes I have parents just show up for the class, so it is important that I grab their information during the class. I always create an event in Fellowship One and make the parents as having attended so I can run reports on parents who have attended the class.

After each class, I can email parents who signed up but didn’t attend a class to make plans to attend the next class. Also, I can use the list of those who actually attended the class and send them a link to the registration for the actual dedication. This registration is a Fellowship One registration that is specifically for the kid(s) being dedicated. Many of these kids are very young, so they’re not actually in Fellowship One yet, so I like it that the parents are putting them in so birthdate and all are correct. I typically have a link to this registration on a page on the ministry site that is hidden from the blog navigation. I don’t want people to accidentally find this page because I want people to attend the class before registering for the dedication. So, I’ll send the link to the registration page to everyone who has attended the class and to those who have attended previous classes.

Here are the questions I ask on this registration:

(Fellowship One already gathers information like family, gender, age, DOB and such, so I don’t have to ask those questions)

• Full Name
• Phonetic spelling of child’s full name (spell it like it sounds)
• Mother/Guardian
• Mother/Guardian Phone
• Mother/Guardian Email
• Father/Guardian
• Father/Guardian Phone
• Father/Guardian Email
• How many will be attending the Child Dedication service

So, that is the registration process I follow which gives me all the information I need. Tomorrow I’ll talk about how I process and store the information from the registration process.

Continue Reading

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. This ensures that all of our families are here and in place (sometimes we have some late-comers). The service begins with the worship leader starting off with two worship songs. The songs are mostly upbeat and short as many parents are focused more on the fact that they have squirmy kids with them. Sometimes I’ll actually have one of my volunteer leaders kick off the service with an introduction and a short testimony.

After the songs, we go directly to video of a slideshow of the kids participating in the dedication. In the past I began the dedication with the slideshow, but I found that many people didn’t realize that the show had started until 20-30 seconds into the slideshow and the presentation is very beautiful and does a great job of setting the stage for the dedication. I use Animoto for the slideshows and they are PERFECT. If you haven’t used Animoto in the past, click here to sign up. It’s cheap and something you’ll use regularly. Once the slideshow has been rendered, I pay the $5 for a high resolution render. If you are showing this on the big screen, it makes all the difference in the world. Feel free to watch a past slideshow we used at the bottom of this post.

After the slideshow I will speak for 7-9 minutes about Child Dedication, why we do it and its significance. At this point I’ll challenge parents in their commitment to lead their families spiritually. By the time I’m done speaking, the time is usually 11:20. At this time I introduce the prayer leaders and call up the first set of families (one for each prayer leader). The prayer leaders will spend 7-10 minutes praying over each family. I make sure to have enough prayer leaders so that I can get all our families through in no more than 3 rounds. This way the very last family to leave is walking out the doors around 11:45-11:55.

Prayer leaders will introduce themselves to the whole family and will usually start off asking the parents the significance of their child’s name (why they picked that name in particular). The prayer leaders will usually read the meanings of the child’s names and read a scripture verse that ties into the meaning and talk just a little about the significance of that verse in the life of the child. Leaders will usually ask parents about their motivation to have their child dedicated. The leaders typically reinforce the goal of parents recognizing their role and taking on the leadership role spiritually. Prayer leaders usually ask if anyone wants to say anything, encourage the parents or talk about the child being dedicated. I typically ask if there is anyone else who would also like to pray over the family in addition to me. The remainder of the time is spent praying over the child, parents and family present by the leader.

During all of this time, the worship leader continues to play music or lightly sing in the background while the slideshow continues to play on the main screen.

Once families are finished being prayed over, they are free to leave. They go to the lobby to pick up their certificate and book and also get their picture taken in the courtyard. Within a week or two, pictures will be ready for families to access where they can download high quality originals or order prints. We use a church smugmug account with works really well for all of this. Click here to see our galeries. I have a good friend who is a professional photographer (her husband is also my key dedication leader) that takes all the pictures. I usually thank her with giftcards to show my appreciation.

So, that’s essentially the nuts and bolts of our dedication service. Our goal is that the service be short and sweet, but significant and meaningful. Most importantly, we want every family to feel like their experience was loving and personal.

Continue Reading

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).
• After the class, parents actually register their kids for the dedication.
• At the dedication, we lead the families in two worship songs, a slideshow, a short message about dedication and the role of parents followed by 3-4 rotations of dedication prayer.
• Families come up to meet their prayer leader who will lead a 5-10 minute prayer time with the family. They share the meaning of their child’s name as well as a scripture passage that ties into their name meaning.
• When parents leave, they pick up a child dedication certificate as well as a book (currently Revolutionary Parenting).
• Families also have their pictures taken as they leave which they can download or order prints.

For more details on any of the above points, just read through my past Child Dedication posts as I talk about each thoroughly.

One thing you should know about me though. I’m currently refining and every class and dedication is slightly different as I try to make improvements. Here is what is in the works.

• A parent workbook for families to work though in preparation of their dedication. My hope is that this will be ready for our next dedication in June, but we’ll see. There are a lot of things in process that might affect the content of this book.
• I’d like to refine the “program” for at home or single family child dedications. I don’t do many of these, but at times they become necessary and I don’t really have a specific process or set program. I’d like to develop this so it’s more or less “in the can.” This way these families can experience a quality and personal service.
• I forgot to add a line on the dedication registration where parents phonetically spell out their children’s names. The past two dedications I’ve had one of my staff personally get the pronunciation as they checked in.
• I personally need to revamp my talk both for the dedication class and service. Currently my team is developing “common language” for our NextGen ministry and I feel it will be very important to incorporate this in our class. In addition, I don’t feel that there is enough humor in either the class or service. When speaking to adults, I tend to be more serious than I need to be and I think things will flow better if things were a little lighter.

So, that’s what we’re doing. Again, feel free to read up on the developmental process we have been on for the past 2 years here. Since this stuff is fresh right now, I’ll be blogging this week on some of the nuts and bolts of what we do.

Continue Reading

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. More than likely, their names are going to be mispronounced their entire lives, why not try to get it right here. So, I figured there are two ways to go about fixing this

• I always do electronic registration using Fellowship One for these dedications. Next time I can create a field under their “full name” asking them to phonetically spell out their name so that it is properly pronounced. I remember at college graduation I had to phonetically write out my name on an index card before handing it to the announcer before my name was called out to receive my diploma. It seems kinda mechanical, but efficient.
• One of the prayer leaders can call the family before the event and get the proper pronunciation before the event. That way it’s done in a more personal way.

I think it’s really important to pronounce the name correctly. I think my first way is really efficient, but not very personal. The second way is personal, but not necessarily efficient (if someone forgets to call, then you’re stuck in the position of not knowing how to pronounce their name.

What do you think? Any other ideas?

Continue Reading

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? If you could change what you gave (I know some have their hands tied), what would it be?

(By the way, I am kidding about the picture. For the record, I’ve never given away a precious moments gift Bible.)

Continue Reading

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. You can read about them here. In addition, we’re going to add the dedication book that Ned Gable created at his church. Read about it here. Once we have these things in place, we may sit tight until we get the itch to make it even better. I’m always anxious to hear what others are doing as well. Don’t be shy.

Below are email reviews I got from two parents from our most recent dedication:

Parent One:

Tell me about your Prep for Child Dedication Class experience.
The class was much more than I thought it would be.  Upon signing up, I thought it would be basic info regarding how the actual service would take place.  We were really blown away by the questions and information that was given.  It was a great refresher to open our eyes to becoming better parents for Cole.  We really enjoyed everything we talked about and got a lot out of it.  I honestly wish more churches would do this!  I felt more “in tune” and prepared for the actual dedication.  You all had great advice and great prompting questions for us.  It was also great to meet the staff who would be interacting with our family.  I wouldn’t change anything!

Tell me about the dedication experience.
I liked that it was personal and was all about the child being dedicated.  It was much more meaningful than the dedications they do at other churches that last 5 or less minutes.  I really liked how you found the meaning to Cole’s names and then found such a great verse that went along with it all.  Would you still have that verse?  I’d love to write it in the front of his Bible.  I thought that made it even more special.  Thanks for doing that! 

Tell me about the pre-dedication experience.
I actually found it on Gateway’s front web page.  I had no idea when the times were or that you even did them.  I was happy to see that link!  I got all of the info from the website.  I never saw any info during service or in the bulletin.  Sometimes we miss that part of the service.  It would be cool to have it in the bulletin every week…I always read those and take them home.  So, if I miss the 411, I can still get the info in the bulletin.  The website is great tool as well.  I thought it was very easy to register and sign up.

Parent Two:

Tell me about your Prep for Child Dedication Class experience.
The information was very thorough and asked the right questions to make sure the dedication was right for us.
Yes, the information was very helpful and eye opening for myself as well as the friends that attended.  Many were confused what the difference of a child’s baptism and a dedication were and you explained the difference very well!
Absolutely, my friends that are parents were asking me questions that I felt very happy to answer after taking the class.

Tell me about the dedication experience.
We were very fortunate to have Jonathan pray for us.  He knows Sean, our oldest son, and our family very well and made it that more special!  I would have liked to have more worship songs, but its understandable when you have little kids with you!
The slideshow is a keeper and I thought everything else went very smoothly, don’t change a thing!
Yes, the experience was great! Mainly because Jonathan knows my older son very well and it felt like he really knew us and cared when he prayed for us!
I have never been to anything like this so I have nothing to compare it to, but I thought it was a very inspiring and wonderful experience!  Thank you!

Tell me about the pre-dedication experience.
I found out thru an email
No it was very easy to register!
Thank you so much for all the information you gave us and giving my husband and I the extra support to dedicate our children to God.  It is nice to know such amazing people to come to if we have any questions or need advice!

This is Jonah. He was critiquing this dedication for me. He let me know later that we did a good job.

Continue Reading