Tag Archives: Curriculum
Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Video access
Posted on 16. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
This topic is closely related to my post last week about video curriculum, but from a different angle. More and more churches are relying on video driven or video rich content for their curriculum. Sometimes the video supplements the lesson and at other times the video is the lesson. In either of these cases, using video curriculum has been difficult to equip our volunteers for the service they are leading. I’m not sure if curriculum publishers have thought this through at all. So I get a DVD (or video file for those publishers that are pushing the limits) that I’m going to use at my weekend experiences. However, I have 3-6 lead teachers that have to interact with the video.… Read the rest
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Family content
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
It seems like everyone is talking about family ministry. No really, it’s for real this time. About 6-8 years ago children’s pastors began adding “and family” to their job title, but it’s been more recently than that since there’s been a ton of energy dedicated to this idea of engaging with parents, especially in the world of curriculum. I think that right now, the knowledgeable children’s pastor who’s shopping or curriculum is looking closely at what is being offered to parents as a component of the curriculum.
I really don’t think it’s enough to simply “add on” family stuff as if it were an after thought, but it needs to be highly developed and compelling. It could be the deciding factor for many children’s pastors making their selection.… Read the rest
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Ministry resources: risk versus safety
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
I’m near the end of this series on curriculum series and I think one of the themes emerging more than anything is the idea that ministry leaders are pushing for advancement and change. However, one person commented that the majority of ministry leaders buying from the curriculum publishers are currently happy with the the way things are. Since this majority of ministry leaders make up the bulk of revenue for the publisher, they have little motivation to want to change things up.
That reminds me of when I was at a previous church and we were locked into a a check-in software that was absolute junk. When moving to this software, we were told that it would do everything we needed, including being a great solution for multi-site check-in.… Read the rest
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Leverage creative collaboration
Posted on 11. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
Children’s pastors are tweakers. We tweak everything. Rarely will we ever pull anything out of a box and do it. It’s got to be tweaked for our kids and our church. Also, children’s pastors who are in the midst of ministry often times see things differently than a publisher does. What would happen if a publishing company could leverage the community of hundreds of children’s ministry leaders around the country to develop curriculum that offers dozens of options, extra ideas for every imaginable situation?
Sounds complicated, huh? Too difficult to pull off, right?
Five years ago maybe, but not today. With the social web, the power of creative community is waiting for the first publisher to leverage it. There have been many times where I wasn’t happy with the small group activity my publisher suggested.… Read the rest
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Video curriculum
Posted on 11. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
One of the greatest advances in curriculum in the last decade was that of video curriculum or at least video components to supplement curriculum. We minister to a sight and sound generation and most churches don’t have the resources to pull off a compelling production that captures the imagination of every child or gifted and skilled communicator where kids hang on their every work. The video stuff helps and every year it gets better and better.
Actually, the early pioneers of this was Church on the Move with their Kids on The Move curriculum. You could get very high quality video curriculum on VHS to show on Sunday mornings. After 2000, curriculum began showing up on DVD’s and the idea was, “it’s so simple to operate.… Read the rest
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Curriculum distribution
Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
Eight or nine years ago, when ordering curriculum for Sunday School teachers, I had to order a curriculum book for every teacher. That usually cost me $20 a pop. Now we live in a digital world. Everything is different. You as the publisher have given me great material, but don’t be offended if I don’t have my teachers teach it the way you wrote it. I may do it in a different order. I might even leave out half and add in something of my own that fits what we’re doing as a church as a whole. When I ordered curriculum books from you, I had to type up a guide for the teachers of what to teach, what not to teach, how to change the order and all those instructions.… Read the rest
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Defining roles
Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of resources and practices, can we clearly define our roles? I think it will help provide a framework and context to talk about issues.
The role of the church
As Bill Hybles so beautifully says, “The Church is the hope of the world.” It’s true. There was a time when there was no such thing as curriculum. The church would read the letters of the Apostles, they’d encourage each other, share meals together and tell their neighbors about who Christ was. There were no publishing companies back then. There will come a day when Christ comes back for his church and all need for curriculum will be gone as well will fully know and be known.
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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers
Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
This little series of posts have been stirring in my brain for the last few months and I’m going to attempt to get them out this week. These posts are written specifically for those in the Chidlren’s Ministry curriculum publishing business. I know there are a a few who read this blog, so hopefully you’re reading this. Let me add a disclaimer. I’m not mad or frustrated (usually). I’m grateful. When I got into ministry to kids 12+ years ago, there was precious little in the form of curriculum and most of what was available was LAME! I’m grateful to those who are publishing great curriculum as now I have options. Thank you so much!
Also, I know that there are many publishers already doing some of the things I’ll be posting about, but I’m not sure I know of any that are doing all of them.… Read the rest
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Lee Strobel makes a case for kids
Posted on 09. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
Last year while visiting North Point, I spent a lot of money in bookstore! One resource I picked up was a series by Lee Strobel for kids linked to his “A Case for Christ/Creator/Faith” books. I picked up the following books:
I’m half-way done reading through “A Case for a Creator”. It would only take an adult 20-30 minutes to read through the whole thing. Each book is only eight chapters long and would make for a great small group study for older elementary kids. I’m looking to launch a prototype small group study for older elementary kids and I might use this as a resource.… Read the rest
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Intentional Theology: Scope and Sequence
Posted on 26. Feb, 2009 by Kenny.
This week I wrote a couple of posts about doctrine and theology in children’s ministry. Honestly, I think these posts generated the most interesting discussions and interaction I’ve had here at chidlren’s ministry online. So, if you participated in the discussion, thanks for adding value. For those of you who just read, I hope it sparked some thoughts. Feel free to continue to add to the conversation.
If I had to wrap up this idea, I think I’d say that thoughts on doctrine and theology are somewhat divided. I didn’t hear anyone say they weren’t important, but some were concerned about implementation. I think that is key. If it’s this race to fill a child’s head with knowledge, then that’s not success.… Read the rest
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