John Saddington works at North Point, but he wrote about his experience as a dad. Click here to see the card he got in the mail.

They get a an A+ on communication.

What are you doing that is different but effective?

The only two things I really had my eye on was the implementation of small groups in elementary and the promotion of our 5th graders into middle school. We had two big wins!

First of all I’ll talk about the small groups. One of the first things on my plate from the moments I began at Gateway ( We even talked about it extensively during my interviews) was to launch small groups in elementary. We’ve been working very hard all summer to plug small group leaders in. The goal is about 31 small groups. We’re still not quite there; however, most of our leaders were in place during the 9:30 and 11:00 services. There was a great energy in the room and kids were connecting with their leaders and other kids in their groups. We still have a lot of work ahead of us… but it was beautiful to see.

Second was the promotion of our 5th graders. This was a little big of a double whammy. Chad Swanzy, our student pastor has been working really hard on making this a success. He came on staff just a month before I did and one of the first things on his list was to fix the middle school program. Gateway only had one middle school service and it was at the worst attended time. So, in this church of 4000, we had about 30-35 attend. Before I was even on the scene, Chad was already hard at work to get services added to the 9:30 and 11:00 time slots. By the time I arrived, we only had to work out where to put the Middle School. The main reason middle school only met at 12:30 was because there wasn’t any space at our facility except for at 12:30. Since I knew the portables would be available to us, I gave up our oldest preschool room which was located on the same floor as elementary aged kids and would accommodate the middle school kids. Once all this was set, Chad and his team began working on getting middle school kids who just sat in the service during 9:30 and 11:00 to come to these new service times. Chad had already talked to the previous elementary director about getting in to talk to the 5th graders a few times over the summer. I also was already on this wavelength. The family pastor at a church in interviewed with explained that for them, promotion wasn’t a date on a calendar, but a process. My hope was that we could connect Chad and his team with these 5th graders as many times as possible over the summer. So, we launched about 4 preview services throughout the summer. Unfortunately we ran anywhere from 15-20 5th graders those Sundays. Yeah, that meant only 5-7 per service on our preview Sundays. During our higher attended Sunday’s we would average 30-35 5th graders… but in the summer our numbers were way down. However, this Sunday was totally different. We had at least 35 5th graders (now 6th graders) attend. In addition, 7th and 8th graders showed up for the 9:30 and 11:00 services as well. In all, Middle School had about 95 kids.

I’m really proud of Chad and his team… they pulled it off BIG TIME! We talked at the beginning of the summer of how he could very easily triple the middle school program… and they did! The cool part is that they just got started, I’m absolutely convinced that they’re going to grow. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they hit 150 before Christmas. How did they do it? Well, first of all they just made space available (If you build it, they will come). Second of all, I know that Chad and his team worked hard to get them there. They were making phone calls and sending out post cards. Last of all, they really upgraded the quality of the program. Seriously, it looks so much more polished than it did 3 months ago. It’s a great service and the kids who attend are having fun and getting a lot out of it!

Read about it from Chad’s blog here!

I’ve always hated losing my 5th graders. By the time they’re ready to move on the 6th grade, I just love them too much to want to let go. I’ve invested so much into them. I’ve also hated promotion because inevitably, many of them won’t make the transition. Because the program is so different, some of the kids don’t adjust well to the difference. Sometimes it is even the parents who resist sending their kids to a program that is so different with teenagers that are so much older. So, many of these kids who don’t make the transition end up sneaking back into kids church for a few weeks or months. Eventually, many of them feel like they don’t fit and eventually stop coming. For many, it may be a year or two before they end up showing up in Student Ministry. Some never do.

That is why I hate Promotion Sunday.

However, this time I’m really excited. Well, since I don’t really know any of the kids yet at Gateway, I’m not attached to those 5th graders. But that’s not why I’m excited. I’m excited because for the first time I feel like a strong plan is being put into place to capture “most” of our 5th graders. Our student pastor will be offering middle school programs during all of our weekend services. The Middle School service isn’t going to be so totally different that the 5th graders can’t relate. So, for the 5th grader to make the transition, he/she simply has to walk down the hall to another room. That’s it.

Chad, the student pastor and I have been talking about how if we can make this transition successful, his Middle School program could triple. In addition, if we continue to create tight hand-offs every year, his entire student ministry could be 3 or 4 times larger in just a few year just by kids growing up in the programs. What’s not exciting about that? I’ll continue to post about how this transition is going. We’re planning several “preview events” throughout the summer to make those 5th graders beg for promotion day!!!