So, the first message in the curriculum is about the wise men who traveled to see Jesus. I’m doing a bit of a fun intro at the beginning and I thought that it would be fun to have those light-up plastic wise men that people loved to put in their yards in the 80′s.. and some of them even now. I was going to set the scene and do it in a funny way explaining how there probably wasn’t just 3 wise men and how they didn’t arrive at the manger scene… just a little historical background information. I thought it would be fun to do with the plastic wise men.

However, what I’ve learned is that these these wise men have become vintage. What you used to be able to buy at KMart for 10-20 bucks will now set you back $40 or $50. So, I figured that I’d throw this out to the wider Kidmin community. Does anyone have some wise men. I could actually use Mary, Joseph and Jesus too… but I need at least 4… maybe 6 individual wise men plastic illuminated things. I’ll be glad to pay for shipping and I’d be glad to ship them back to you. I know that some of you have them in your attics… or your parents do. Let me know!

When coming to a new church you usually inherit a lot of stuff. You also inherit volunteer schedules and routines. At Gateway I inherited one things I really like and one thing I don’t like too much. First of all, a majority of our volunteers serve every week. That’s just awesome. The thing I don’t like so much is that traditionally a large number of these volunteers would take the summer months off and a recruiting push would be done in May called “Summer Serve.” The idea was that a new team is recruited to serve for the summer while most of the regulars took time off. The advantage was that many of those who signed up for Summer Serve would stick with it into the next year. The disadvantage, you’ve got a whole new team to train and enlist in ministry.

Have any of your guys experienced this? I can tell you that I don’t love it. I’m all for giving my volunteers some time off. I’ll give them time off whenever they need it. However, I don’t see letting all my team off for 2-3 months all at the same time. I understand the “why,” but I don’t love it.

So, this Spring we didn’t do it… kinda. Well, I actually got her too late to do an official Summer Serve push. The announcement I made last Sunday was where we would normally do a Summer Serve push (about a month late though), but instead I made it about serving on a permanent basis.

Have any of you experienced Summer Serve? Was it a really successful thing or a necessary evil?