Roger's 19

While I'm not sure about his FAT style of recruiting, I do like his 19 Simple Rules about CM .

Some of my favorites and why:

• The facilities/maintenance supervisor will not be permitted to give the Children’s Pastor mean looks in the hallway.--Oh, man do I have this problem, especially since I painted chalkboard paint on the wall in one of the rooms. The Building and Grounds committee could not (even after full explanation) understand why I painted the wall instead of installing a chalkboard. It raised such controversy that they brought it to Session and approved a new policy of approval for paint selection. Good thing I painted the orange and lime green room before the policy came out.
  
• No matter how disruptive children’s church becomes during the adult service, ushers are not permitted to enter children’s church and “shush” while kids are singing.--Had this happen last Sunday when the kids were so excited about receiving their Bibles and were asking a multitude of questions. The usher actually came in and told them to be quiet, as they were disturbing the worshippers. Stuffy church!
• The names of children’s ministry workers who fail to show up without notifying the department director will be printed in the church bulletin the following week. Second offenses will result in a public reprimand by the Senior Pastor during the adult service on the following Sunday morning.--Ha! In my dreams.

FAT Ministry

An article I recently read was "How to Recruit a FAT Ministry Team" by Roger Fields. It basically talks about shedding the old begging routine with ministry and making it appear like an almost elitist position to serve. Note his thoughts:

"Put out the word that working in the children's ministry is by invitation only; no volunteers will be accepted. You can ue the bulletin for this announcement. Make it known that from now on working in the children's ministry is an honor. People who are truly called to this ministry will let you know."

I believe that we shouldn't just recruit willy nilly, but should we actually put those words in the bulletin? If I were new to a church and saw that working in CM was by invite only, I'd not only tell them to stuff it, but I would leave and find a new church.

Time for a Breather

BTSW--check
Tea--check
start of SS--check
restructure SS for more kids--check
3rd grade Bible presentation--check

Now I can rest for a little bit.

Cool thing from this weekend, though. We had 7 kids RSVP for their Bibles, but 30 kids came up to the front. Thank God I had enough Bibles up there. Several of those kids were visitors and had never had a Bible before and didn't know how to use it. In SS, now that we have broken up into smaller groups, the teachers were able to focus on teaching those kids about their Bibles, and I think they are going to come back. One of the things I've found in my ministry at this church and at others is that if you give them Bibles, they will come (to play off a phrase). Seriously though, at our preteen ministry on Wed nights, we give free Bibles to anyone to take home, and those kids come back. It is the coolest thing to see them treasure a Bible and come back for a Bible, not an mp3 player or some other freebie. It's very powerful.

Plus, in the 3rd grade group for SS, we had a teacher mixup, so there wasn't a teacher available. Before the shepherds and I could even scramble to think of what to do, one of the kids said, "Can we do what we did in KidsInC last week since we got our new Bibles?" What we had done was make bookmarks out of 4 different colored ribbons (Learning to Use My Bible--Cokesbury) for them to mark the Table of Contents, the OT, Psalms, and the NT. I was nervous because I ran out of ribbon, but we pulled out a bucket of yarn, and the kids were braiding it together. Kids were teaching the new kids and helping them find the sections. We didn't even miss not having a teacher.

Such a cool weekend! I left that day and on the way to lunch I just screamed out, "I love my job!" It's so cool to see that even if things have "failed" on a physical plane, God knows exactly what He is doing! It gets hard sometimes, especially when everyday someone has to complain or question a decision that I've made, but when I stop and see that the Lord's hand is in every bit of it, even the "mistakes," I can just smile and tell those people that God knows what He's doing. It stops them dead in their tracks and preserves my joy!

Education

So some of the people in the church are encouraging me to get my MACE (MA in Christian Education) from Union PSCE. I, however, have one masters already (albeit in literature, but that's no matter), so I'd prefer to go straight for a doctorate in education. One of the pastors suggested that the doctorate in education would serve as a more well rounded degree and would serve me better in the future. The MACE, of course, is distance learning and is easy to obtain (much easier to embark upon while working full time). Things that are easy, though, tend not to be as well received in the world, so I don't know what to do. Deadlines are approaching. Any suggestions?

The Wild Ride has begun

The teacher tea was yesterday and was a big hit with the ladies and the gentlemen teachers. The theme was A Little Taste of Children's Ministry, and we did a tea tasting with 5 different teas, finger sandwiches, and desserts. My committee decorated beautifully with purple, sage green, and ivy, and the breakout training sessions were very helpful, according to both new and veteran teachers. It was a nice way to start off the year, and everyone was pleased with the changes I made for the fall, which was a relief to me.

Last week, of course was the BTSW, which brought back 50 visiting families who had fallen out of touch with us and brought in 11 new families who are interested in joining the church. Plus, it really pumped up the kids and youth, who have told their parents that they are bringing friends to church from now on.

That known, I worked hard to make sure that all the last minute details were in place, ensuring that we had 2 shepherds for each group (1st graders, 2nd and 3rd, and 4th and 5th) and filling all but 2 off the teaching spots for the entire fall rotation. A little nervous, I kept consoling myself with the fact that everything was smooth sailing--that is, until today!

You know, I think that God waits for the exact moment that you become comfortable to do wonderous upside down twirls in your little rollercoaster of a ministry. I walked in confident and secure only to find that we TRIPLED our regular attendance, and I didn't have nearly enough adult volunteers to even out any sort of ratio of adult to kids. Kids brought 3 or 4 friends apiece. My volunteers literally stood there shellshocked, and even the most gentle of shepherds showed a little agitation.

Now, of course, this is a WONDERFUL problem to have in CM, and it was so great to see so many kids pumped up about being in SS. I mean, they were so full of vitality and energy that the building rocked. It was chaos, but we made it through with what we have, and if I can get my volunteers to come back next week (I kept coaxing them saying, "It will all be fixed next week"), we are going to have one heck of a ministry on our hands. Not only are we going to have to split into 5 groups (one for each grade level), but we may even have to split some grade levels into As and Bs. Children's Worship doubled in size, as well, and the coordinator for that was pretty stunned.

So, back to the drawing board it goes for me (and back to the lovely job of recruiting--ugh, I thought I was done with that). But where God opens a floodgate of little lambs, He surely has plans for shepherds to lead them, so onto my knees I go with nothing but faith and open ears.

Volunteering

A little rant here:

My biggest problem is that I work in a church where everyone flocks to "volunteer," but then when it comes to actually signing up for a particular day and time, they waddle away backwards like frightened ducks. It almost feels like they just want to say, "Yeah, I volunteer at my church" but not really do it. Plus, it's a consumer church--they expect others to hand them things because they pay for it (in tithes).

Call me jaded , but I've just come to the point where I'm logging all the times when I don't have volunteers, and come spring, I'm disseminating that information and saying plainly that we're not running [insert program here] until people step up. I don't mean it out of animosity but out of pragmatism. The same core people cannot keep running something. It leads to burnout. It pains me to keep calling on my CFM team members all the time. They need a break.

The associate pastor (with the encouragement of the head pastor) actually cancelled the All Church Retreat because no one stepped up to be on the committee. People are outraged, but she quietly stated that they were welcome to be on next year's committee. I wholeheartedly support her; sometimes you have to wake people up. This is a church, not BK "have it your way" drive thru. We all work together as the body of Christ to glorify and worship Him. The arm can't be the only one working while the leg and head wait to play. Hmmm, maybe we need to read The Little Red Hen in the services.

Another thing we've prayed about at staff meetings is priortizing. Parents have their kids overscheduled in 55 different activities and can't find time to fit church in. One parent told me that she doesn't have a problem letting her kid stay up until 8 for baseball practice "because it's baseball, you know" but she can't see letting her kid stay up at church until 7:45: "He needs to have some night that he goes to bed at a decent hour."

Or they want Chuck E Church, so that it is so overstimulating that it trumps the other activities. Where has the simplicity gone?

KidsInC kickoff

The kickoff went well. I'd say we had roughly 15-20 kids (good mix of boys and girls) . I have the exact numbers, but they are in a bag far away from my computer and my cheerios. All the people at the kickoff signed up to attend next week for the first real session, so I'm pleased. Also, there were a lot of new faces there and a lot of 4th graders, which means they'll be around next year.

It was a pool party, so the kids wore themselves out in the most beautiful pool (a member graciously donated her house to us). The parents seemed to get along, too, and offered to help.

BTSW a Sucess

BTSW went really well. My team worked well together, and everything looked great. We had several new families express interest in our program, and the kids had a blast and made a gigantic mess, which was great to see.

Pictures to come. Now to finish the teacher tea plans, but first a staff outing to Minute Maid to see the Astros play the Cubs. This is a tough call for me, as I was born in Houston but "grew up" in Chicago. What to do...what to do?

The big weekend is here

Well, after much planning and many nightmares of me waking up and forgetting that I was supposed to be at work and then running to work in my PJs while everyone is tearing all the decorations down (whew!), the weekend is here in exactly 7 hours. What am I doing to prep for it? I'm sitting in my PJs eating cheerios, reading blogs, drinking cherry coke, and talking to my cats. I'm trying to have a few moments of sanity before the chaos begins.

Tonight's the easy night: dinner and a movie. Tomorrow's a different story.

I've been thinking a lot about a post I read about Chuck E Cheese Church.
That's sort of what I feel like we're doing. The goal, in theory, of this BTSW is to minister to kids--to pray for them and to pray for their teachers before they go back to school, but I feel that goal has gotten lost somehow into this madness of trying to corral new members. All the meetings focus on getting visitors to come back, and while that is important, I feel like if we keep our focus on praying for the children, God will work on those families.

Don't get me wrong. We need to be an inviting church, but games and rides and tickets and flashing lights aren't in anyway as powerful as praying for a child or teacher who needs it.

This is what I've learned over cheerios and cherry coke, and I think that keeping my focus on what really matters will help me brush off any little things that go wrong this weekend. Who cares if one of the games is a dud, if we can send one child to school with the armor of God surrounding him/her?

BTSW is almost here

2 more days until BTSW!

It's an all church event.  Every ministry area has a booth with a kid activity, and there will be carnival type rides and a rock wall.  They're planning for 1500+ people.  Whew! 

Fire and Brimstone

Well, I decorated for BTSW this weekend, and put up fabric over the doors to look like mosquito nets and tents. Someone, without full information, wrote a detailed email to me and CCd to everyone in the world about how my cloth was a fire hazard.

This person has done this numerous times in the past and apparently has it in for the CM dept. His wife actually calls him a Pharisee, strangely enough. Anyway, he has been told that the fabric we use has been fire treated in the past, but he still wants to make issues out of it.

Because he CCd the world, this tiny issue which could've been resolved with one little email saying "it's fire treated" ended up being this gigantic legal matter, which still has not been resolved by the head pastor. My whole day was wasted dealing with this.