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Melita Thomas and Rhonda VanCleave join the podcast to discuss there is more to VBS than just the Theme.
Volunteer Recruitment Panel: What really works?
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Delanee Williams, Klista Storts & Jeremy Carroll join the podcast to discuss what really works with volunteer recruitment.
Delanee Williams serves as a Ministry Specialist with LifeWay Kids. She is a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Delanee has served in kids ministry for over twenty years and is passionate about developing, equipping and encouraging leaders.
Klista Storts serves as an Editorial Ministry Specialist for LifeWay Kids. Before coming to LifeWay, she served as the Weekday and Preschool Specialist at the Tennessee Baptist Convention and as Director of Preschool Ministries at churches in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Klista has a passion for equipping leaders to share the love of Christ and lay foundations for conversion in the lives of kids.
Jeremy Carroll is the team leader for LifeWay Kids Discipleship Resources. Before coming to LifeWay, he has been active in local church ministry for nearly 20 years in TN, TX, and AL. Jeremy earned a Master of Arts in Christian Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. A Middle Tennessee native, he and his family live in Murfreesboro, TN.
When a Kids Ministry Motto Reaches the Whole Church (Guest Blog)
Like many churches in our River Region, we hosted a Vacation Bible School this year at the beginning of June. For a week, the sound of happy children filled our halls and classrooms as boys and girls learned Bible stories about people who had “amazing encounters with Jesus.”
The Sunday morning before Vacation Bible School was to begin, we dedicated our morning worship service to VBS. The sanctuary was already decorated, the boys and girls led the music (and taught the grown-ups all the motions), and I preached on the VBS theme. We also had a commissioning service in which we prayed for the army of volunteers it takes to put on VBS.
I loved this service for a lot of reasons, and not just for the fact that I got to preach in a T-shirt and jeans instead of my normal “business casual” Sunday attire. Let me share a story with you that I hope encourages you. It definitely encouraged me to remember that the lessons of VBS aren’t just for kids.
The motto for our VBS was “Zoom In! Focus On Jesus!” So I taught the entire congregation the same motions I taught the kids:
Zoom In: cup your hands to your eyes like you are looking through binoculars
Focus On: Put your hand to your forehead like you are shielding your eyes from the sun, and look left and right
Jesus: Point Up
A senior adult lady was in the congregation that morning. I’ll call her Mrs. Mary. Mrs. Mary had been dealing with health issues for about six months, and when I greeted her after the service, she didn’t look well at all. As it turned out, this would be the last worship service Mrs. Mary attended. She went into the hospital on Monday. On Wednesday, I visited her. She was connected to a ventilator, but communicated to her family and friends through a combination of written notes and sign language.
I prayed with Mrs. Mary and read some Scripture over her. When I finished, she did a strange thing. First, she put both hands to her eyes. Her husband and I assumed she wanted her glasses, so we began looking for them. But Mrs. Mary shook her head. Then, she put her hand on her forehead. Again, we didn’t get it. Her husband thought she had a headache. She shook her head again. And when she pointed to the ceiling, that’s when I finally understood.
Hands cupped to her eyes. Zoom in!
Hand on her forehead, shielding her eyes from the imaginary sun. Focus On!
Finger pointing to the sky. Jesus!
In that moment, Mrs. Mary was focused on Jesus. In that moment, Mrs. Mary was closer to seeing her Savior than I was to the soda machine out in the hall. A month later, when Mrs. Mary passed away, I know that the same Jesus she had been focusing on in her last days was the One that welcomed her home. I know that when she focused on that Son, she didn’t have to shield her eyes any more. She saw Him face to face.
I share this story with you for a couple of reasons. The first is to remind you that the lessons we teach our children are the ones we need to hear as grown-ups. We never outgrow our need to focus on Jesus. We never get over the encouragement of Hebrews 12:1-2: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.”
But the second is to encourage you. The pressures and problems of this world can get to us. They can wear us out and discourage us. But during those times of discouragement, zoom in, and focus on Jesus. He promises us that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:17-18)
James Jackson is lead pastor of Glynwood Baptist Church in Prattville. He enjoys reading, drinking ridiculous amounts of coffee, and helping create a place at Glynwood where “it’s okay to not be okay.” He and his wife Trish have two sons, Joshua and Caleb.
Forging a Ministry to Preteens
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Jeremy Carroll and Kayla Stevens join the podcast to discuss 3 key principles for preteen ministry.
Jeremy Carroll is the team leader for LifeWay Kids Discipleship Resources. Before coming to LifeWay, he has been active in local church ministry for nearly 20 years in TN, TX, and AL. Jeremy earned a Master of Arts in Christian Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. A Middle Tennessee native, he and his family live in Murfreesboro, TN.
Kayla Stevens is the Content Editor for LifeWay Kids Discipleship. She is a graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and William Carey University. Kayla lives in Nashville, Tennessee and has served in Kids ministry for over 10 years.
First Impressions for Preschoolers
Can you remember the first time you visited your church? Do you recall the way you felt? Were you greeted warmly and guided to a Bible study class or the worship center? Did you leave after that first visit and feel that you had a good experience?
Now think about the preschoolers coming to your group for the first time. Think about their parents. When you open the door, you greet not only the child, but also his family. How can you make the first impression a positive one for the entire family?
- Smile. Your caring smile and cheerful attitude may calm the heart of a hurried or concerned parent. A preschooler is immediately drawn to a smiling face.
- Kneel. Stoop down to the child’s eye level. Look directly at him and call him by name. This shows the child and his parents that the preschooler is important to your church and to you.
- Reassure the family. Your gentle understanding of their anxiety will help allay their fears.
- Communicate. Tell parents what you will do to provide a loving, secure, and fun experience for their preschooler. Describe a few of the activities and approaches you use to teach the Bible to children in your class.
- Pray. Pray for each child and his family and ask God to reveal just the right way to meet needs.
Families with preschoolers will come to your church from a variety of circumstances and experiences. You are privileged to minister to children and families at this time right where they are. Receive preschoolers with joy when they come to your door, and remember, first impressions are often lasting impressions.
Rachel Coe is content editor for Explore the Bible: Preschoolers resources. She guides preschoolers in Bible explorations every week at her church [in Mt. Juliet, TN].
Guiding kids and parents from Kids Ministry to Student Ministry
Guest Blogger Kimberly Wells shares tips to help kids and parents navigate the transition between kids ministry and student ministry.
Every year around this time, kids and parents make the transition from kids ministry to youth ministry. This may seem like a normal, expected move, but it can make significant waves in the life of a child. This is the moment where they move out of comfort into uncertainty, away from trusted teachers and systems to something new, and being on the top to back to the bottom. Not to mention all of the emotional, physical, and mental changes kids are experiencing. As a kidmin leader, I cannot take a lackadaisical approach to this epic moment in our kids’ lives.
We know kids ministry is more directed to working with parents whereas student ministry works more with the students attending. Because of this, it is crucial to guide both parents and kids effectively into student ministry. In my time on church staff, this movement requires more thought and preparation than almost anything else.
Here are three tips that I have found to be helpful for this transition:
- Communicate! Both parents and kids struggle in today’s time to balance school, work, extracurriculars and the like. It is even more imperative than ever to communicate effectively. In our ministry, we communicate in various mediums: written, weekly emails, social media, announcement TVs, and info kiosks. We want our parents to have multiple avenues to knowing what is going on in each ministry. In order to help parents and kids transition to student ministry, communicating what major dates are happening as far as promotion, events, and other important details, will mean a lot.
- Give space to discover. Schedule out time to give the kids space to discover who will lead them the next several years in a fun and engaging way. This requires kid and student ministers to work together to meet the kids moving up, like attending small groups, camps, VBS, and so forth. Start planning early, the summer is a great time to give the student ministry staff facetime in front of the preteen kids. Invite their current leaders to be a part and a source of encouragement to kids while also passing information to the new leaders.
- Provide intentional opportunities to belong. The junior high small group leaders play a vital role in allowing kids to feel like they belong. Cast vision to new small group leaders to spend time investing in the new students, knowing their extracurricular schedule, and making time to attend and support their small group kids. Invite them to begin praying over their new kids, especially if they know their names in advance. Plan fun events where kids and parents can meet the new staff like a breakfast before church or fun game nights.
We know kids have a choice when they move into student ministry if they are going to continue deepening their walk with Jesus or move away. If kids and student ministers work together to help communicate effectively to parents, give space for kids to discover the next ministry, and offer intentional opportunities, we can not only help kids move to a new ministry, but also grow deeper in their walk with Jesus and the local church.
Kimberly Wells has over 17 years of kid min experience, serving churches in England, Wisconsin, and Texas for the last 10 years. She and her husband, Tim, currently serve on staff at First Baptist Wylie, Tx. She enjoys a good cup of coffee, board games and traveling. She has a deep desire for kids to know Jesus, own their faith, and change their world for the Gospel.
Discipleship is not a Conveyor Belt
Guest Blogger Ben Trueblood serves as the Director of Student Ministry for LifeWay. He is also one of the hosts of the ETCH Family Ministry Conference and will be speaking at this year’s conference October 7-9 in Nashville. Find out more at etchconference.com.
For many years, one method of ministry has been to compile a list of outcomes that should be present in a teenager’s life when they graduate high school and then work backwards organizing the student and kids ministry to achieve those outcomes. Organizing this way gives you, other leaders, and your senior pastor clear markers that can be measured along the way. For example: a junior in high school, if they’ve been active in the church for the last few years, should be exhibiting X outcomes in their life. When done correctly, this approach can also be an effective tool for parents to see the importance of family ministry in the life of their kid or teenager, as well as a game plan to help them as they seek to spiritually nurture their student. Generally, it isn’t a bad way to look at the overall strategy or approach of a student ministry, but it isn’t discipleship.
This approach makes one major assumption: every kid and student is the same.
It turns our ministry into a conveyor belt that says if we do X then the result in a kid or teenagers’s life will be Y. It sounds great, but discipleship doesn’t work that way because each student is different. They have different home lives, thoughts, struggles, gifts, and personalities, which lead to discipleship being much more of a personal endeavor than one-size-fits-all. Discipleship is meant to take place within a relational context where God’s Word can be read, memorized, discussed and applied in real-time to the issues a teenager is walking through. The conveyor belt approach doesn’t leave room for the needed individualization that true discipleship requires, and it isn’t working.
“In a recent study from LifeWay Research and LifeWay Students we see that 66% of teenagers who are active in the church during their high school years will drop out of the church during their college years.”
At the same time, we see that the number of adult spiritual mentors a teenager has in their life during their high school years has a profoundly positive impact on them staying connected to the church. Statistically, when a high school student has three or more adult spiritual mentors from the church investing in their life, they are three times more likely to stay connected to the church in their college years.
Why is a spiritual mentoring relationship so important?
Because, once again, it is the natural avenue for discipleship. The adult gets to know the personal context of the teenager through this kind of relationship to the point that they are able to connect the dots of what the teenager is walking through with scripture. The result is that the teenager begins to see and experience the transformational power of God’s word; that it really does speak to the real issues of everyday life. Furthermore, when a teenager has several of these spiritual mentors throughout their time in student ministry they get to peer through the window of how an adult applies God’s word to their own life. They get to see the individual struggles of each adult and discover different perspectives on how to follow Jesus because each of those adults has their own personal context as well. Through these kinds of relationships the teenager gets to live more spiritual lives than their own learning along the way and storing up spiritual wisdom for later in life.
The Application?
- Continue to build a strategy for your preschool, kids, preteen, or student ministry with clear outcomes and measurable markers along the way, making sure to create as many opportunities as possible for spiritual mentoring relationships to take root.
- Make time in your schedule to train and develop the adult leaders in your ministry to be able to take on a spiritual mentoring role. Few leaders will take the step beyond small group leader to become a spiritual mentor without being nudged in that direction. (Kids can be mentored too!)
Spiritual mentors can be small group leaders, but not all small group leaders are intentional spiritual mentors. As the kids or student pastor, it is your responsibility to cast vision for them on what this looks like, and to train them how to do it. Because discipleship is personalized, your investment in your leaders should be the same. The good news is that in a world where minutes can be easily stolen by so many responsibilities, every minute spent training and investing in leaders will never be wasted.
Ben Trueblood serves as the Director of Student Ministry for LifeWay Christian Resources and has nineteen years of student ministry experience, fourteen of which were spent in the local church as a student pastor. In addition to his role at LifeWay Ben is involved in training, consulting, and speaking to student ministries throughout the U.S. He is the author of three books: A Different College Experience, Within Reach, and Student Ministry That Matters, and is the host of the LifeWay Student Ministry podcast. Ben is driven by a desire for student ministries to expand God’s Kingdom, to see the lives of students transformed by the gospel, and to develop students who shape the culture in which they live. Ben and his wife Kristen have four children. In his free time Ben enjoys family, hunting, is a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan, and is a collector of hobbies. Connect with Ben on social media: @bentrueblood
When Your Child is Anxious: 3 Ways You Can Help
Welcome back to KidsMinstry 101 guest blogger, Josh Straub!
We had a faulty smoke detector last week at our house. My refusal to spend more money on a new detector was the only thing that kept me from taking a sledgehammer to it. After changing out the batteries twice, I finally reset it—only to discover after loud chirping twelve hours later (at 6:00 AM) it was an entirely different detector that needed to be reset.
The chirping went on for days. One evening, as I tried to fix it, I thought it would be a good idea to tell our 4-year-old son, Landon, and 2-year-old daughter, Kennedy, what it meant if that beeping sound ever went off.
“When you hear this alarm,” I told them, “it means we have to get out of the house.”
“But why, Daddy?” asked our son, with a look of panic on his face.
“Well, buddy,” I replied…
BEEP! BEEP!
The system chirped again. Landon welled up with tears. “Daddy, we have to get out,” he said, visibly scared.
Kennedy started to cry too.
With an annoying smoke detector going off and two crying kids, I began to wish I had told them it was the ice cream truck outside. There’s nothing a good ice cream sandwich won’t fix.
Now, every time they hear a beeping sound, they talk about it — because surely the battery in the toaster oven, doorbell, or construction truck going backward is about to die. I’m just happy they’re learning to talk about it.
Here are three ways we can help our kids when they feel anxious.
1. Let them ask questions.
Putting language to what we feel is like emotional brain surgery. Simply allowing our kids to voice what they fear reduces anxiety. That’s because when their feeling neurons connect with language neurons in their brain, it helps them begin to make sense of their experience.
The other night I opened the windows in our kids’ playroom upstairs. Landon, Kennedy and I stood looking out the window at a neighbor’s cat and a rabbit nearby. Landon started to push his head against the screen. I told him not to push the screen because he could break it.
A few seconds later he asked me to read the sticker on the screen. Not knowing what it said, I just read it aloud. “Warning: Screen will not stop child from falling out window. Keep child away from open window.”
Yeah. And this happened the night after the beeping sound. Talk about overwhelming your already anxious child. Not much was said after that. Landon just slowly moved away from the window and played with his trains.
Later that night, at 2:30 AM, I felt a nudge beside my bed. “Daddy,” Landon said, “if I push on the screen, I’ll fall out of the window, right?”
Groggily, I stood up, walked him back to his bed and lay down with him. “We shouldn’t push on the screen,” I answered.
Knowing he was worried, I figured I would go sleep in his bed with him. Not more than five minutes later, Kennedy woke up. As I went to put her back to bed, Landon welled up with tears.
“Daddy, will you come back?”
This was out of the norm — so much that Christi, who was awake by now as well, heard Landon crying. She walked over to his room and lay down with him. “Buddy, what’s wrong?” she asked in a calm voice, “What questions do you have?”
Lord bless her, she lay with him for the next 30 minutes just talking. Landon asked questions; Christi answered them. Landon talked about his fears; Christi put them into perspective.
When Christi came back to bed she said, “He’s learning about the dangers of the world, but doesn’t know how to process them.”
Her calm voice and listening ear in the middle of the night was gold for our son’s brain. I was ready to settle for the bronze and just lie down and go back to sleep beside him.
2. Play with them.
Especially for children up until the age of 7, fantasy play is critical for calming their fears. Play is about power and powerlessness.
When Christi and I came home from a date night at 9:30 PM, Landon had waited up in his bed until we got home. He was so excited as I entered his room. Standing on his bed, arms spread wide, he said, “Daddy, you’re home!”
The next day I was playing with Landon and Kennedy. We built a fort. With Kennedy and I inside, Landon declared, “You guys lay down and pretend I just got home from work. When I come home, stand up and say, ‘Landon, you’re home!’”
Children use play to make sense of their feelings. Taking 20 minutes a day to enter into their world and allow them to dictate the play has powerful implications on emotional intelligence and self-competence later in life.
3. Be calm.
If we’re anxious, our kids don’t know if they can be safe. Anxiety has a trickle-down effect on kids. In fact, one research study shows that a parent’s ability to manage their own stress is the second-best parenting strategy — only behind love and affection — for getting the outcomes we desire most in our kids.
Be realistic about the reaction you give and the real danger of the situation. A skinned knee isn’t a disaster; it’s a mark of your kids having fun.
Joshua Straub, Ph.D. is a speaker, author, and marriage and leadership coach. He and his wife, Christi, cohost the In This Together podcast and are coauthors a new children’s book, What Am I Feeling? and a new Bible study, Homegrown: Cultivating Kids in the Fruit of the Spirit. Josh also is the author of Safe House: How Emotional Safety is the Key to Raising Kids Who Live, Love, and Lead Well. Josh equips leaders, military families, and churches in emotional intelligence and family wellness.
Looking for more? Connect with ParentLife online at facebook.com/parentlife. Order at lifeway.com/parentlife.
6 Budget-Friendly Backyard Games for Kids
“I’m bored!”
Those words can trigger waves of anxiety and eye-rolls in any parent, especially during the summer months when a child’s daily schedule is often wide open while the parent’s is cresting to its fullest.
If summer camp isn’t a feasible option, your patience may have peaked to the point where you’re tempted to jump ship and let the kids get glassy-eyed for hours in front of their screen of choice.
If you’re looking for an alternative, look no further than your own backyard for enjoyable and affordable ways to have summer fun. Here are 6 budget-friendly activities to keep your kids busy having a blast in your own yard.
#1: Set up an obstacle course.
Backyard obstacle courses are loads of fun, can be easy or elaborate depending on the age of the child, and can consist entirely of objects you already own.
For younger children, an obstacle course can include:
- Hula hoops to hop in and out of
- Buckets to weave around slalom-style
- Yoga mats spread on the grass for forward rolls
- A low balance beam to walk across
- Balls to toss into laundry baskets
- An inflatable or plastic pool to jump into at the end of the course
For older kids, a more challenging course can consist of:
- Folding tables to crawl under
- Planters to jump over
- Water balloons to transport by spoon without dropping
- Balls to toss into boxes of decreasing size
- A hose to knock down items lined up on a table
- Newspaper pages to place underfoot with each step while racing across the yard toward the finish line
#2: Channel a classic with a game of lawn Twister®.
To make a grass version of this classic game, purchase cans of marking paint in red, blue, yellow, and green from your local hardware store.
To create the game grid:
- Use a plate to trace a “Twister dot” on a piece of cardboard or poster board. Trace a small circle for the smaller hands and feet of young children or a large circle for older players. Cut the circle out to create a hole in the cardboard or poster board and, voila, you have a Twister dot template.
- Place the cardboard or poster board template on the grass and spray paint through the hole in the template to create rows of dots. Be sure to place the dots close enough so that children can easily reach over from dot to dot, and be sure the game grid area is large enough to accommodate the number of children playing.
- Once the dots are all painted onto the grass, grab your (indoor) Twister spinner and start playing! If you don’t have a Twister spinner, write down each of the four directions (left hand, right hand, left foot, or right foot) for each dot color on separate index cards or slips of paper. For example, one card will read, “Right hand. Green.”
- Call out each direction and watch players stretch, reach, and balance as they strive to be the last kid standing on your lawn Twister board!
#3: Make a slippery splash pad.
Have your kids change into their bathing suits for some slipping and sliding with this giggle-inducing activity. All you’ll need is a large tarp and a hose. Lay the tarp down in an area with plenty of space around all sides of the tarp. Run the hose on the tarp until it’s soaked and slippery. Keep the hose running as your kids splash on the tarp and slide on it barefoot or Superman-style. Give the kids boogie boards if you have them for added slippery fun.
#4: Throw a fiesta with water balloon piñatas.
Your kids can keep their bathing suits on for this wet and wild game of water balloon piñatas. For this activity, you’ll need water balloons, string, a strong piece of rope, and a plastic bat.
- Tie the rope between two trees or two other sturdy structures.
- Fill the water balloons with water, close each with a knot, and then tie a string around each knot.
- Tie several water balloons to the rope using the attached strings so that the balloons hang overhead like a row of piñatas.
- Have each child take a turn swinging the plastic bat to see how many balloons she can burst in 30 seconds. Use a blindfold with older children to further test their skill.
- Don’t forget to pick up the balloon pieces when you’re done!
#5: Blast the sprinklers.
For more water play, your kids can stay cool in an at-home spray park, courtesy of your lawn sprinklers. If you have an oscillating sprinkler system, scatter water-friendly toys around the sprinkler unit for each child to scoop up before getting soaked by the swinging water stream.
#6: Get creative with colorful water art.
Bring out your child’s inner artist with this game of water-squirter art. Fill water squirters with water mixed with food dye, using a different color for each water squirter. Set down sheets of paper on the grass or tape sheets of paper onto trees and enjoy watching your kids paint colorful masterpieces.
Get your kids to release their Judo-grip on their tablets or phones this summer by turning your backyard into an activity-filled playland, all without breaking the bank!
Dolores Smyth is a faith and parenting writer. Find her on Twitter @LolaWordSmyth.
Looking for more? Connect with ParentLife online at facebook.com/parentlife. Order at lifeway.com/parentlife.
Announcing the 2020 LifeWay VBS Theme
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Join Melita Thomas (VBS Specialist) and Rhonda VanCleave (VBS Team Leader) as they reveal and unpack the spiritual overview of LifeWay’s 2020 VBS Theme: Concrete & Cranes! Find out more at lifeway.com/vbs2020
Melita Thomas serves as LifeWay’s VBS and Kids Ministry Specialist and was previously an editor of LifeWay’s VBS resources. Melita holds a masters degree in Childhood Ministry from Dallas Baptist University. A passionate advocate for kids ministry in the local church, Melita enjoys teaching kindergartners and preteens at Nashville First Baptist Church.
This episode is hosted by Melita Thomas, produced by Micheal Walley, and sponsored by LifeWay’s Concrete & Cranes VBS.
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