LifeWay

Kids Ministry

Dedicated to helping Kids Ministry leaders in their mission of making disciples

Events, Fun, Kids Ministry, Resources

VBS 2020 Clue #4

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Need a quick break from your work day? Spend a few minutes doing this word scramble.

But wait! This isn’t just a fun activity. There’s a clue about the 2020 VBS theme hidden in here somewhere. Download it here!

Good luck!

Think you missed a clue along the way? Look back through past blog posts for an up-close photo, a Sudoku puzzle, and a noise related to next year’s VBS. Then post your best theme guess on our LifeWay VBS Facebook page.

Check back next week for our fifth and final clue before the big reveal on June 5 at 1:00 p.m. CT.

ETCH Family Ministry Conference, Events, Family Ministry, Podcasts

ETCH Family Ministry Conference Behind the Scenes

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Micheal Walley, LifeWay Kids Event Producer, takes you behind the scenes for ETCH 2018! Hear why you should take your family ministry team on a retreat or a conference, the impact of gathering together in person, and the heart and vision behind the ETCH Family Ministry Conference.

Find out more about ETCH Family Ministry Conference here, and join us in Nashville October 17-19!

Micheal Walley serves as the LifeWay Kids Event Producer and leads the ETCH Family Ministry Conference and other LifeWay Kids Events. He is a graduate of Mississippi College and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He loves coffee, leadership, all things creative, and his wife, Anne Marie.

CentriKid, Events, Kids Ministry, Leadership

CentriKid 2018 Sneak Peek

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Summer 2018 will be here before you know it.  We are working hard to prepare for CentriKid 2018, and today I’ve got a sneak peek at what your kids will experience when you bring your kids to camp.

For us, everything begins with developing the spiritual direction at camp.  It is the very first project we begin for the summer, and we start working on the scriptural content almost two years before kids actually experience it at camp. This summer at CentriKid Camps, we will be learning about God’s design for us and who we are in Christ. We will learn how we are His workmanship and how we are created in His image. God’s blueprint shows us that we are truly loved, completely forgiven, and prepared for a purpose to share the gospel.

The key verse this summer is Ephesians 2:10.  “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”  I’m confident that this verse will give our camp staff and the adults from your church many opportunities to have intentional, gospel-centered conversations with campers.

The video series will have a new episode during each night of Worship, and while I can’t spoil all the surprises, I want to give you an idea of what to get excited about! During the video series, we’ll be following a group of kids who have been specially designed by God with different talents and gifts. Through some epic design competitions, these kids (and your campers) will be learning how they are made in the image of God and how they can use their gifts.

Also at camp this summer, we are making a change to the afternoon schedule. We are moving from three Track Times to two, to allow campers more time to focus in on the activities in their chosen Tracks! We are also adding some new Track Time options! Be on the lookout for Track Time cards to be posted on CentriKid.com on the specific Location Pages by March 2018.

Many of you are already promoting camp dates to your families and some are getting ready to, so we have the “2018 Chaos Kit” coming your way to help with generating excitement for CentriKid. The Chaos Kit includes visual aids, promotion materials, and a special edition “Blueprint OMC” game that you can play at church to get kids moving and thinking about camp.

We look forward to serving churches with camp next summer, so if you have not reserved your spaces for CentriKid yet, call 1-877-CAMP-123 or go online to www.centrikid.com to find a date that works for your group. Contact our team anytime by email at centrikid@lifeway.com with logistical questions, parent questions, or anything else that we can help you with.

Jeremy Echols leads the CentriKid Camps team and manages the LifeWay Kids events.  He, his wife Emily, and their precious daughter love their church, their neighborhood, and spending time together.  Jeremy loves to read, watch sports, and grill burgers.

CentriKid, Events, Kids Ministry, Leadership

5 Tips I Learned at Camp this Summer

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One of my favorite parts of summer is camp. I love CentriKid camps! I’ve been to CentriKid in Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. I love that they are consistent, safe, and fun. For the past three years, I’ve been to CentriKid as camp pastor and have been able to quietly (or not so quietly) observe a few things that I think would make your experience even better.

  1. Plan shirts for your church every day. At almost every camp I’ve ever been to, several churches have the kids wear a specific shirt for each day of camp. This helps everyone! The adults find their kids more easily, the kids find the adults more easily, and it even helps the staffers learn the church name as well. Assuming your church kids will wear the free CentriKid camps shirt on the last day of camp, that’s only 4 shirts. Each person could easily be supplied with a shirt for less than $20 per person. Just add that onto the cost of camp if your church can’t swing it. This also helps for kids who didn’t pack enough or may be embarrassed by what they have to wear.
  2. Camp Isn’t a Vacation for Chaperones. While that might sound obvious, I think that it bears mentioning. CentriKid camps makes it super easy for chaperones to have time for themselves and for fellowship. This makes great opportunities for chaperones to build relationships with kids. Set expectations for your chaperones that they will attend adult gatherings and volunteer to help with rec and track times. Don’t expect volunteers to just “sit it out.” Encourage them to build relationships with the kids!
  3. Your staffers are TIRED! I can’t begin to explain how amazing I believe the staffers are at camp. They work so hard and whether they really feel like it or not, they turn it on and give every kid and every camp their best! Imagine a full summer of sandwiches, cafeteria food, and little sleep. Before you go to camp, plan a way to show staffers you appreciate them. Some ideas include: a basket of snacks, pizza night for staffers, encouraging notes, a cooler full of cold gatorade after OMC!, and more. Oh and don’t forget to pray for the staffers, they love to be prayed for.
  4. Bring Lots of Orange! Everyone loves OMC and the kids enjoy it even more when their staffers get into it. I’ve seen one chaperone get a perm to look like Richard Simmons during Club Fit. This year one church had moose antlers for all of their adult chaperones during Adventure Awaits. Next year is Blueprint. What can you do?
  5. Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick. I’ve seen many groups with a huge sign that makes the group leader easily identifiable so that groups can stay together. One of my favorites was this year with a stuffed Santa dressed in camo. The leader had him attached to a stick and everywhere they went the kids knew to follow him. Make it easy for your kids to find you. Many kids go to camp with anxiety. Anything you can do to make them feel more secure is helpful!

Jeff Land is Publishing Team Leader for Bible Studies For Life: Kids. He holds a BSW from Mississippi College and a MACE from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jeff has served as children’s pastor and currently teaches second graders each week at his church. Jeff, his wife Abbey, and their four sons live in Coopertown, TN.

Events, Kids Ministry, Leadership

Plugging Into National Grandparent’s Day

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vogel-150x150ANational Grandparents Day, September 11, 2016, is a day scheduled to celebrate grandparents throughout our country. Many families capitalize on this day in order to experience uplifting family times and to send greetings of love and appreciation to grandparents. Is it possible for your Kids Ministry to plug into this secular day of celebration? What might be the benefits? Consider these ideas that could enrich the lives of your kids in your church as well as the lives of their grandparents and grandparents in your community:

  • Plan for your kids to have a special time just prior to September 11, 2016, to create Grandparent’s Day cards expressing their love and the love of God for their grandparents. Show kids ways to include the Gospel as part of their cards in order to witness to “non-believing” grandparents. Be sure to include a plan to actually “mail” these cards.
  • Encourage each of your kids Bible study groups to plan a “Grandparent’s Day Party.” Invite local grandparents to a time of refreshments and fellowship time in their grandkids’ Bible study rooms. Consider putting together a brief presentation by the kids to help remind their grandparents how much God loves them and cares for them.
  • Challenge each of your kids Bible study groups to “adopt” a class of senior adults in your church. Devise a plan to take the members of these senior adult classes treats and notes of love and appreciation.
  • Invite grandparents in your church to visit some/all of your kids Bible study classes. Ask them to read to the kids or possibly even tell stories of how they came to be Christ followers. Some of your kids do not live close to grandparents and will greatly enjoy a time of “loving on” grandparents in your church who can share much wisdom and encouragement.

Even the smallest efforts on your part to plug into this day of celebration have the potential to love on potentially lonely grandparents. This generation often feels forgotten and separated from the families they love. Use your creativity to even add to this starter list of ways to share the love of Jesus with grandparents!

Jerry Vogel serves as an Editorials Ministry Specialist for LifeWay Kids. He is married to Janie and has four children and thirteen grand kids. Jerry is committed to enriching the lives of those who teach kids as well as making eternal investments in the lives of children.

Events, Fun, Kids Bible Study, Kids Ministry, Leadership, Podcasts, Preschoolers, Resources, Small Groups, Training

How Do You Setup Your Classroom?

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In this week’s episode of the LifeWay Kids podcast, our lead kids ministry specialist, Bill Emeott, sits down to discuss the importance of setting up a classroom. This is an element of kids ministry that has evolved over the years. Setting up a classroom in today’s culture can mean very different things because a classroom setting looks different at every church. For this conversation, we are simply defining a classroom as a physical place where kids will gather. The classroom environment starts with what kind of person is leading that small group, but then it moves to all the physical attributes of the space you are in. Bill and Jeffrey discuss the different types of environments and how that environment impacts the type of setup you need.

Evangelism, Events, Leadership, Resources, Vacation Bible School

The Balance of “Outreach” and “In-Reach” in VBS

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MelitaVBS is a milestone event in a kids life. We also know from research, that VBS is the #1 evangelistic outreach tool in churches today. Anyone that has helped to lead, plan, and execute a VBS event knows that there is a ton of work involved to pull it off. With all of that work, it’s extremely easy to get caught up in the details, to put more emphasis on the things that have a tendency to distract us from the main goal of introducing kids to life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. So how can we maintain a level of excellence in our execution of VBS, while keeping evangelism at the center of what we do? In this episode, Melita Thomas, a member of our VBS team, joins us to talk about this delicate balance.

Melita Thomas serves as a Content Editor for LifeWay’s VBS and Zip for Kids resources. Melita holds a masters degree in Christian Education/Childhood Ministry which accompanies her passion and expertise as a leader in kids ministry—both in her role at LifeWay Kids and in the local church. Melita is a member of First Baptist Nashville, where she enjoys teaching kindergartners and preteens.

 

CentriKid, Events, Kids Ministry, Leadership, Podcasts, Resources

5 Great Tips for a Great Camp

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JE

Here at LifeWay Kids, we consider the camp experience to be a mile-marker event in the life of a kid! We love camp at LifeWay Kids and if you are looking for a life-changing experience for your own kids, we strongly consider you check out CentriKid Camps. But whether you do your own camp, or come to ours, we want to give you five things you should do to make it a great experience for your kids and leaders.

In this podcast episode, Jeremy Echols, who leads the @CentriKid team, unpacks these 5 great tips for a great camp:

  1. Secure The Date
  2. Prepare in Advance
  3. Go All In When You Are At Camp
  4. Seek Out Intentional Conversations
  5. Follow Up

JE (@coachechols) leads the @centrikid camps team for LifeWay Kids. He met his wife Emily working summer camp, they serve in the kids area on Sunday’s at church, and they are blessed with their daughter #BabyMadison who was born in 2011.

CentriKid, Events, Kids Ministry, kids101, Leadership, Uncategorized

Succeeding at Big Events by Managing the Little Details

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JEIn the scope of Church ministry, events that require planning tend to fall more in the space of children’s ministry than just about any other area. VBS. Camps. Family events. EVERY weekend, right? Fewer staff leaders have to navigate the art of delegation and management more than those in KidMin.

You’ve got to listen to this sit-down with Jeremy Echols (JE), who manages the team that leads most of LifeWay Kids’ events. It’s critical to understand that a successful event involves ideation and planning as well as great communication and delegation. This is the perfect podcast if you are about to launch into the planning for VBS or summer camp. (You’ve started that, right?)

Key points from this insightful podcast:

  • Establishing the “why” or “mission” of your event
  • Going from the idea to the execution
  • Staffing to your weakness
  • Artful delegation and evaluation

Speaking of events, it’s not too late to check out or register for these events. Just check out these links!

CentriKid camps

VBS events

ETCH conference

JE (@coachechols) leads the @centrikid camps and events team for LifeWay Kids. He met his wife Emily working summer camp, they serve in the kids area on Sunday’s at church, and they are blessed with their daughter #BabyMadison who was born in 2011.

Evangelism, Events, Kids Ministry, Uncategorized, Vacation Bible School

VBS – Produce Your Own or Use a Complete Resource?

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MelitaVBS. It’s making a comeback. Churches are realizing that, when good follow-up is executed, VBS is a powerful outreach tool. It can bring families into the church and is a great platform for sharing the gospel with kids. So, the question is, “Is it worth going through the effort of producing your own or is it better to go with a resource that comes complete with curriculum, music, videos, etc.?”

In this podcast, we’ll sit down with a VBS expert who will take a glance at what is required to put on a VBS as well as the choices that a KidMin leader has. You’ll get a glimpse into…

  • A summary of work that goes into LifeWay’s VBS,
  • What a fully-produced VBS offers
  • The Pros/Cons to producing your own vs. using VBS from a trusted provider

It’s right around the corner. Before you consider what you are doing with your kids this summer, listen to this podcast … and check out our VBS and Zip for Kids while you’re at it.

Melita Thomas serves as a Content Editor for LifeWay’s VBS and Zip for Kids resources. Melita holds a masters degree in Christian Education/Childhood Ministry which accompanies her passion and expertise as a leader in kids ministry—both in her role at LifeWay Kids and in the local church. Melita is a member of First Baptist Nashville, where she enjoys teaching kindergartners and preteens.

 

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