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Melita Thomas and Jana Magruder join the podcast to discuss how ETCH is back in person and how all of that will look!
ETCH Live
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Melita Thomas joins the podcast to discuss a variety of ways ETCH will be a little different this year with a virtual event.
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Help Your Family Ministry THRIVE
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Jana Magruder and Ben Trueblood chat with Chuck Peters about how to help your church’s family ministry thrive. etchconference.com
3 Reasons to Get Away with Your Team
You’ve got an incredible ministry team. You’ve got awesome volunteers. You’ve surrounded yourself with amazing people who love serving kids and students in your ministry. Now, what can you do to equip, engage, and inspire them? The answer might be beyond the walls of your office or building. It might be time to for your team to get away together for a conference, a retreat, or even a fun getaway.
Here are 3 reasons why you should consider getting away with your team….
Getting away helps escape the normal routine
Sometimes, the best thing for a team is to get out of the ordinary to spark new ideas and develop new inspiration. If you’re looking to do something new, exciting, and different, then you need to get your team out of their normal environment and routines.
“… where we meet shapes the discussions we’ll have … Location drives content. It’s why we should be as picky about where we talk as we are about what we actually discuss.” – Bob Goff, Everybody Always
Some of the best team discussions I’ve had weren’t in a conference room or on video conferencing; they were around a dinner table, sitting on beanbags at a conference center, or at a campground pool. Escaping your normal routine truly allows people to let their guard down, think differently, and move forward in new ways.
Getting away gets everyone on the same page
One of the most valuable assets a team can have is a unified, strong vision. Going away to a conference or team retreat can provide that time for everyone on your team to hear the same thing, experience the same thing, and provides the time to communicate about vision.
Getting away build relationships
Every January, my team serves at several different events across the country. It never fails that our best memories, best belly laughs, and best quotes come from those times when we are all away together. I want the team on which I serve to have strong friendships and to enjoy being around one another. Getting away together as team, seeing new things, serving together somewhere differently, and even eating at new restaurants together builds those solid relationships to help create a healthy and fun team culture.
Some of the most valuable times with ministry teams on which I have served have been those times when we’ve been able to get away together as a team. The time away from your normal setting can be valuable to refresh your team’s minds and spirits. So, go ahead! Plan a team retreat, plan an all-day meeting at the local bowling alley, or attend a conference like the ETCH Family Ministry Conference in Nashville this October.
Micheal Walley serves as the Lifeway Kids Event Producer. He is a graduate of Mississippi College and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Micheal has been serving in Kids Ministry from the moment he was “promoted” out of kids ministry himself. He loves coffee, leadership, all things creative, and his wife, Anne Marie.
ETCH 2018: Unbroken
Lifeway’s ETCH Family Ministry Conference is all about helping you link together with other ministry leaders in your church to better serve the families in your church from birth to high school. ETCH stands for “Equipping the Church and Home” and we are excited to announce our 2018 theme: “Unbroken.”
“A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”
In many churches, different age level ministry areas stand alone. The preschool ministry is disconnected from the elementary ministry. The kids ministry is not anywhere close to being on the same page as the student ministry. These ministries often have different programs, different content, and totally different ministry philosophies. We can often see these ministries like silos on a farm standing alone without connecting or supporting one another. Parents and volunteers also feel disconnected and out of the loop with what’s going on. This approach to family ministry is BROKEN.
As a result of our BROKEN strategies, we often lose kids, students, and parents as they muddle through competing messages and ever-changing practices. Families desire consistency in the church as they weave throughout the different stages of their child’s life. There’s a better way of doing family ministry: an “UNBROKEN” way to do family ministry.
What would it look like for every church to intentionally link together preschool, kids, student, and NextGen ministry? What would it look like to create that seamless, unbroken experience for kids and families?
When our ministries link up with cohesive philosophies, ministry approach, and content, we can craft the spiritual trajectory we hope our kids will follow with consistent, long-range goals from preschool through high school. When we do this, each ministry area is pointing to Christ in the same clear way. Just like the cord of three strands, our family ministry areas are stronger when they link together.
We hope you’ll join the Lifeway Kids and the Lifeway Students team October 17-19 in Nashville as we dive deep into what a truly “Unbroken” family ministry approach looks like. You’ll hear from family ministry experts, be inspired by engaging worship and keynote speakers, and form stronger bonds with the other leaders in your ministry. You can find out more and register by visiting etchconference.com.
Micheal Walley serves as the Lifeway Kids Event Producer. He is a graduate of Mississippi College and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Micheal has been serving in Kids Ministry from the moment he was “promoted” out of kids ministry himself. He loves coffee, leadership, all things creative, and his wife, Anne Marie.
ETCH: We’re All in This Together
At the time of its television premiere in 2006, Disney’s High School Musical was an instant success. It is estimated that in its initial airings on the Disney Channel, HSM reached 24 million viewers. The DVD sold 1.2 million copies in its first six days, making High School Musical the fastest-selling television film of all time, and with 3.7 million units sold, the film’s soundtrack was the best-selling album in the United States in 2006. It’s catchy music and relatively innocent plot line quickly made HSM a family favorite. Statistically speaking, most of the kids in your ministry have likely seen HSM. Your leaders certainly have! While the movie was about high school students, the bulk of the viewers were not high schoolers. We know that kids aspire up, so many preteen and younger kids bolstered the popularity of the movie. Kids want to be teens, and one day soon they will be.
The central theme of HSM can be summed up in the signature song from the film, “We’re All in This Together.” Consider these lyrics:
Everyone is special in their own way
We make each other strong
We’re not the same
We’re different in a good way
Together’s where we belong
We’re all in this together
And it shows
When we stand
Hand in hand
We’re all in this together
This simple song contains volumes of value for us as we minister to the vast range of pre-adults in our churches. It is time to acknowledge, and create ministry strategies, that are based on the reality that we are, in fact, in this together. We need to break down walls and build bridges between preschool, kids, preteen, and student ministry areas to develop a coordinated, if not unified, strategy for discipling our young people from birth through high school so that each child’s experience is consistent as they progress through a lifetime of learning about our great God within the church. We need to function as individual teams, but we also need to join together around common goals. We call them ministry essentials. An effective ministry should be Heart Transforming, Kingdom Expanding, and Culture Shaping. While we need to contextualize ministry to kids at the various stages of their development, we cannot forget that we share a common goal: to see kids transformed by Jesus, for their good and His glory.
We already see this unification of ministry mindset happening in the church. Many are moving to a family ministry model in how they structure their staffs. Some call it NextGen, others call it Family Ministry. Whatever you call it, there is a broad trend towards having a single pastor over birth through high school, and connected to parents as well as kids; and more and more ministry teams want to attend conferences together where they can gear up for ministry both individually and as a team.
In order to serve you in the most effective ways possible, we are expanding the Lifeway Kids Ministry Conference to include middle school and high school ministry; to welcome in NextGen, Student, and Family Ministry leaders and teams. We call it the ETCH Family Ministry Conference. ETCH stands for Equipping the Church and Home. This new Family Ministry Conference will excite, inspire, and engage Kids, Student, Next Gen, and Family Ministry team members with equipping sessions for their individual ministry areas, and combined team sessions.
You will hear from great leaders and speakers like Lisa Harper; Dr. Russell Moore; Vicki Courtney; Dr. Eric Geiger; Director of Lifeway Students, Ben Trueblood; and Director of Lifeway Kids, Jana Magruder. We are planning a wide range of breakout sessions for you and your team members, featuring age-specific training for preschool, kids, preteens, and students as well as combined sessions designed to help you get your whole team on the same page. And we are lining up some incredible Nashville music to help you experience the sounds of our home town.
ETCH Conference is October 3-5 at the Music City Center in Nashville TN. Details are coming together quickly! Our website www.etchconference.com has been refreshed and updated with more event info, and more will be added soon.. You can even sign up for our email updates to know when more info is added!
We are all in this together, and we are better together. We are looking forward to hosting you and your whole ministry team this fall, in Nashville, as we come together as one big, giant family, for ETCH.
Chuck Peters is Director of Operations for Lifeway Kids. A graduate of Columbia Bible College, Chuck has served vocationally & voluntarily in Student and Children’s Ministry for many years.
