People are busy! It is hard enough to get people to volunteer, so how can we ask them to serve every week? Weekends are busy with family commitments, or time to relax and sleep in. Volunteering weekly will be the most rewarding for volunteers but how can we get them to understand that?
Book Review: The Formula for Building Great Volunteer Teams
Have you read The Formula for Building Great Volunteer Teams? This book has moved into the position of “Top 5 Must Have” books for Kids Ministry. It is LOADED with information. My friend Dale Hudson is the author of this amazing book. This guy…
On a recent visit to Woodstock City Church in Atlanta, I was able to get a behind the scenes tour of their room for kids with special needs. The staff person in the room was super helpful and explained how their program works. Here…
Small Group Bins – an inside look at the bins that Woodstock City Church uses for their Elementary Kids
On a recent visit to Woodstock City Church in Atlanta, I studied what they use for Small Groups. These bins can be found at IKEA, but at the time of this post, they are also available at Michaels.…
Woodstock City Church is a campus of Northpoint Church in Atlanta. Recently I toured their Elementary Kids area. It was so amazing. Take a look at the gallery above to see some photos from the tour.…
On a recent visit to Woodstock City Church, I noticed their signs. There were 2 things that I noticed. I noticed what signs they had displayed, and what signs they didn’t have displayed.…
Celebrating Birthdays in Kids Ministry – an inside look at birthdays at Woodstock City Church
I was so impressed to see what Woodstock City Church does to celebrate birthdays for kids. The kids look forward to their Birthday all year long so that they can visit the Birthday Cart. The Birthday Cart is pretty exciting, but it doesn’t compare…
Recently I went to the Drive Conference at Northpoint Church in Atlanta, GA. It was like drinking from a firehose. I learned so much and took so many pitures. I decided to share my info with all of you in hopes that you can…
We are just getting ready to launch a new campus. We have a smaller space available for our kids ministry rooms, but we still wanted to make it fun and kid friendly. So, we decided to make a photo wall down our kids hallway. …
When people sign up to volunteer in our Kids Rooms, we want to equip them with all the info they need to get started, and do their job well. It can be a little overwhelming for a new volunteer to try to remember…
When people sign up to volunteer in Kids Ministry, we have a lot of stuff and info that we give them to get started. To help simplify the process, we put together a New Volunteer Gift Bag for them. Here’s what’s in the…
I finally finished a project that I have been working on for a few weeks. I wanted to create a way for kids and parents to say thank you to the volunteers who help on Sunday mornings. I created a DIY Mailbox, where kids…
Recently we hosted a Princess Party at our church. We had over 800 people attend the event. 60% of people were not regular church attenders. We received a lot of positive feedback after the event about how much people enjoyed coming to the event. …
Sometimes the number of things that need to be done in Kids Ministry can be overwhelming. How do you balance the urgent things with things that should be a priority? So many times the urgent can take a lot of our time, but they…
Changing Curriculum? How To Transition Your Volunteers To Something New.
Change is usually pretty difficult for most people. If you are thinking of changing to a new curriculum in your kids ministry, it’s probably a good idea to help your volunteers process the change. Here are some things I learned along the journey of…
Preschoolers love to sing! When looking for some new Preschool Worship Videos, I found some from NewSpring Church. They have done a great job of making videos for preschoolers. You can view them for free on YouTube. Here are some of the songs we…
Finding new songs for kids worship can be challenging. We don’t have a team dedicated to leading worship in our kids ministry so we like using Kids Worship Videos. I was looking for some new Kids Worship Videos and came across some new videos…
One of the biggest challenges that Kids Ministry Leaders face is Finding and Keeping Volunteers. I have taught several workshops/classes on how to find & keep volunteers. This post includes a free PowerPoint Presentation that I used at a recent event. It includes ideas…
Sometimes I like to show my volunteers a video clip to illustrate a point. Despicable Me is a great movie that shows an example of Gru doing a not so great job as a dad, and then later, a much better job as a…
When I think of volunteers, this is the picture that I have in my head. Volunteers are in different stages. Some are new, or come occasionally while others are the committed people that do the majority of the work. As I look at these…
Sometimes when it comes to recruiting volunteers, you need to think outside the box. Bulletin announcements & mass emails are just not working. That’s when you do a BIG Recruiting Event. Here are some recruiting ideas that we did to make our Recruiting Event…
Four times a year we do an event that is meant for families to do something together. Gingerbread Party – to kick off the Christmas Season Princess Party – in the winter Family BBQ – during our EPIC kids summer camp week LEGO Party…
When I was visiting The Grove Community Church in Riverside, California, I saw a kids church reward system that they used to help motivate kids to listen & participate. They also used this system to encourage families to work on the family activity page…
On a recent trip to California, I went to visit Sandals Church. This amazing group of people showed us around their building & shared their stories of what they are doing to see people come to know Jesus. Here are a few things that…
This past weekend, we had the Grand Opening of our new church building which has been under construction for over a year. We built a new kids area, renovated our office space, and built a 2nd auditorium that seats 300 people. Here are a…