Lead Well

One thing about VBS is that it takes a lot of supplies. Crafts, games, decorations, Bible stories and so much more all need stuff.  It’s a lot to handle and can be one of the biggest line items in your budget. To keep my costs down, I’ve used this one fundraiser for years with great success. Full-disclosure, I got the idea from Group VBS way back in 2008, and I’ve been iterating on the idea ever since. Here’s the idea: Create a Donation Wall. Groundbreaking, isn’t it?  I thought so.  But after using it year after year I found some great benefits. 1. Church members who can’t serve will give. I noticed quickly that many people in my church are unable to serve at VBS for various reasons but are happy to give. Every year, I’d have a few people who never served, but would pick up several donation cards (more on this later) every week and bring me the donations we needed. Many never came on a single night, but they played as big a role as anyone else. 2. You can use the supplie

Today is my 15th anniversary of vocational ministry. I owe my first job to Steve Lambert who saw potential in me and gave me a shot as a kid’s pastor. He paid for me to finish college, officiated my wedding, and gave my wife and I a place to live. I am forever thankful for his vision and generosity. May 12 of 2008, I was full of vim and vigor. I had so many dreams and passions. I remember telling my pastor that we were going to hit the ground running, and we did. In those first 12 weeks, I put on my first VBS with 100 kids and 50 volunteers and got married the following weekend. I can say that as the years have passed, things have not gotten any less exciting. My wife and I have had our ups and downs just like anyone else and now on the edge of a new ministry season, we are filled with as much passion as we were all those years ago. All that said, here are 15 things I've learned in 15 years of ministry. 1. Nothing is more important than your relationship with God.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash VBS is one of the most complex ministry outreaches in children’s ministries. It takes 3-6 months to put on a one-week event for tons of kids and a major part of the kidmin annual rhythm. One of the more complex yet essential parts of VBS is the schedule. It answers the question, “How are you going to get multiple groups of kids to multiple rooms throughout your campus all at the same time, not lose anyone, make time for bathroom breaks, and still get all the content covered?” While most curriculums have their own suggested schedule based on their proprietary structure, I’ve found most of them follow the same model. I’ve used the same basic schedule template for the last 20 years and today, I’m sharing it with you. Click here to download your VBS Schedule templates. Whatever you use for your schedule there are 5 essential questions you need to ask when creating it. 1. Is this a Day or Night VBS? The first question you have to answer is what tim

Photo by BBC Creative on Unsplash It’s coming to the end of the school year, and you’re probably thinking about promoting your kids to the next grade. But when is the best time? It’s a common question I’ve seen for years in Facebook groups. Someone looking for a change asks when everyone promotes their kids to the next grade and then a slew of comments ensues advocating for the beginning or the end of the summer. In my highly unscientific perusing of these comments, I’d say the answer is about 50/50. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to do this and in my own ministry, I’ve experimented with both and see the pros and cons of each. Here’s what I’ve learned. Promote at the beginning of the summer. If you promote at the beginning of the summer, then your oldest kids, let’s say fifth graders, are mostly happy. A lot of them are already out the door ready to move to youth. They don’t want to be with the little ones anymore. Moving kids up at this time works well because you can do

My first VBS was a fiasco. I don’t use that word lightly. It was.  We had 8 weeks to pull off the biggest event of the year for 100 kids and 30 volunteers. To make it even more complicated this was the first VBS the church hosted in years, I started the position in mid-May with the VBS to be held the last week of July, and I got married the week following. It was one of the hardest few months of my ministry career and by the grace of God we pulled it off. Kids accepted Jesus, learned about the Bible, and the church was encouraged. I learned so much that first year and have built upon that experience ever since. One of my biggest mistakes was trying to do it all. I’m a high-capacity person and sometimes (frequently in my younger days) over-confident. VBS has a way of humbling you. I learned quickly I need to give responsibilities away. Many of the curriculums I’ve used over the years give you an idea of how many volunteers you need and where they should serve. However, if you’r

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash If you’re like me when you’re planning your first kid services, you’re probably following the model that you’ve seen before. Whether you learned it from a mentor, internship, or just watching another kid’s service, you’ve decided this is the order for the service. The game goes here. The worship goes here. The Bible story or sermon goes here. And that’s the way it’s supposed to go, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done. I’m going to introduce a thought that might blow your mind. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can change things up. Drop things. Add things. Get creative and experimental. Test things to see if they work, evaluate, and try again. When I started at church number 1, I had a template for services where I just filled in the blanks. It made planning easier, and I could work in the ministry without having to work on the ministry. Being bi-vocational, I needed something that was plug and play and this worked. Click here if you&#

It’s the Friday before Easter. You’ve been busy with all the marketing, event planning, service prep, and inviting. You’re probably a little tired and the light at the end of the tunnel that is Monday is looking better and better. But you also have a family and obligations there too. If you’re like me, it’s far too easy to let work overtake the home. All the focus is on what the Church is doing, and your family gets the leftovers. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to you. What can you do? You can’t get out of Good Friday or Saturday’s Egg Hunt or Easter Sunday. It’s your job, and people are counting on you. It’s a struggle and not one that I have perfected. If you asked my wife, she would say I have a long way to go. Regardless, here are 3 tips to celebrate Easter (Or any Holiday) while you’re in ministry.  1. Take a cue from the Service Industry In ministry, it’s easy to take the "woe is me" mentality. You’re the only one who has to work on Easter, while ev

Photo by Headway on Unsplash When you’re first starting out in ministry is so easy to go it alone. You have all the passion and energy and you’re ready to storm the gates of hell. However, if you’ve been in ministry longer than 3 months, you’ve probably realized you can’t do this alone. Moses tried until his father-in-law told him he was crazy and to develop leaders. David had his mighty men. Jesus had the 12 around him. Peter and the other disciples found 7 leaders to oversee food distribution. Paul had Barnabas and Silas. When I came to church number 2, I knew I needed to get help. The church was around 400, and we had about 80 kids. For those 80 kids we had all the Sunday morning age groups, plus Royal Rangers, Mpact Girls Clubs, Junior Bible Quiz, and a Café. It was a lot to manage and since I realized quickly I couldn’t be in 2 places at once (I tried 3 places one time. It also went poorly), I knew I needed help. Thankfully, my predecessor had already identified and placed

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash It was a big Sunday. We’d had the biggest VBS of my career and we’d invited all the parents to attend a family service the following Sunday in kids church. Multiple parents came, including some that didn’t go to my church. Naturally, this day needed to go perfectly. I had put as much pressure on this day as I do for Easter. Then the unthinkable happened. Right in the middle of my worship set, my entire computer system crashed. I use video worship and teaching so having this crash was worst case scenario. I didn’t have a backup plan, and I was the only one who could fix it. Looking back now, I’m not entirely sure what we did to get through it, but we did. The Gospel was proclaimed, and we built relationships with the families that came. But that was just one service. I could fill this post with story after story of successes and failures on big days and small days, and I’m sure you could too. After that fateful day, I stumbled upon a paradox. A par

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash A little talked about, but vital document in your ministry is a policy and procedure manual. The manual answers a lot of questions for volunteers and clearly defines your thinking on multiple situations. While your church may have its own policy manual that addresses your ministry specifically, many times these are incomplete when it comes to NextGen. In my experience, they’ll address room ratios and background checks, but not other problems such as fire drills, dress codes, meeting attendance and more. This is why I suggest every NextGen ministry have its own policy and procedure manual. It needs to agree with the main church manual, but it can be more specifically tailored to your ministry. However, just having the manual and sticking it in a drawer is not enough. You need to keep it top of mind for yourself and your volunteers. My first volunteer training and orientation for new volunteers uses the manual as a guide. This gets everyone

Easter Egg Hunts. Love them or hate them, it’s one of the most popular kidmin events leading into the Easter season. I know it’s only February, but if you want to have a successful outreach event, you need to start planning now. This is the second part of my two part series on How to have an Easter Egg Hunt. You can read part 1 here. In that post, I talked about the why, ordering supplies, service planning, and recruiting. In today’s post, we’ll dive deeper and talk about more preparation and what needs to happen on the day of. If you subscribe, I’ll share my to do list that will walk you through every step. How to have an Egg Hunt Part 2 1. Advertise Part of what gets a lot of people to the event is advertising. You can have the greatest event, but if nobody knows about it, you’ve just wasted your time and energy. You may or may not have the skills to create the graphics, ads, banners, and websites necessary to advertise, but either way, the earlier you start producing thes