Lead Well

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash Family services. Love them or hate them, they have their place. I'm an advocate for family services because I believe children’s ministry needs to be more than a ministry held in another room never to be seen or heard from. These services can be a great tool for emphasizing ministry to the next generation, highlight the great things that are happening, and give your volunteers a much needed week off. Some churches do them great and others never have them. The churches that I’ve served in have been on both sides of the spectrum and somewhere in between. Here are 6 Steps to a Great Family Service.

Maybe you’ve seen this. You have a fifth or sixth grader completely checked out. They may have been engaged a few years before, but it’s getting close to their time to move on, and they have senioritis all of sudden. You thought it was only for 12th graders, but now you see it in 12-year-olds. But what do you do? Do you encourage them to engage? Talk to their parents? Let them move on to youth? In my first ministry, this problem was rampant. I was the fourth kids pastor for those sixth graders, and they were over it. They didn’t care and a few of them did whatever the wanted causing major distractions. Putting a discipline plan in place helped a little, but it didn’t solve the problem. That’s when I decided to begin a kids leadership team. We still had Sunday School, so for the ones who came, I’d teach a little about the Bible, and then train them how to run sound, lead worship, and do puppets. They helped me make videos to remind kids of the rules and to go to the bathroom...

Photo by Liam Shaw on Unsplash I’m not a worship leader, but somehow, I’ve led worship in front of kids and now youth for over 14 years. I can carry a tune, but my rhythm needs help. I can move fairly well, but dancing was never my forte. When leading in kidmin most of that doesn’t matter, because they’re learning too. Don’t get me wrong, the musical part of your service needs to be done with excellence, but sometimes passion and energy outweighs talent. Over the years, I’ve worked hard to get better and am forever thankful to people like Yancy and Orange Kids Music for helping me. It seems to me there are two extremes in children’s worship. Either it’s silly, fun songs with little biblical truth or serious theological filled songs that kids barely understand. We have to find something in the middle that’s fun, exciting, and theologically sound. Ultimately, we need to create an environment that leads kids into the presence of God where he can do His work. With that in mind her...

Working in Kidmin, I’ve had the unique opportunity to plan not just what we’re teaching, but what we’re singing as well. I’m a church kid, so I’ve heard a lot of church music and my children’s ministry was pretty progressive, so we were singing worship choruses long before other churches were. Some of the hits were, I’ve Got a River of Life, Lord You Are, and I am a CHRISTIAN. One of the most popular kids songs I remember wasn’t even played at church but at camp. I don’t remember the name, but it was set to the tune Barbara Ann. The lyrics went: Pick, pick, pick Pick, pick your nose Pick, pick, pick, Pick, pick your nose Pick, pick, pick, Pick, pick your nose Pick your nose ‘til the mucus flows!! They only played it once, but we sang it all week, and somehow, I still remember it. Ahh… good times. But when you’re in charge and thinking about the songs you’re going to sing in kids church, you can’t make the mistake of just playing the fun and fast stuff. Our worship has to have a me...

Last week I outlined four big problems that every church must face. They’re big issues and there are no quick fixes. However, we can begin the process of fixing the problems that plague us. Thom Rainer in his book Breakout Churches discovered a pattern that many great churches follow to solve their deep problems. Step 1 – Accept painful reality: If you’ve ever come to the realization that you have a real problem, you know how painful that realization may be. There are many times that we don’t want to admit there is a problem because it hurts too much. The same is true with organizations. However, the sooner we realize that something is wrong, no matter how much it hurts, the sooner we can begin the healing process and fix the problem. Step 2 – Use Is/should be discernment: Many times, we don’t face the painful reality because we think there is nothing wrong. We keep telling ourselves that things are better than they actually are just to find some comfort. To compou...