Lead Well

When I first became a children’s pastor on my first Sunday, I sat and observed how the volunteers were managing their service. These were college students with little to no training, just a heart for kids and doing the best they could. Their stories and games were good. Their energy was excellent during worship, but they had one glaring problem. Discipline. The kids did whatever they wanted; whenever they wanted. I asked the leaders what their discipline plan was, and it was a convoluted three strikes and you’re out system, but the only consequence for any infraction was less candy. Essentially, a kid could misbehave all service and instead of getting three pieces of candy, they’d only get one. It didn’t take much for some of the kids to figure it out and exploit it. Rules and consequences were the first thing I changed when I took over, and the leaders were thankful. I was a certified teacher and spent many, many hours studying classroom management. I knew their system was neve

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Recently, I was having a conversation with a new pastor and he was excitedly talking about all things he was planning to do with his kids. I asked him how he was planning to let parents know, and he said he was trusting the kids. Rookie mistake. If you work in nextgen/family ministry, understand that you lead more than just your kids and students. It’s easy to fall into this trap because for most of us that’s why we got into this gig in the first place. However, being pastor is far more complex than leading a service on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night. Now with COVID it’s 10x worse, but that’s another post. Whether you’re leading online, in-person, or some combination in between you have to balance leading 3 different groups of people.

Photo by Ahmad Ossayli on Unsplash This year has been crazy to say the least. As much as I love to read leadership and ministry books, I read less this year because of all the stress. I needed an escape. Since I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and we’re in the golden age of Star Wars there are a lot of great books continuing the story. I used to have this rule that fiction doesn’t count, then I read Jon Acuff’s book Finish, and he pointed out an interesting fact. Why doesn’t it count? I’m not turning this in for a grade. There is no standard that says Fiction doesn’t count. So, I started counting it and reading became a joy again. This year was unique for my Non-Fiction books. I joined a group called Hydrate from the Assemblies of God Children’s Ministry department. Along with training in ministry they required a book a month. Many of these I would never have picked up, but I’m glad they did. The ideas expanded my world view and challenged me to think differently about my ministry. H

Photo by  Kelly Sikkema  on  Unsplash It’s been 3 years since I wrote one of these, but with the new generation of consoles coming out this year, I figured it was time for an update. If you’ve been looking to buy your family a new video game console, the choices can seem endless and confusing. The web is full of unboxing videos, reviews, and tech specs, but unless you’re into computers and gaming many of those are irrelevant at best or nonsensical at worst. (I’m not entirely certain what a teraflop is anyway). The big question I get from parents is, “Which is best for my family? Especially if I want to keep my kids safe from all the garbage online and negative content in games.” The biggest change this time around is the end of the “console wars.” If you even casually gamed as a kid you know there was always a competition to who had the best system, be it Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, or Sega. This battle has been raging for almost 25 years, but I think we’re coming to the end because

When the pandemic started, like many of you, I panicked. I had 3 days to figure out how to take my children’s ministry completely online with no equipment, no training, and very little help. That first service was a train wreck that started 10 minutes late with low quality and a replica of what we’d been doing in person for years. Fast forward months later, and now I’m older and wiser. It seems like five years since March 15 because of everything that has changed, and all my plans have flown out the window. I’m frequently reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:34: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I’ve tried a lot of different things over the last few months. Some have worked, some have been dismal failures. But that’s how innovation works. You never get it right the first time or even the tenth. That said here are three things I’ve started since COVID that are working.

Small Group time at my church Churches all over are trying to figure out how to reopen and relaunch their services and specifically their children’s ministry. I’m no different. I’m eternally grateful to the leaders I’ve talked to over the last few months who have successfully (whatever that means these days) opened their children’s ministries. I’m in Florida, so I know that I’m a little bit ahead of the curve. We opened in-person meetings in May and relaunched kids (elementary only) on July 26. I don’t have all the answers, but this is what I’ve learned so far about launching kids ministry in a pandemic filled world.

I haven’t written in a while. This pandemic has done a number on me. My family and I have been healthy, but if you’re in ministry, you know the crunch we’ve been in for the last few months. Every new month feels like the next level of Jumanji. (What happened to the murder hornets?!) A big part of most kidmin’s summer is VBS. I’ve led 12 of these as a kid’s pastor and been a part of one for as long as I can remember. However, it goes without saying, this year is different. First some context. I’m in Florida and we entered Phase 1 in May and Phase 2 in June. Our church has re-opened to family services, but there are no in-person next gen ministries currently. Kids and families are coming back, but only a fraction of them are involved in person or online. For months the question has loomed, what are we going to do for VBS? I was already months behind on planning and marketing, coronavirus news continues to look bad, and with online numbers dwindling since Easter, who’s going to co