Have They Learned?!

Okay, it comes time for the end of your curriculum unit and you are ready to evaluate what your kids have learned. How do you go about that task without giving the kids a pop quiz? Nobody wants to be the teacher remembered for pop quizzes!

For the past two units we have made it a game day for the kids. We have taken questions from the curriculum series and used them to create a Jeopardy game on power point. Well, we played Jeopardy this past Sunday and I was excited to see how much the kids had learned. I was confident that they would remember Bible verses, key points and wow us with their knowledge. My confidence soon began to fail after the first service and by the fourth I was deflated. I was so sure that they were going to fly through the questions with out any hints at all and even with the hints it was sometimes painful. Oh sure, we had a few kids each service that knew most of the answers but I was still feeling low.

About that time God stepped in and gave me a smack for feeling sorry for myself. We had some extra time after the game during fourth service so we did a song with the kids. As the music started for Hallelujah, I looked out at the group of kids and couldn't help but smile as I saw them with smiles on their faces, voices raised and doing the motion. It didn't matter to them that they didn't do so great at Jeopardy. What mattered to them was that they where there with people and friends who care about them. Sometimes it takes a moment like that to remember it is not always about the lesson but about the connections they make with small group leaders and friends.

Visit Often!

This blog is here for all those looking to share ideas, borrow ideas or find themselves out of ideas. I will be posting thoughts evaluating our children's services, curriculum, scheduling and all the stuff that goes into Sunday mornings at our church. I am looking forward to hearing comments and feedback from everyone and would love to hear some of the other stuff going on in other children's ministries.

We will also be including postings from our volunteers for us to all get the fresh perspective on Sunday mornings.

So visit often and give us your thoughts!

Reinvent VBS

We have changed the traditional thinking about VBS in our area. We do a huge three day production we call Kids’ Camp that takes a minimum of five months planning to pull off. Do we do it to reach more families in our area? You bet we do, but that is not the first reason. Do we do it to grow our church and children’s ministry? Absolutely, but still not the big reason? These are both great reasons to tackle any huge outreach projects you may have planned but we have another reason. Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers! This year we had over three hundred volunteers from our church (a church of 1500) come out for three mornings in July to serve at our Kids’ Camp Adventure Island.

Our camp volunteers are asked to serve for three mornings from 8 to 12, no experience and no long term commitments required. We make sure the energy and enthusiasm starts the minute the volunteers show up for training and carries straight through until our camp wraps up on what we call camp Sunday. Our camp volunteers are immersed in all the excitement and fun that the kids are having. Once camp is over and they have had the best three days of their summer they can't wait to sign-up to be a part of our Sunday morning children's ministry. Can you think of a better way to build excitement and recruit volunteers?
Check out the camp video below!