bring change handout, originally uploaded by iwearbrown.

Couple reasons for this post today. Number one, I feel like the way that we communicate in the church is changing and this specific topic is especially important in #kidmin. Number dos, I wanted to promote this guy’s stuff, it’s absolutely incredible.

Especially this piece.

Sorry for the digital drool I left all over the place, anyway…. Where was I? O yeah the handout

Let’s talk framework first. In Children’s Ministry we have 3 basic audiences: Parents, Volunteers, and Kids. Pretty simple unless you wanna get super sophisticated and talk about non-involved parties and your pitch to them but we’ll stray from that for the time being.

3 audiences.

Generally the handout pieces in #kidmin is for Parents and Volunteers.

But two things are happening in culture. Primary communication is becoming more and more digital and we are still in a bad economy.

So digital pieces are cheaper and you don’t have the waste of paper and old information laying around :p the problem. The apparent communication problem:

Will people go online?
What if people don’t go to the website?
Not as effective as print, not as easy as print, not as purposeful as print. (all myths I think, but hurdles nonetheless)

The church is very raw in communicating online but especially in Children’s Ministry. So is it time for the handout to die? Or am I just too progressive?

There’s a pool party at sunset - everyone mark your chair with a towel, originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs.

Today we were talking about how we might change our Baptism from an explanation of an event to an explanation of a lifestyle that lasts a lifetime.

I know that #kidmin folks deal with this stuff all the time. Thoughts race through their minds from classes, forms, cards, counseling sessions, uncertainty, and confusion. But right now there are two things that I think we have got to figure out how to combat in baptism.

1)The Party Factor- it can be called alot of things but honestly we have made baptisms into this huge party. Yes, we should celebrate the fact that people are making a decision to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior and agree to be accountable to them and support them in their walk with Christ.

However, this celebration results in just a bit of glazed eyes type stuff with kids. Ok so if I do this then people will throw me a party and cheer after I’m thrown back into the water, and there is a person there to make sure I don’t hurt myself!!! Sign me up! Rather than a heart felt desire to follow God we have a heart felt desire to party. I think it’s tough for kids to draw this line and I think it’s a tough place to figure out.

2)Confusion/Church Test- This is the part that is weighing pretty heavily in my mind. Do you hold a class? Do you have kid by kid counseling sessions?

The class the fear is that you give them all the answers if you give The Gospel and generally talks about the act of regeneration and the theology of justification and sanctification but doesn’t really talk about the depth of the decision.

The counseling sessions (to me) are like setting up kids for the church exam. If they don’t end up getting baptized they failed the church test and if they do then they passed.

So how can we teach them those things. I think one thing that works very well for us is our Leading Your Child to Christ class because it does an incredible job of explaining the long term implications of the decision. It lets parents understand the role they play in their child’s spiritual life.

I also think that our Baby Dedications play a huge part in this long term thinking as well and help combat against the event type mentality.

But those are for the parents, what is the best way to do baptism for the kids? Should it be more of an informational type setting where you explain the gospel and give them the answers? Or more of an interview/counsel session? Or is it an entirely different process?

I don’t know, hopefully you can help. Let me know your thoughts.

We have been in a series called Old School that is an original BrookwoodKiDs series that teaches kids about the Bible. Couple of goals we had were the following:

• Answer common questions that kids have about God’s Word.
• Guide them in becoming more comfortable with God’s Word.
• Teach them not only how to read the Bible but also how to hear from God through the reading of it.

We’ve done a cool thing that my #kidmin peeps might like. We took kids and allowed them to intro the lesson in video format. We are planning to keep this element and also allow the kids to make the announcements that we have in large group.

Tell me what you think of this little blooper reel. And see if you can find me. A little hint, I might be hidden from plain sight.

View on Vimeo.

Depth Perception, originally uploaded by Hinata’s_Guy.

It’s funny because this is how I used to think… I used to think if you are excercising Biblical Truth and are living by God’s Word then it doesn’t matter what people think about you or your decisions that you make.

But when I went to college for a degree in marketing I totally did a 180 on this concept. Let me give you a for instance then you can weigh in.

I’m a pastor in the middle of a bad economy, I have saved up for what I consider a dream car for ages and now finally have the financial means to acquire it. This car is a ‘57 Chevy with a Candy Blue paint scheme which is totally custom and not from that era ( you can decide whether my dream car is made up or not) and it costs a pretty penny. But in no way does it affect me because of my due diligence in saving for it. But knowing people would almost certainly view my decision in a negative light I choose not to.

So my question is this, how do you weigh perceptions in your mind when you are making a decision both personally as a leader of an organization and corporately making decisions where people’s perceptions are prevalent?

-young leader searching for advice on the matter above.

David Crowder Band @ Creation East 2009, originally uploaded by susieq3c.

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Church Music by David Crowder Band