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So we started Switch yesterday at Brookwood. There were a ton of  kids, about 40% more than we were expecting in fact! Here are a few of my thoughts on opening day:

• iPads were a smash hit. Even the Parents were like, wow. Especially the dads, more on that later.
• We started with a Doug Fields series called Made. It was a hit, really worked on one of the areas that I will concentrate on and that is the issue of identity.
• Check-in was crazy and that is sort of new territory for me. Production went rather well but that is my area of “expertise”(haha) but realized just how much I have to learn.
• Families are transitioning in so many ways, that I didn’t even consider.
• Our church really, really needed this and that was apparent to me on Sunday.
• The kids had a blast and a lot of Parents voiced to me just how much their kids enjoyed it. Very thankful.
• Really will be working hard to recruit some strong male leaders. Thanks to my marketing degree, I have no shame in recruiting. Seriously, no shame at all. One of my favorite things.

Just a few thoughts from the first week. Here are some other funny ones.

I’m not really a numbers guys. I love data analyzation but gathering and collecting is not fun. So I totally didn’t take a head count of two of the three services, man am I a rookie or what? I will probably never talk about total attendance because as my friend Jonathan Cliff wisely pointed out when I met him at Orange in 2009, “It creates a barrier that restricts the conversation.” Unless some of my mentors voice to me otherwise numbers won’t be something that I talk about.

We ran out of cards that we printed about our check in process. Our Creative Services team printed more than I asked for and we still ran out. God really blew my expectations out of the water.

I was really rusty on stage. I hadn’t spoken in about 6 weeks and it showed. I felt uncomfortable in some content and adding detail and vibrance in some of my stories. Flow was pretty good though.

Anyway, enough about Switch.

When is your kickoff/promotion and what are you doing special this year?

It was a blast and I can’t wait to see what this year has in store.

This new commercial immediately screamed new parental responsibilities for parents that have Preteens or tweens. The commercial involves a student trying to break away from his mom and begin his first day of school. Mom trying to protect her son and make sure he’s prepared lets him go. He gets to his locker and realizes he forgot the combination to his locker. Luckily his mom wrote his combo on a rice krispies treat package.

I immediately saw 10-12 year old boys everywhere with some sort of a similar scenario playing out in their life. I know simple, but again. Giving that child a little more freedom but still helping guide them in life is one of the major themes in Preteen Ministry. Doesn’t seem like an easy thing to know your child well enough, that you know your son is going to forget his locker combination. But I think that relationship that mom has with son, she knows exactly what he needs and she allows him to exercise a little bit of freedom.

So Parents of Preteens and Preteen Ministry workers, remember to help parents and kids learn some responsibility by the way you communicate, the processes you build, and the relationships that you develop.

Now did the commercial say all that? No, maybe I’m just excited about Switch and the opportunities to speak about this transition that both kids and parents are navigating