Julio Samayoa is our Recreation Director/Middle School Pastor. And he’s unbelievable at so many things. This video showcases his pretending to be the Old Spice Guy skills. Oh yeah he’s also Spanish!

(Chloe’s very own Prince Charming), originally uploaded by Tracie Taylor Photography.

What do you think? Are you a fan of the Prince Charming movement that Disney created? Or are you opposed to the Prince? My wife and I disagree a little bit on this issue. Where do you stand?

Drop a comment

Mark Driscoll wrote an article for the Washington Post and I think that it’s spot on. This has to be one of the “BIG THINGS” in Family Ministry. How can we as a church partner with Parents to move boys from teenagery to manhood. Honestly I think that in our web-centric society this problem will become worse rather than better very soon.

This quote I believe might be the key to helping the church figure this transition out:

Men are supposed to be producers, not just consumers. You’re defined by the legacy, the life, and the fruit that come out of you, not by what you take in. But most guys are just consumers.

I’m in this postition too. I am a guy that gets stuff done. However, I’m also 24 and moving from my home where my mother who worked her butt off in the home and raised us very well, took care of a lot of stuff for me. A lot of stuff she asked me to do and I refused. Can you say cleaning your room? One of the hardest transitions for me into marriage has been producing not just at my job, where it comes naturally, but moreso in the home. I can not just be a consumer at home.

So I think this problem is a big one. Parents the goal should be to get your kids ready to leave, and there will be problems, even the best families have issues. But how can we partner with you to help boys transition to being men?

Family Ministry Peeps, how can we help this problem?

Preteen Ministry peeps, what is our role in this issue?

No words needed. Airsoft Minigun from Likecool

How can I work this into Switch?

G-joker, originally uploaded by CRISTO-.

This is a series that I began a few weeks ago. You can see my post about the Riddler here.

So again apply the general rules to this as well.

You Control the Room

Relationship is key

Know your timing

Characteristics of The Joker

Likes to roam, can’t stand still, loves attention are a few of the characteristics. The one thing that this kid does impeccably well is be a distraction to the other kids.(sounds very similar to your large group leader I would assume too :p) Understand that tension, not the problem, as Andy Stanley said this week at the Global Leadership Summit. That you must balance giving kids the freedom to engage in the conversation and teaching and also teaching the content. It’s not a one way or the other kind of thing.

So what are some ways to get this kid to stop being a distraction and become an engaged part of the teaching?

Specific strategies for The Joker

1. Get them to help

Whether they are passing out snacks, handouts, or helping with the game. Give them something to do. Allow them to become a part of the teaching rather than a receiver of the teaching.

2. Allow them to become an active illustration

I don’t remember where I saw this being done but I was completely impressed. A leader had some Jokers on his hands. He was teaching about Shad, Meese, and Abe and the furnace. So he called the Jokers up on stage to be the fiery furnace. He asked them to use their arms to be the flames and also explained how the King cranked that furnace up hotter than ever and the kids had to illustrate that as well with their hands and energy. It was a brilliant idea. Get your kids involved in what’s going on.

3. Change your style of teaching-

This is especially true if you have a lot of Jokers on your hands. It might be seating changes, it might be the schedule, it might be the amount of time, or it might be the material. If you have a ton of distractions on a consistent basis then it’s time to make a large group change. Put everything on the table and try and figure it out.

One last thing

I’ll say this again. It’s on you. Not on these kids to make large group meaningful, it’s on you.

Ever had a kid that asks way too many questions? So many questions that it is a distraction for the rest of the kids in the large group? Most of us have been to this place and it’s a tough place to be. For this series I want to highlight the conflict, the person, and some strategy to help you out.

The Conflict

The questions are good

You want kids to continue to ask questions

But there are too many questions

There is this tug between these three things. You want your kids to ask good questions. You want them to be engaged in the teaching and if they are asking questions then you know they are engaged. But sometimes kids get overzealous and feel like this is there time to ask anything and everything. You have to be able to balance these three thoughts in the Conflict.

The Person: The Riddler

This kind of kid comes in two forms but honestly, there are a ton of variations.

The kid who has 1,000 questions

The kid who has 1,000 stories

Now I’m joking obviously and grouping kids together in a specific niche.

For most of these kids they are starving for attention, especially species number dos. But again the balance of the conflict must remain in your mind at all times.

The Strategy:

So how in the world can you keep the balance of maintaining control of the room and also continue to encourage kids to ask questions? How can you figure out the balance to the conflict that the Riddler presents you?

First there are a few universal principles that you need to know and I will repeat them on every single blog of this topic.

You control the room

You are the large group leader. It falls on you to create, manage, and develop a welcoming environment that engages kids with spiritual truth. It is your responsibility to control the environment.

Relationship is key

If you don’t know the kid’s name that is asking the questions, well then you probably don’t have enough of a relationship with them to have a tough conversation with them. Build a relationship with the kids and be able to have a conversation because of your relationship with that child.

Know your timing

This is where most noobs get in trouble. I absolutely failed at this when I began. When I first started teaching large groups, kids would ask questions and I would take them. But I ran out of time, every time. The lesson wouldn’t get taught because I wasn’t responsible for the time that was given for the large group teaching. Know your timing and know if you have the time to take questions, discpline, and joke around with the kids and still be able to teach the lesson.

Specific strategies for this kind of difficult kid

Always take the first question-

It helps kids to know that you want to answer their questions. Always try and answer it to the best of your ability. And be honest. I’ve dove into some deeper theology before here and also been able to tell them that there isn’t necessarily a clear answer in scripture, and also said ,that I have no idea. Honesty is always the best policy.

Help to guide the questions to stay on subject-

Questions are so incredibly important for kids and if a kid can ask a question that will help another kid understand the lesson a bit more, what more could you ask for? Help by asking a few guiding questions. Is this question about forgiveness? Is this question about serving God? Is this question about our Bible Story? If not then can we talk about it after our teaching time? Help them to be able to make responsible decisions and be ready to determine for themselves (in time) whether that question is appropriate for right now.

Help them to make sure that they are asking God questions too-

One thing that is constant in my teaching is that I want them to know that interaction with God is tangible. Sometimes I do this to a fault. But I want kids to know that God wants to answer their questions even more than I do.

Tough Conversation-

It might be a time for tough conversations if this begins to be a pattern rather than a particular time. Always be kind but give them responsibility. Please don’t say that it makes Jesus sad that you have questions and interrupt the class. If you do this and I find out I will be praying mean things. Just kidding. Sorta.

Know that if you lose control it’s ok. Everyone does at some point. But evaluate what happened. Know that the only person that is responsible for the environment in the room is the one leading. Don’t blame the kids, for lack of environmental control. It’s on you.

Be diligent and work hard.
Build relationships with the kids.
Constantly continue to develop and get better.

How have you dealt with a kid that asks too many questions or has a million stories to tell? Any strategies you would add?

So I know you’ve been there. There’s a kid in your large group that most would describe as really energetic. But the people telling the truth would call this kid demonic Only kidding of course. But I think that we have all had a kid that is one of these three common difficult kids: The Riddler (asks too many questions), The Joker (distracting the audience), or a last one that we will call Robin (Sunday School answer kid). So the next few posts will be about these three types of kids and how you can begin to deal with them in an effective manner in your Large Group setting.

Thanks for the pic Nulka

So I’m transitioning roles at Brookwood. And this is my last place to notify.

I am transitioning from Elementary Production Director to 5th and 6th Grade Pastor. I will be overseeing a new ministry that we are calling Switch. I’m so excited about being able to be a part of this group of kids and their “interesting” place in the human development spectrum I can’t wait to see what God has in store and I’m pumped about what’s He’s going to do through these kids that are a part of Switch.

I will continue blogging on Family Ministry stuff, but you will probably begin to see a lot more preteen ministry stuff as well.

Excited to see what God has in store

So we charge for VBS. It’s true. When we first asked people to pay for VBS 3 years ago, there were A LOT of unhappy people. I think they were upset for different reasons, but they expressed their displeasure. Year 2, when we charged? Cero, which is Spanish for none. Now let me give you a breakdown of what we charge first.

• General Admission: Completed K- 5th grade is $55, the past two years it has been $50.
• Preschoolers can attend, but their parents must volunteer and it’s $25 for them.
• Early Care: 7:15am – 9am is $25
• After Care: 2pm – 6pm is $50

Those are the costs for kids. These are weekly costs for the kids from M-F 9am-2pm is the General Admission program (we don’t call it that but just for clarity’s sake).

Why do we charge? I’ll give you a few reasons:

• Scale- this year we had over 650 kids, with a meal, t-shirt, crafts, and materials that is a ton o’ stuff
• Budget-we also budget in money, and this allows us to use our budget in more creative ways and less on the essentials.
• Context-free in our context equals low quality. We would actually lose people if we didn’t charge for our event. People wouldn’t attend. When we charge it says to people this is a quality event.

Now I hope when you read this blog about charging a price for VBS you don’t hear me say, “Charging admission for a VBS is the best and greatest solution and if you aren’t doing it then you are doing it wrong”. Because that is most certainly not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is this, “Charging kids to come allows us to do things that kids wouldn’t normally experience in any other place, anywhere, not just the church”.

We do offer things to help families that need the support and we also offer discounts to our volunteers. But we get to spend our budget on the things that set us apart instead of the things that kids expect. The t-shirts, meals, crafts, and materials (booklets, verse cards, etc.) are where we spend the bulk of our funds. If we didn’t charge some of those things would disappear and others would be of lower quality and the extras that we get to do would be nonexistent. Again this is our context, and we are re-evaluating like we do every year, things like price, scheduling, and the like.

But where do you stand? Do you even have VBS at your church? If so, do you charged attendees to come?

So this week, I’m finally going to get to my “VBS” posts or as we like to call our VBS on steroids at Brookwood, Adventure Week. It’s always a blast and I can’t wait to cover some of the topics that are somewhat controversial in the church world. Especially talking about them on cmconnect.org. Just so you know a little bit about our program:

• This is our third year of Adventure Week.
• We had over 650 kids and 250 volunteers this year.
• We have a program from 9am-2pm with options for before and after care.
• We charge kids to attend.
• We provide meals, crafts, t-shirts, and lots of other fun stuff
• This year we raised money for Haiti.

And there are lots of other goodies as well. I love talking about this big win for us and this week I’ll tell you a little bit about what we do, but I’m really excited to hear about what your church does for VBS as well. So stay tuned for a super fun series on a big #kidmin topic.