Merry Christmas

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I prayer that the Lord (the true reason for the season) has great things in store for you and your ministry to His kids!

Merry Christmas,
Greg - the Kidminister

New Applications coming to the Kidminister Site

I am currently working on adding some new applications to the site which will hopefully put more help and resources into the hands of children's ministry workers. The first of these applications is the new Kidminister Forum (http://www.kidminister.org/forum). There is a link on the bottom right side of the front page.

This will be one way that this site can become more helpful to others, which means your participation and involvement is important. This forum is strictly for resources, ideas and other such helpful things for children's ministry workers. This is not the place for debates, gossip or slaundering others (most of which are sins). So, get registered and help get the boards going.

Greg

Celebration & Service

The Christmas Season is upon us. All the craziness that goes with it is here, also. Be sure this December while you celebrate with your kids you also find ways they can serve. Christmas brings more opportunities, I think, then any other time of the year to do for others.

Classes or age groups can help with things like Angel Tree that buys gifts for children's whose parents are in prison, Toys for Tots, or one of those gift programs that sends shoe boxes of things to kids in need. Other ideas might be a simple as writing Christmas greeting cards to your church's windows and shut in members. Don't forget singing Christmas carols to places like fire stations, nursing home and again your shut in members. Whatever you do, don't forget to inspire generosity and service to others as you minister to kids living in a very material world.

God bless and Merry Christmas.
Greg

'tis the Season

Wow, it's nearly December! I had hoped to be further along on the Kidminister site updates, but other than a new design, and a few new articles, I've not had a chance to do much. One of my goals for December is to set aside some time a couple of nights of the week and get the site updated. There are some great products out, a few ideas bubbling and some fun pictures to share.

There are days when I look at how spread out the site is and I just log off and figure I'll get to it another day. But every once in a while I'll get an email from someone that got some help or at least a smile from the site and that encourages me to get working. Well, I got a nice email the other day and that has really encouraged me to get busy. I've come across some great free or inexpensive tools for children's ministers that I want to get added. If you're on a small or struggling budget, you might appreciate them.

Well, as the Christmas season approaches, I hope you enjoy the excitement, and remember the true reason for the season (despite what store advertisements or political activiest might say). God bless and good luck with your children's Christmas party planning. :)

Greg

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to wish all my American visitors a very Happy Thanksgiving! For everyone else, I pray this is a time for you to reflect on all you are thankful for, also, even if it's not a holiday in your country. My God continue to bless you and your ministry.

Now I'm going to rest up for a family dinner munchin on some turkey and all the fixin's. God Bless.

Divorce Care For Kids

Last week we started a program designed to help kids heal from the hurts of divorce. I'm always a little leary about bought curriculum because alot of the time it just doesn't connect with our kids. Well, this material is wonderful. We've had two great sessions with some incredible kids and great volunteers.

So many times we "dance" around divorce with the kids in our classes for fear of embarrassing them, segregating them or causing further hurt. I have to say this program is so straightfoward discussing divorce and all it brings with it in the lives of kids, we volunteers struggle a little. The kids on the other hand jumped right into the discussions. They so need to talk about what's going on with other kids going through the same things they are.

The statistics on kids in divorced families is staggering (like a million each year). Divorce Care is so important...so check out the program and see if it's something God has in mind for your church. You can see more at www.dc4k.org.

DC4K is a faith based program. That means it's constantly reminding kids that God loves them no matter what. No matter where they live, what they're family looks like or what's happening. God is a heavenly parent that will never leave them.

God Bless,
Greg

Still Working on the Updates

A few weeks ago I set out to rework my Kidminister website (which this blog now appears on). Boy, it's taken a while to get all the pages converted to the new design and I'm still not done with them yet. I'm also working on some new articles and some how to instructions for a few projects. I'm also hard at work writing new curriculum for this year's children's church. If there's something missing on the site that you'd like to see, drop me an email and I'll see what I can do.

New Design for Kidminister.org

The Kidminister website now has a totally new design and appearance. One of the big changes is my blog feed here on the front page that hopefully will allow me to add more fresh content quicker and easier.

Seasons of Refreshing

For sometime now, I have taken the summer's off from children's church. We run it through the school year and break for three months. I have found that the breaks lets us come back refreshed, excited and ready for another year. We spend the summer writing our material and planning new props, multimedia creations and more.

The summer break gives us a beginning and end for our Children's church teams. We have new sign ups each summer, usually in August. This keeps my volunteers coming back, allows for new volunteers and let's the teams change up. This summer I will be having some training workshops for puppeteers and drama folks prior to sign ups.

The break lets me have more time in "big" church, but by mid summer it finds me eager to get back upstairs where we can move a little more, and learn in a variety of ways.

So whatever you find consuming your time in ministry, be sure to schedule in a time of refreshing. It will do your spirit and your ministry good. God bless.