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Month: October 2010

I’m Gonna Be a Rat

Yup. It’s official. I’m gonna be a rat in an upcoming animated video from Timbuktoons… that according to their KickStart fundraising site! Todd Hampson and Sean Copley are two of the most creative guys I know. You may not recognize their names – but you see their work all over the Kidology and the Kidmin world. Todd was the artist for my novel Order of the Ancient and Sean designed this blog theme and all my matching stationery, business cards, brochures, etc. Todd is also the guy behind the Kidology Handbook, Leadership Labs and the Kids Church Cookbook design work. And of course, we carry a lot of their shorts and graphics and other products in our store. (4 pages worth!) They are also the creative guys behind a LOT of the stuff you see walking through the exhibit hall at the Children’s Pastor’s Conference. (Though I’m not making the list, as I’m not sure I have permission to disclose all that they are behind?) But if it looks sharp, there is a good chance Todd and Sean are behind it! And I’d like to think I was one of the first to discover Todd. Though I’m sure others may…

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This One’s On Me

Kidology’s “This One’s On Me” fundraiser is a way to support one of your favorite children’s ministry websites with small donations that otherwise may seem insignificant. To make it fun, you can choose to “buy” the equivalent of many every day products as your donation. The catch? You’ll get nothing in the mail, but will receive our heartfelt thanks and a tax-deductible receipt at the end of the year! If you’ve ever treated a friend to lunch or picked up the tab for a colleague’s Mocha Frappucino latte with whipped cream, then you know the joy a small gift can bring and the satisfaction from giving it. Here at Kidology we consider you a friend of our ministry and enjoy giving you the tools, resources, and ideas you need to be effective in your ministry to children. We’d like to give you a fun opportunity to give back to a site you love! As a non-profit ministry we are dependent on donations to underwrite the costs of this extensive high-traffic site. Keeping our membership fees low means we need those who benefit from the site to help cover the expenses that memberships and product sales can’t cover alone. Plus, it…

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Work Expands to Fill the Time Allowed

This is one of Barney Kinard’s “Coach’s Conundrums,” or what he calls one of his collection of pithy principles that need some explanation. As he often says to his Protégés (as he calls his students), implementing of his conundrums could alter your paradigm for children’s ministry or influence the way you approach kids. I want to share this one with you – because it is one that when he shared it with me years ago, it hit be so hard between the eyes, it about knocked me over! Not only is Barney a long time friend, he is one of our Kidology Coaches, who offers weekly coaching calls to his students as part of Kidology’s personal one-to-one personal curriculum based mentoring program. Every Monday, he faithful sends out his Coach’s Huddle, an e-mail LOADED with updates, insights, encouragements, pithy wisdom, fun puns, updates on his students, and bonus coaching materials exclusively for his students. It is truly a treasure of knowledge his students are blessed to get (and I’m lucky to be CCed on) every Monday. I’m taking the liberty to post his Coach’s Conundrum on “Work expands to fill the time allowed” knowing that Barney will not mind! Here…

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Teaching Kids Character

I love writing curriculum, and I especially love a writing challenge! The latest unit of DiscipleTown is called “How to Build Character“.  It includes the following lesson breakdown: My True Character My Inner Character My Outer Character My Reputation For those of you who write – let me give you a glimpse into what happens behind the scenes of writing DiscipleTown. When I write these units, I am given a collection of raw material from Mark Steiner, the creator and author of the DiscipleLand Core Bible Curriculum, since I am creating a children’s church curriculum based on the 24 Disciple Skills that are part of the overall Disciple Making Strategy created by Mark. As part of the Level Three, Second Quarter Curriculum, Mark provided a collection of character traits for the teacher to cover as part of the Disciple Skill of Building Character.  They were: Positive Character Qualities Negative Character Qualities Honest, truthful, fair dishonest, false, corrupt Caring, compassionate, merciful unconcerned, insensitive, judgmental Loyal, devoted, steadfast unfaithful, disloyal, uncommitted Respectful, courteous, polite rude, impolite, disrespectful Diligent, hard-working, determined lazy, procrastinating, undisciplined Courageous, bold, brave fearful, timid, cowardly Holy, pure, set apart impure, polluted, tainted Trustworthy, responsible, dependable unreliable, irresponsible, undependable…

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Doctor Poncho

Taking everyday mundane family occurrences and turning them into memories… We had a small tragedy in our home this morning. Charlie’s nose came off. It would only take me 2-3 minutes and some super glue to fix it – but what an opportunity for a memory! I went down to my “children’s ministry closet” that is still stacked full of boxes from nearly 20 years as a children’s pastor and prayed, “Dear God, let one of the first three boxes I pull have my doctor outfit!” The first box looked promising – as it had the doctor table cloth in it! But I struck out with the next few boxes and it looked like my plan of coming back up stairs dressed as a surgeon was not going to happen. Then I remembered something I’ve said more times than I can count in workshops across America, “Kids love to pretend and as adults we are handicapped by our need to be realistic.” So I just grabbed what I did have access to – a poncho and sombrero, that surgeon’s table cloth and walked back upstairs and introduced myself as “Doctor Poncho” and said, “I hear you have a dog whose…

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