Several of these kids I still know and some I am friends with now on Facebook, even though this was 1993 at the Village Church of Lincolshire, IL. (Pictured here are David and Hannah Shaw, Tina Myers, Athena (Rebecca) Stephens, Tyler and Kelsey Hagen, Matt, Sam and Gab Fuqua, Jennelle, Jenene and Jenna Stanonik, Amy Lane, and others I only remember first names. I am getting old!)

Here is a fun game event I did in my Rookie Year as a full time children’s pastor that I called Sumu Kids:

First, the TEAM PHOTOS:

We did this at a “Sack Lunch Sunday.” Every first Sunday of the month, I let all the grade school kids stay at church for a themed afternoon of fun and games. Its purpose was simply to deepen my relationship with the kids as well as to give parents a nice Sunday afternoon off. (Parent Points!) There was always some spiritual teaching, yes, but that wasn’t the main emphasis. Building relationship was, as it made my teaching more effective during church. (Remembering all these names some 19 years later is proof that Relational Ministry works!)

Here are the kids getting their Sumu Fighter ready:

Hannah Shaw

and another:

Jenna Stannonick

and…

The white suits I got from Abbot Laboratories

Abbot Laboratories was located near our church, and I asked volunteer at our church (Byron Wingerd – thanks!) for a few of these awesome zip up lab body suits and he gave me a bunch. (I still have some!) And then the kids stuffed them with toilet paper!

Sam Fuqua

Then….. THE BATTLE!

Of course, the goal was to knock the other person (not over) but out of the circle! The Sumu Kids had to keep their hands either on their hips or just out in the air and could only use their belly to fight. It was hysterical! The kids loved it of course.

Oh, and did I mention they were BLINDFOLDED? Their teammates had to coach them on where to go by yelling instructions! But it was hard to tell which yelling kids were your team, so it took concentration.

The spiritual application?

1) You have to listen carefully to which voices in life you listen to.

2) There are enemies out there who seek to knock you over!

3) We need to work hard to not fall down!

SCRIPTURES I MIGHT HAVE USED: (I don’t actually know, but I know myself and how I think, so I would have used verses like this. NOT ALL of them, but I’m just showing you that after a FUN game the Bible has a LOT to say about standing firm and NOT FALLING DOWN!)

Psalm 36:12
See how the evildoers lie fallen— thrown down, not able to rise!

Psalm 145:14
The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

Ecclesiastes 4:10
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Ephesians 6:11
Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Joshua 7:10
The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face.”

1 Corinthians 16:13
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.

Matthew 24:13
but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

1 Corinthians 10:12
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

Luke 21:19
Stand firm, and you will win life.

Mark 13:13
Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Philippians 4:1
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

James 5:8
You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

1 Peter 5:9
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

IN SUMMARY:

Have FUN playing games – make it count by incorporating some spiritual teaching – but at the end of the day, we aren’t in ministry to have fun, and we aren’t even in ministry simply to teach. I’m not sure if many of these remember the lesson I taught that day. (Though a well taught lesson becomes part of who they are.) But the relationship impacts deeper than a lesson, and in two directions. I miss these kids very much. Some I’m still in touch with. Others, I cross paths with from time to time, others I know I won’t see again until the New Heaven and Earth – and what a Day that will be!

I think I’ll challenge them to a Sumu Match on the shore of the Crystal Sea!

Well, it took awhile to compile all the responses and pick a WINNER – but that original post has been UPDATED with both the winner and PDFs and WORD documents with all the submissions in a list, so you can compile your very own Kidmin Toolkit and BE READY for the next time you suddenly get called to go teach or serve and have no time to plan or pack or prepare – just grab your Kidmin Toolkit and GO!

GO THERE NOW – to see WHO WON, and download the TOOLKIT LISTS!

Leave your NEW COMMENTS HERE, rather then there. I’m especially interested in whether anyone actually creates their Kidmin Toolkit. If you do, send me a picture and I will post it here in this thread! E-mail to karl at kidmintalk.com as I will probably end up talking about this on KidminTalk soon!

GO!

Writing the Kid’s Church Cookbook was one of the biggest undertakings I’ve ever done. It was bigger than the Order of the Ancient novel, since it required design work and layout involvement that was much more intense, and bigger than the Kidology Handbook since not only is it over 100 pages longer, but it involved me filming seven complete training videos in a custom kitchen studio all while it was closed over a Christmas break… it was an insane time. I won’t even bother typing all that involved, crazy story best saved for telling in person. While it took over two years to get the editing done, the filming was all done in just 3-4 days almost non-stop without sleep!

This post was inspired by some encouraging words I just got from a Kidology member named Martin Maynard, which I thought I’d share, in case you’ve been considering picking it up: (I edited to shorten and leave some stuff out.)

Karl, the reason I am writing is your Kids Church Cookbook is the best training I have ever come across in my years of reading and studying. I appreciate what you are doing through Kidology, what an amazing site.  I wish more folks would grab a hold of what  you are doing. I sincerely think your material is just awesome and it is just what we need.

I just read your chapter on Object Lessons and how you describe how to take an object and just start describing it slowly, giving time for the connection to be made between the abstract and the concrete. Truly amazing. I truly have read tons of books and there are some great leadership books out there, but none really touch on creativeness. Man you tackle creativeness head on and make it not so intimidating. I just think this material is just that good. I feel so blessed to have stumbled on your site and to have come across the material. I feel God lead me to it. Thanks for your work at raising up youth to be disciples.

- Martin Maynard

The Cookbook took several years to write and to produce the training videos that go along with it – and it is so encouraging when people take the time to send a note of encouragement. I have never seen an exhaustive work on Kids Church, and during this season of life when I’m not in weekly church ministry, I felt God telling me to use this time to write “everything I know about children’s church” from having written and led over 1000 kids church services for over fifteen years of ministry. It was hard work, but oh so fun to do it in such a creative manner. (With the Chef theme that really played out nicely as it unfolded.) I tried to cover a wide spectrum of topics from lesson preparation to recruiting to room decorating to advance planning and so much more. It’s kinda the definitive work on Kid’s Church! Like I said, no one else has ever even tackled the topic on this scope or breath before. And with the addition of seven training videos, it really became a hefty project!

But in the end, I think it’s quite a helpful tool that should serve those who teach kids and lead Kids Church for years to come.

Thanks Martin for your encouragement! I’m glad it is helping your kids church team, and I hope it will help many others to cook up lessons that kids are gonna love and provide the tools to assist in preparing more spiritually nourishing lessons wherever the Cookbook is used!

Kidmin Toolkit?

Let’s suppose you had to pack for a week of teaching and ministry and all you could pack was a small “Kidmin Toolkit” – what would you pack into YOUR travel kit?

A Bible? Naturally. An iPad? Perhaps. A yo-yo? A small puppet? I’d pack a bag of jolly ranchers and a sling shot! Some action figures? Remember, this is ALL you will have for a WEEK of ministry. What will you need?

I’m gonna mail the best responses in COMMENTS a prize and then I’ll post what I’d put in MY Kidmin Toolkit – and then I’d encourage you to PACK YOUR OWN Kidmin Toolkit and have it READY TO GO, because you never know when you might just need it!

UPDATE: THE $50 PRIZE PACK Very soon… someone in comments, is going to WIN this prize pack I’ve assembled:

(Note: It all packs flat to fit in your Kidmin Toolkit!)

UPDATE: I was overwhelmed by the response to this blog post. Everyone submitted Great Ideas! However, I could pick but ONE winner, and the Kidmin Toolkit Winner is: Joan Eppehimer

SEE ALL THE RESPONSES & COMPILE YOUR OWN KIT!

We have compiled ALL THE RESPONSES into a single list so you can create your own Kidmin Toolkit! Download as a PDF or Word Doc:

Kidologist_com-Kidmin-Toolkit-List.pdf (196 KB PDF)

Kidologist_com-Kidmin-Toolkit-List.doc (114 KB DOC)

I added two more, same list, just numbered: (209 items)

Kidologist_com-Kidmin-Toolkit-List-numbered.pdf (116 KB PDF)

Kidologist_com-Kidmin-Toolkit-List-numbered.doc (116 KB DOC)

I’ve been on the road (well, technically, in the air!) for weeks – speaking at Camp Hartland and Camp Timber-lee, and all the while my convertible has been in the garage with the top down while I’ve been filming in my car DiscipleTown videos for the next series. (How to Navigate the Old Testament, due out Aug. 20th)

So when I pulled out today, I had no idea the top was broken, its been down for a month! I discovered when I was out on a conference call with DiscipleLand after lunch with the family at the mall. I was then meeting at Speed Stacks HQ getting the low-down on some new products (BTW, I am the VERY FIRST non-employee to get a prototype on something I’ll blog about later!) when it started to rain!

What to do? Go home and cut out of an important meeting? Park under a tree? Then the innovative team at Speed Stacks discovered that the back double doors of their building might provide shelter!

Only problem – the door width was 70 inches and my car only fit halfway in the building, it was 75 inches mirror to mirror!

The view from outside

The view from inside

The car only fit in (with LESS than an inch on each side) up to the mirrors, and then we had to put cardboard over the front seat to keep the rain out! But we saved the rest from the rain.

Sometimes in life, you just have to be creative!

If you are an optimist, the car was half inside!

If you are a pessimist, the car was half out in the rain!

I only suffered a slight scratch when pulling out, but like I told Bob Fox, great memories in life come with a slight price tag!

Me and Bob Fox, President of Speed Stacks

PS: Me beating Bob’s daughter at Sporting Stacking!

Well, on vacation I went to an antique outlet mall and saw this action figure from the semi-recent Disney release Prince of Persia (which was a pretty cool movie, by the way, if you didn’t see it.)

Now, if you’ve been a fan of ToyBoxTales.com you know I’m a collector of action figures and have a wall of them labeled by their usefulness in teaching videos. (The site now features Object Talks on the home page, the videos featured in DiscipleTown, the kids church curriculum I write, so search the archives for nearly 100 videos with action figures!)

I picked up this dude because I think he looks like he could be a Bible Character!

MY QUESTION TO YOU: Which Bible Character do YOU think Prince Dastan could play in a ToyBox Tale? And why? Who does he look like, biblically speaking?

Gave me the idea… I wondered if anyone might like to take a stab at guessing how one might share the Gospel with flying chickens! For the BEST “Gospel Presentation with Flying Chickens” provided in comments, whether it is the one I used, plain funny, or another great original idea – I’ll mail you one of MY flying chickens!

I’m teaching this week on Spiritual Climbing, a topic I have done here many times, so I wanted to a take a totally new approach (my past series is available on Kidology) so I am going through the Awesome Adventure Series (gave a copy to each camper) adding an object lesson with a piece of hiking equipment I use when I go hiking and comparing to spiritual growth, but for the game, I created 12 games with these flying chickens I got on sale at an outlet store! The store couldn’t believe it when I took every chicken in the store up to the counter!

But when you find something that is usually over $10 for only $3 – a smart children’s pastor buys them all! Every game is now an object lesson that fits my lesson! The campers are going nuts over these flying chickens, and they even make noise after they hit the ground. You HAVE to have unique games like this when you are a camp speaker, it ends up being the high light. Of course, I have a new puppet as well, he is a monkey name Pogi, who sounds like Yogi Bear, but Pogi is a Filipino word. Go ahead, Google it.

SO THE CONTEST IS ON! How would YOU share the Gospel with Flying Chickens? Share in Comments? (or just comment for fun!)

While I find many means of worship enjoyable and meaningful, one that I find most pleasing and satisfying I call “worshiping through my lens.” It is simply enjoying and attempting to capture God’s Creation through the lens of my camera, and then taking some time to edit with iPhoto.

I enjoy the compliments I get and people are often surprised I’m not a “Photoshop” expert and do everything I do to my photos with only iPhoto. So I thought this time, instead of just posting photos from my Father’s Day outing to the Denver Botanic Gardens (where we have a membership) I’d go ahead and give you my “before and after” pics to show you the difference between the pics I took and the way they look after I had some fun on the computer with them.

NOTE: All pics can be clicked to be viewed larger.

White Daisies (BEFORE)

White Daisies (AFTER) See the bug?

Hungry Bee (BEFORE)

Hungry Bee (AFTER)

Lonely Flower (BEFORE)

Lonely Flower (AFTER)

Red Rose (BEFORE)

Red Rose (AFTER)

Purple Fields (BEFORE)

Purple Fields (AFTER)

Busy Ants (BEFORE)

Busy Ants (AFTER)

Fire Flower (BEFORE)

Fire Flower (AFTER)

Waves of Grain (BEFORE)

Waves of Grain (AFTER)

And then, of course, I shoot pictures of my favorite subjects: (no ‘before’ on these)

I often do this… it is relaxing and my own personal form of worship to sit and edit photos of nature on my Mac. I don’t post them often, because I don’t assume they would make for a very interesting blog if I did it often. At times I think I should start a photo-blog, but then that would be another website to maintain and I have enough websites already!

Tell me (in comments) How do you worship?

Man builds working replica of Noah’s Ark (exact scale given in Bible) in Schagen , Netherlands

The massive central door in the side of Noah’s Ark was opened to the first crowd of curious townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course, it’s only a replica of the biblical Ark , built by Dutch creationist, Johan Huibers, as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That’s two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.

Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.

A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son, Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top – deck not quite ready in time for the opening – will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs, chickens, goats and one camel.

Visitors on the first day were stunned. ‘It’s past comprehension’, said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.

“I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.”

There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands , where church-going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.

Now that I am old and Gray…give me the time to tell This new generation (and their children too) About all your mighty miracles. Psalm 71:18

There are not enough hours in each day so you know you will always have to procrastinate on something. The trick is to force yourself to choose to procrastinate on the small things in order to get things done.

Keys:

• Don’t clear up the small things first! Resist the temptation- we often underestimate how the small things add up and seemingly never end (especially e-mail)!
• Choose to do the most valuable and important first. Place value on the items you need to accomplish each day. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of what you do is the least valuable, while 20% is the most valuable.
• Do it tomorrow! Work on the e-mails and phone messages that came in yesterday and file today’s away for tomorrow. The benefit is that when your mailboxes are empty, you are done for the day regardless of what comes in! For example, I created a “Do Today” email box and a “Do Tomorrow” e-mail box and file e-mails accordingly. This helps limit expectations others have of you. It is way too easy to get in a trap of pleasing people immediately. The problem is that our own work piles up until we have to work many hard and late hours to catch up.
• Learn to say “no.” Say no to the things that are not of high value to your goals. Look at your tasks as the following: Must, Should, Nice, Delegate, Eliminate.
• Identify your constraints. One major cause of procrastination is a feeling of inadequacy and a lack of confidence. What is holding you back from achieving your purpose quickly and well done?

CREATIVE ORGANIZATION

“Creative Organization” might seem like an oxymoron since the stereotypical creative type lives and works in a clutter of chaos (whether on desktop actual or desktop virtual) only coming up for the occasional snack of hummus. But the truth is organization for the creative can be quite freeing and well…creative!

Keys:

• Plan everyday in advance.  Whether the night before or right before you dive in- planning out your day and working from that list can help you work on your own time versus being reactive to whatever daily interruptions you endure. When things come up- add it to the list and practice your creative procrastination skills! Also it would be good to work from multiple lists (in Basecamp, HighRise or BackPack) such as: Master List, Monthly List, Weekly List and Daily List.
• Create imaginary deadlines.  Deadlines are evil! Okay, maybe that is overreacting. But they are often used by creatives to procrastinate in a non-productive and non-creative way. How many times have you waited right up until a deadline is looming to finish something? Sure deadlines can motivate you like nothing else…but at what cost? They often cause unnecessary and self-created stress and mistakes. Try to think of work in this scenario often: “I just won a cruise to the Bahamas but I have to leave next week to claim it.” How would that change your pace and priorities?
• Create a “Bucket List.”  No not the kind of list made popular by a recent movie! Have a habit of writing all of your commitments in “buckets” or categories and review your them often. It doesn’t matter what kind of bucket it is…computer, paper, audio, video…whatever works for you. Make it fun! Some buckets might be home, work, a specific big project, etc.

For more info on Timbuktoons and future helpful articles, be sure to subscribe to the Timbuktoons Newsetter!

(From Patrick Mayfield. I originally linked to his post, but he keeps moving it, so I have posted the rest here so I don’t have to keep updated it.)

1. Only a few people are creative

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are probably right.”

I’m not sure who said that, but it sums up what I have come to realise about each of us in the matter of being creative.

Ultimately this myth is perpetuated by a negative and self-fulfilling perception of oneself. Our self-perception as ‘uncreative’ people is probably due to an unchallenged internal script from our critical faculties. When we have attempted something creative in the past, the script may have run something like this:

“You see? That’s pathetic! I can’t be creative…”

Many say, “I can’t draw”; then coaches such as Betty Edwards come along and prove that this is simply not true. With careful and sensitive coaching people can break through this limiting self-belief.

2. Creativity is a solo pursuit

This is probably the Myth that causes many of us to make such little progress, and also to miss true creativity when it happens in groups. Research by Doug Hall and others has shown that creativity happens best in groups. Measured by the volume of ideas generated, this always improves exponentially in groups, the more diverse the better. People with unlike experiences, backgrounds, personalities and strengths are far more fertile in creative exercises that homogeneous groups or individuals.

I know that in my Company, I’m always more creative sparking off ideas with colleagues who come at things from a different angle.

3. Creativity happens best when you ‘think outside of the box’

‘Think outside of the box’ has become such an accepted cliche, particularly in business circles. But is it really true? Surprisingly perhaps, when people work within given constraints – even apparently extreme ones – the quality and depth of the creativity is often far superior. It is as if the constraints themselves stimulate ideas. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” the old adage goes. See my Power Presenting Lens for examples of this in the areas of presentations, where shorter presentations, with minimalist visual design constraints have a more powerful impact.

4. When you suffer from a ‘Creative Block’, there is nothing you can do but wait for it to pass

So how do those in the ‘creative’ professions manage? Robert Fritz has shown that this is far from the reality of their work-a-day lives. Their approach is matter of professional discipline. They first generate drafts, sketches, roughs, etc. and in volume.Their discipline is to do this whilst suspending their critical faculties. Then later they go through this material, rejecting, amending, editing and shaping. The rhythm of their work is that they do not confuse the two modes – creating and critiquing – at the same time.

As a public speaker my first rehearsal is always poor. I have learned not to let that worry me. I come back, hone it, shape it, as a creative process.

Authors, such as Julia Cameron, Stephen King, Anne Lamott and Henriette Anne Klauser, set themselves daily volume targets – so many words or pages – and only later come back and edit them.

Learning to create is much about learning to trust oneself in the first phase and to ‘switch off’ the critical part of one’s brain during drafting.

5. My first idea is likely to be the best one

This is really a derivative of myths 1 and 4. Roger Von Oech looks for the second idea. Someone who is comfortable with the creative process can work in a group to push for the generation of ideas past the first one, often to something that could be a truly breakthrough idea. The rest of us are inclined to halt at the first idea that grabs us, and then give up when it fails.

6. Love me, love my idea

T his is where we confuse our own identity with the ideas we champion. An idea becomes ‘my baby’. It gets personal.

“A painting is never finished. It just stops in interesting places.”
Pablo Picasso.

Great artists can stand back from their work – even their ‘finished’ work – and stand shoulder to shoulder with the critics, objectively evaluating it. This requires some emotional maturity; to see that our ideas are not us. We attain greater agility of thinking in the creative process when we are not too emotionally wedded to any idea we may have come up with. Let’s be passionate about taking an idea as far as we can, but not to die at the stake for it.

61/2. Creativity is a serious business

This Myth is only half true. CS Lewis wrote, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” Regarding Creativity, I’d paraphrase that to:

“Fun is the serious business of creativity.”

In a way, the business of Creativity is serious. Our survival depends on our ability to create and grow. If the Global Warming Lobby are right, then we need to get seriously creative about how we use the scarce resources on this planet. It is serious.

However, Creativity happens best when we are positive, and having fun. It helps us to consider the hilarious, outrageous and ludicrous long enough to spot that breakthrough idea.

Some business settings are so threatening, stuffy and boring that I’m amazed people’s brains just don’t shut down altogether. The fight or flight response literally takes oxygen from our brains to our muscles for fight or flight. Not good for creativity, though.

No, Creativity happens best when it is Fun! When it is playful! We need to return to that wisdom where ancient kings valued the fool, the jester. Even Napoleon valued his Fool, whom he consulted on important messages in the heat of battle.