Kidology to Go – Where the Rubber Meets the Road!

What happens when God brings two dreams together? A new amazing ministry forms that has the potential to impact hundreds of children’s leaders and volunteers and therefore thousands of children! YES! THIS IS KIDOLOGY’S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT – I’m leaking it a day early on my blog to give you the “back story.” It will “officially” to announced tomorrow in a Kidology Newsletter and at the Children’s Ministry Expo in Lexington, Kentucky – an event I’d love to have been at, but I’m speaking at camp this week! Pastor Marty Martin is a good friend and fellow CP I’ve known for a number of years, in fact, I blogged about my visit to his church a few years ago and and how impressed I was with his ministry there. So when Marty called me recently and shared with me that he felt God calling him to take a break from active children’s ministry and asked me for some advice – I asked him what he wanted to do. He shared with me a “crazy” dream – to travel the country with his wife and five boys in an RV, and yet he still had a desire for some kind of equipping…

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Yosemite Summit Report and Video

[This is a reprint from YosemiteSummit.org since I have more readers here] Don’t miss the Highlight Video at the end of this post! (Remember, click any image to view larger!) This year Yosemite Summit came for me in the midst of a very busy schedule, which is why I haven’t been able to do a report for over a month. In fact, had it not been for Yosemite Summit, I would not have ever slowed down! Which is exactly why Yosemite Summit exists, as I wrote about in Built in Pit Stop. Before Yosemite Summit, there were seasons in my life when I didn’t ever slow down! Yosemite Summit has taught me to slow down, in fact, it has taught me the power of stopping. Actually, Yosemite Summit played a major role in my moving my family to Colorado so I could live a state where the pace is slower and where stopping is easier… though I am still learning to apply it on a monthly basis. If you are a kidmin professional in Colorado, ask me about my Colorado Hiking Club, The Fellowship of the King! This year’s Summit brought together seven guys from around the country. Two returned…

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Getting Started in Kids Ministry

Recently I got this comment on my blog on the YOU page, and wanted to answer her here on my blog for others to read as well: Hello There! I am Rachel. I am a children’s ministry major and a missions minor at central bible college in Springfield, MO. I have heard wonderful things about your website and your material. I am currently doing an internship and my pastor is having me subscribe to several blogs, yours now being one of them. I am planning on being a part of a church planting team in Seattle, WA next summer. I will be the kids pastor. Any advice on how to get started from the ground up? Well, Rachel – where to begin?! First of all, thanks for droppin’ by my blog and kuddos to your pastor for him having you subscribe to my blog! He is a wise and sage senior pastor! If you are not a member of my mega-site, Kidology.org, be sure to jump over there ASAP where you will find a wealth of help that has been growing since before there were any blogs! (since 1994) If you can’t afford the modest membership fee, note the scholarship…

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What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry

What happens when 33 children’s ministry thinkers are asked the question, “What Matters NOW in Children’s Ministry and given only 200 words to answers?” THIS FREE e-Book (Download 2.5MB PDF) Thank you to Henry Zonio for including me in this project as well as Matt Guevara, Amy Dolan for their hard work on it and Imago for their incredible design work which was donated. A print version will be available June 14th to help offset the costs of this beautiful and thought provoking contribution to the world of Children’s Ministry. If you are a Twitterer, be sure to follow @cmwhatmatters in order to be the first to learn of planned upcoming project related to this release. Use the hashtag #WMNkidmin when you tweet about it! I enjoyed reading all the contributions and found each thought provoking and challenging. The word I chose was: RELATIONSHIPS Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever. (Psalm 119:152) The most incredible aspect of Creation was that God walked in the garden with the crown of His creation. They had a relation-ship with God that sin severed: ending a fellowship we can only imagine. For centuries, that relationship became…

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Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

Happy Mother’s Day! If it wasn’t for all you mother’s out there, not only would none of us be here, but our socks wouldn’t match! Our stomachs and our hearts wouldn’t be full, and our boo-boo’s wouldn’t have been kissed. We might have run to dad when we wanted to horse around and play, but we ran to you when we were hurting… even after we grew up. I miss my Mom. She passed away on Christmas Day, 1996. It look several years for me to stop reaching for the phone after I got a great children’s ministry idea. She was always the first I told it to. Of course, for a long time, I just ran into the kitchen to show it to her. My children ministry career started at age ten when I told my mom I wanted to be a children’s evangelist when I grew up. My mom said, “What’s growing up got to do with anything? You start next Wednesday.” I answered, “But I said, “When I grow up!” Her response was, “If God called you to be a children’s evangelistic, why wait until you grow up?” She coached me through planning my first talk, and…

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