The Eyeball Game

I’m letting out on of my ‘secrets’ in the upcoming release of Part Two of the Kids Church Cook Book and I thought it might make a good blog post. I was writing about a unique way I start children’s church – (perhaps another post later) and then describing something I do when I am doing my welcome… “Like the late night talk shows, after the welcome activity, I often do what I call my monologue, it is when I come out and just talk to the kids. I tell a humorous story from the week, I greet the kids. I look for visitors. I comment on things they are wearing or brought with them. I may ask a few kids questions about their personal life, “How’s your grandma doing?” (Shows that child I care, and other children that I’m connected to individual lives.) This time is loose, very short, and very personal, but very intentional. It is just me and the kids connecting. They will feel like I am just shooting the breeze, but often I have almost rehearsed the stories I might tell of something funny that happened during the week and have the kids almost falling on…

Continue reading

A Free Resident CM University?

Over the weekend I finally got to unpacking all my books from Chicago – a lifetime of children’s ministry and the inheritance of two pastor-dads and the heritage of a CE Director mother and as Kidology’s founder (who gets samples from publishers) –  I am blessed with what could be the ultimate children’s ministry LIBRARY! I may have nearly every book and magazine ever published related to children’s ministry – and many go WAY BACK… it’s both incredible and frustrating. Not only because I could never read them all myself, but because I don’t know how to make them available to others. I couldn’t ever sell them, I don’t want to donate them, and yet they are all here sitting on shelves just LOADED with wisdom and ideas and sage advice and pages upon pages of knowledge! I wish I could scan them all and put them on Kidology.org, and yet for many of them, I’m not sure I’d have the right to do so – and researching the rights of each book would be too tedious to under take – and so here they all are – the ultimate children’s pastor library, here available only to me. It got…

Continue reading

Buzz Buzzed CAPTION THIS CONTEST Winner!

As promised on Facebook and Twitter, here is the picture I posted and the captions that were entered in my “CAPTION THIS” contest: OTHER ENTRIES: To manyz donutz hurted my tummiez… (Allison Waters) “i said KRYPTONITE!” not krispy kreme! (Barbara Neiger) Luke became overwhelmed after learning that Buzz Lightyear – not Darth Vader – was his true father. And to think, the clues were there all along. (Jordan Bastian) To infinity and beyond…the Krispy Kreme! (Todd Liebenow) Buzz asked Jr. to taste test his new recipe that he got from Karl’s new cookbook! (Tammy Jones @vbscrazy) Toy Story 3: No Doughnut Gets Left Behind (@alyssaglick) To Immodium and beyond! (@marc_romero) the evil pirate Zorkons were approaching us from the aft vector to raid our donut loot, but I was able to prevent them. *burp* (Glenn Woods @thurios) Donut try this at home, I’m a trained professional (@samluce) EXPOSED: Buzz Lightyears secret desire-join the police. (@j_doss) To Naptime and Beyond! (@fathershousekid) This is what happens when those intergalactic cops have their fill of doughnuts. (@franktan) AND THE WINNER IS: “To infinity and….oh, are those doughnuts? Um….never mind, saving the galaxy can wait. MMMMM….. doughnuts……” (Rob Siebert) Rob: Twitter or FB message…

Continue reading

Called to be a Chef of God’s Word!

I’m EXCITED to announce the release of the The Kids Church Cookbook, a project I have been working on for OVER 3 YEARS! This is a 7-PART massive RE-WRITE of my classic Kids Church Book, but this time with 7 TRAINING VIDEOS TOO! Just as I rewrote my classic Kidology Handbook and revamped it into a THICK PDF that sells on CD-ROM, this time I went even farther! Inspired by the online training, Leadership Labs, which provided a 5-PART PDF each with a training video, for The Kids Church Cookbook, you get 7 TRAINING VIDEOS and 7 PDFs that cover a TON of material on how to “Cook up a service kids are gonna love!”  Each is sold separately and the first is about to be released in the next newsletter. NOTE: If you are a Leadership Lab student, there is a KEY DIFFERENCE between the Leadership Labs and The Kids Church Cookbook units. In the Labs, the videos and PDFs are related in content, each building upon the other. In the The Kids Church Cookbook, each is independent of each other. The Kids Church Cookbook is a 7-Part book on children’s church and “The Kids Church Cooking Show” videos…

Continue reading

We’re Moving to Colorado

Yes, we are packing everything up and moving to Colorado this month! In his book Visioneering, Andy Stanley makes the following statement: “Everybody ends up somewhere in life.  A few people end up somewhere on purpose.” I have been in Chicagoland since my parents brought me here in 1985. My wife has been here since she married me! I LOVE the city of Chicago! The architecture, the sports teams, the political corruption, the hustle and bustle, the malls (that’s for Sara) the blizzards (yes, I love to snow blow), and the friends made over the years, will all be things I will miss. It is a world class city. I have traveled throughout the world as well as the United States and there is NO CITY like Chicago – not even close. But in m y heart I’ve always been an outdoors guy. And after hosting two Yosemite Summit retreats, nearly dying in April, and again in May, it was time to stop putting off for “someday” what could be done now. I grew up in Colorado where my dad pastored a country church in Elizabeth, Colorado. We got picked up from school on Friday and drove to the country…

Continue reading