Drawing the Bible; Turn Off the DVD Player

I’m speaking this week at Hartland Bible Camp in California. It’s my first time here, but I am really loving the experience. I’ll post more about the camp at the end of the week. I wanted to post a few pics about one of my favorite teaching methods… Bible Story Drawing. Besides drama, illustion, and some of my other usual techniques, for the actual Bible story segment, I am illustrating the Bible Story by drawing it as I teach it. Since the drawing gets erased each day (Actually, by my arch nemesis before the next lesson, more on that in a future post!) I take a picture to save my works of art for posterity! Here they are, perhaps someone else might enjoy them… as you can see, my artist skills peaked around the second grade. As for the lesson content, I am covering The Nine Virtues and teaching Bible Characters that displayed them. I’ve done four so far: Courage: Displayed by David: (Click image to see full size) HONOR: Displayed by Young Jesus (Click image to see full size) TRUTH: Displayed by Peter (Click image to see full size) LOYALTY*: Displayed by Esther (Click image to see full size)…

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Kidmin Blogger Survey

If you are a Kidmin Blogger, jump over the KidminAndy’s site and give a few minutes and provide some feedback on how you blog for the betterment of the Kidmin Blogger Community. Your input could help others when he shares the results… maybe even you! As for me: I’ve been blogging since March 2005, but that’s only if you count when I’ve been using blogging software. I used to blog before there was blog software! I like to say I was blogging before there were blogs because I used to just make pages when I went places in pure HTML, like this: kidologist.com/alaska or Air Dad (If you look carefully, you’ll find a link to my first “web company” that is still live, even though the host company, Flash.net, has long since gone out of business. LOL) Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend WordPress because it is easy to use, themes abound and are easy to install (though I had a custom one made for me by a friend) hosting yourself on either One and One or GoDaddy.com (even though I hate their advertising, they are the easiest to use and have the best prices and remind you when you are up…

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Social Media Bad for Kids?

Social Media and Kids from a Conflicted Social Media Junky by Karl Bastian (a.k.a. Kidologist) See at the bottom how to WIN A FREE BOOK and Download the Complete Kidology Report on Social Media and Kids that includes additional authors. I both love social media and fear it. I can’t attack it too much or I’d be a hypocrite I have over 10,000 “tweets” so far, and nearing 1000 friends on Facebook, but why do I still feel so lonely? Social networking is a part of my daily – O.K., let’s be honest, moment by moment, life! I do not, not, think it is an addiction or bad for me! (I could quit any time I wanted to, right? I just don’t want to!) Quite to the contrary, it has given me yet another avenue to amplify the message God has given me to share. Unlike many who live their lives like a pin-ball game bouncing through life from one opportunity to another with no clear game plan, I sought God for a very specific Life Mission at age nineteen and have had a laser focus on that Mission ever since. It is written and defined and has enabled me…

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Cloud Technology – What Is It?

At CPC last week, I got to teach a workshop with Michael Chanley on technology – and it was a lot of fun! We bantered back and forth, live webcasted and confused half the room with everything we covered, but it was a blast! I demonstrated remote accessing my Macs back home as well as all my backup drives from my iPhone and iPad among other cloud perks and tried to answer questions on a wide variety of technology issues. I went over why Cloud Technology is so important – why it enables you to have access to all your data from anywhere from any device and never lose your data again, as well as the difference between POP and IMAP e-mail so your e-mail is all synced across all your devices. Plus we did webcasting with live chatting right from my iPhone – and showed how to do that for free and embed it on your website with live chat, also for free. (See it on my blog and Kidologytogo.org as well.) I’ve had a ton of requests for the workshop, so here’s what I’m gonna do. 1) Here is the PDF handout: DOWNLOAD HERE (668kb) 2) Here’s an…

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A New Normal is Here

On a recent overseas trip, the President of the United States used a phrase that caught my ear.  He mentioned a “New Normal”, suggesting that Americans must prepare to accept current unemployment rates as staying steady into the future. This got me thinking that there is a “New Normal” in children’s ministry as well. Things have changed! What was was once considered “normal” is rapidly changing! As I watch my 4-year-old use my iPhone or iPad, I see that his world is going to be much different than mine. Indeed, he has had his own iPod Touch because at age 2 he was caught operating my iPhone without any instruction. I knew he needed to be equipped to embrace his world. Perhaps you are following the discussions in the Leadership Forum, where Greg Baird has invited 18 authors to write about The Future of Children’s Ministry. What are you doing in your ministry to embrace this New Normal? Or does your ministry still look like it did 10 years ago? There are no easy answers, but I can tell you this: When you were a kid, you could tell which teachers were with it, and which weren’t, and you gravitated…

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