Home BlogPage 71

Why I Do What I Do

I just got an e-mail that MADE 2014. It defined why I do what I do. I share it with his permission: Subject: I’m Going to Be a Children’s Pastor! Hey Karl, This Sunday I am going to be appointed as the Assistant Pastor of Children’s Ministries at my church. I am so excited to finally get to be focused on Pastoral ministry to kids and their families. However, when I think back over the years, I know I need to thank you. You were a HUGE encouragement to me and one of the reasons I kept pressing forward in this call. At one point I was simply a 6th grader with a call from God, but you were one of the touch-points God used along the way in order to keep me focused on that call. I know I was not the best employee at times, but you still saw through my work and saw the call God had put on my heart. I wanted to thank you for supporting me through the years I was blogging and working for Kidology. Honestly, I’m not always sure why you were so willing to empower me, because I know I was…

Continue reading

FREE Family Devotionals on Victory!

As you may (or may not!) know, every unit of DiscipleTown comes with 12 family devotionals – 3 per week – in a cool “Table Talker” design like you see on your table when you eat out at a restaurant. I have now written 288 of these devotionals with the upcoming 24th DiscipleTown “How to Walk in Victory” to be released soon. I wanted my BLOG READERS to be the FIRST to get a sneak peak! So enjoy these FREE THREE DEVOTIONALS! Here is what they look like: Download THREE COMPLETE DEVOTIONALS for your family. There are nine more with the unit that will be released shortly, and 12 with every unit of DiscipleTown – but I encourage you to use these with your family and enjoy the fun you will have and the engaging conversations that will result.

Continue reading

The Hunt for Odd Ministry Props

As I write in extensive detail about in the Kid’s Church Cookbook, Part 5: Getting Creative, creative teachers are ALWAYS on the look out for unique teaching items. So I thought I’d share one I picked up over Christmas Break: iWipers When I saw these I cracked up! The potential for this prop is fantastic! Teaching on Noah and the flood! Teaching on Jesus calming the storm! Simply wear on a rainy day at camp or VBS Do I know when I will use these? No. But they are now in my collection of creative kidmin props! You can’t wait until you need something to find it – you’ll never have a lesson and say, “Boy, sure wish I had some glasses with windshield wipers on them!” But when you own a pair and are preparing a lesson, one day you’ll say, “HEY! This is when I can use those cool windshield wiper glasses!” And you’ll be so glad you have them. The point of this post isn’t to go and get yourself a pair of iWipers. (Though some of you might!) The point is, always keep your eye out of unique props as they engage kids, create memories and…

Continue reading

When Your Volcano Fizzles

What do you do when you put a lot of hard work into an event or idea in ministry… and the end result is disappointing? For Christmas Luke got a home made volcano. We  were pretty excited about it and spent several days building it and looking forward to the final moment on the eve of our trip home when we would erupt the volcano. The climax of the project, was, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing we all had a good sense of humor about it. Here is a video of the dramatic eruption! As we laughed about our volcano disaster, it occurred to me that the same thing has happened to me many times in ministry. I got a “great idea” – put a lot of work and energy and time and often resources into bringing the idea into reality, only the have the final result be… well, disappointing. What then? If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. You’ll have a great looking volcano that only fizzles. You can laugh about it, but more importantly, you can learn from it. What are some of the lessons we learn in leadership from our flops? Ask,…

Continue reading

Blogging Tips for 2014

Start your New Year out with some blogging tips! In just a few months, I will have been blogging with this website for ten years. Kinda crazy! But that isn’t when I started blogging. I was blogging before there were blogs. I used to create webpages from scratch before any of the blogging platforms existed and would email friends a link to my post, like when I went to Alaska or flying with my dad. So when I started blogging, the Internet was a bit of a lonely place for blogs… but now there are well over 100 kidmin blogs worthy of reading! Over the years my blog has gone from in the Top 5 to now down in the mid-thirties on the “Top 100” list – and I celebrate this decline! It means that there are many people contributing weekly to what has always been my driving passion – to equip and encourage those in children’s ministry. While much of my kidmin writing ends up on Kidology.org instead of my blog, I have enjoyed seeing the amount of help for kids ministers growing steadily every year, even if that means my blogs “ranking” goes down some. It’s a team effort!…

Continue reading