Point System

Do you have a point system in your kids church? We do! It's a great tool to have in your kids church. They're different ways you can use a point system. For instance, give points for cheering, participation, winning games, most offering brought, etc... Also they can lose points for, talking during your lesson, not paying attention or just having a bad team spirit. I have found that having this system works really well. At the end of the service we give out a whole team prize. The prize can be rice krispies, fruit by the foots, candy, ice pops, ice cream, laffy taffy, etc... Kids love competing against each other every Sunday. You can do 3 teams or the usual boys versus girls. If you are doing a point system, let me know what you use. Be blessed!

NEW Planetshakers Kids CD & DVD

Just bought the NEW Planetshakers Kids CD & DVD today. It is crazy awesome! I love the music and the lyric videos that come with it. Great job Planetshakers Kids!!! I encourage you to go buy them both to have in your collection. I know I will be using them this Sunday in my kids church. Tell me what you think about the album too.

Training the Next Gen

I love using young people in kids ministry. I believe that they are the ones that help make the ministry move forward. They provide you with new insights of what's going on in their part of the world. Believe me, their are times where I feel that I'm getting old for this, even though I'm 28 years old, LOL. But I thank God for my group of teens each day. Every Sunday morning at my kids church, we use teens and future teens to help us run our kids services. As you see in the picture above, we use them in different ways, such as; running sound, lights, powerpoint, DVD, DJ, Cafe' Manager, Set-Up & Tear-Down and much much more. Don't get me wrong, I do use adult leaders in kids church, but the young gen are the future kids pastor's and future leaders of kids church. My goal for them is to have a passion for ministry and of course for God. One thing I do with them is, TRAIN THEM. We have them come in on a Saturday or even early on Sunday morning to learn NEW things either on the soundboard, propresenter or even lighting. TRAIN your kids! They love to learn NEW things. I know some kids pastor's who love using kids and teens but I also know kids pastors who don't. I encourage you today to use them, TRUST ME! they will be a lot of help to you if you use them.

* True story: I had one of my young girls open up an Instagram account for our kids church while I was not even thinking about it. Now I have TONS of kids and parents following us on Instagram!

Slime Made Easy

We recently had an event called "Slime Time Live" at my kids church. It was crazy fun! Here is a cheap way to make great nasty SLIME for your kids church.

- 1 cup of cold water
- 1 1/2 cup of cornstarch
- 1 gallon of boiling hot water
- food coloring

You will need to mix the 1 cup of cold water into a bowl with the 1 1/2 cup of cornstarch. Make sure that the ingredients turn into a liquid form. Next, set a big pot on your stove to boil the 1 gallon of water. Wait til you see the water boiling. The next thing is to pour in the mixture to the boiling hot water carefully as you stir it in. Stir stir stir and then add your food coloring. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes. Finally you wait couple of hours for the slime to cool off. What I did, was I bought a big bucket from home depot and added the slime in the bucket to put in my refrigerator to cool. It's that simple. Hope you have fun making SLIMEEEEE! 

Praise & Worship Songs

One of the segments I love in kids church is the praise and worship. I just love seeing kids jump up and down for their Savior. I love seeing them get down to their knees, surrendering to their God. But they're are times when it's hard to find some great praise and worship for kids church. One thing I have done lately is that I have taken youth group songs and made them for kids church. For instance, we have been using "Young & Free - Wake" for our praise part in the service. Kids love it! It's like a dance party for Jesus, LOL. What I did was, I created a video with lyrics for this song by using Final Cut Pro. I have been adding new songs and making new videos for our kids church every month. Don't get me wrong, I still use Kids on the Move, Hillsong Kids, Go Kids and others, but I come to find out that my kids also love the youthy songs. Here is a list of songs that I have made so far for our kids church.

-Young & Free : Wake
-Young & Free : Alive
-Planetshakers : Nothing is Impossible
-Planetshakers : Lead Me On
-Hillsong : All I Need Is You
-Planetshakers : The Anthem

Let me know what you think about this.

Memory Verse Mania

I saw this great game at General Council of the Assemblies of God. I think this is a great way to have your kids have fun with the memory verse of the day. You simply have 9 boxes with parts of the scripture taped on to each box. You give each team about 5 minutes to put the boxes in the proper order. This game gets intense when it's done with boys versus girls. Boys always want to be number 1, lol. We called it "Memory Verse Mania", but you can call it whatever you want. I give credits to Faith Assembly of God in Orlando.

Developing Your Talents

Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through 30 speaks about the Parable of the three servants. We see that the servants were each given talents according to their abilities. The master saw potential in each of the servants. Potential is what we call undeveloped skills. See, what are you doing with your talent? As a kids pastor, I strive to learn more and more each day. I like to connect with other kids pastors and get their insights and ideas. Another way I like to develop my talent is by reading. I love reading books on kids ministry, it refreshes me and it encourages me to keep moving forward. But as kids pastor's we must not just look at the christian end, we need to look what's going on around their culture too. I like to watch Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and other resources that the kids are into now a days. I buy magazines and go into websites that they go into. See, in order to grow in your calling you need God's help and guidance. I ask God each day to give me wisdom, knowledge and creativity to do the things that He has called me to do. I encourage you to grow in your calling. At the end of the verses, we see that the master call's the third servant "wicked and lazy", which means to me "Use it or lose it". Grow! for God see's the potential in you and I. Be blessed!!

Quiet Seat Prize

Kids can get a little bit out of hand during our kids church services. One thing that I love to do is hand out "Quiet Seat Prizes". I have created a card that you see on top and handed it to kids who have been participating and quiet during the service. What we do is that we hand out the card at the end of the service and whoever has one, comes up front to collect their prize. It's not expensive but kids will stay quiet to get that card. Here are some items I give out for our "Quiet Seat Prize":

-Ice Pop
-Box of Candy ($1 at the dollar store)
-Toys (Oriental Trading)
-KidsWOW wristbands
-Custom made KidsWOW Music CD

Fundraising

Fundraising is one of my favorite things to do. Why? Well, simply because I know that I'm raising money to buy things we need for our children's department . One of the greatest things to hear from your accountant is... "yes!, you have money in your account". Why? because you decided to fundraise that money. I know that if I need to buy new curriculum, I need to find a way to fundraise that money. Face it! we as kids pastor's wish we had tons of money in our account. But, one thing I know is that it feels real good knowing that you are working extra hard to get what you want for your children's department. Here are some simple ideas to fundraise for your children's department.

-Car Wash
-Lemonade stand outside your kids church
-Bake Sale
-Have a cafe (sell cereal, bagels, candy, poptarts, etc...)
-All Nighter's
-Movie Nights
-Parent's Night Out
-Jewelry made by kids
-Donation buckets
-Silent Auctions
-Sell lunch after services
-Spaghetti Dinners or just dinners
-Raffles
-Toy Box Sale
-Garage Sale
-Marathon or Walks

Find a way to be creative!