Kidmin Book Review: The Eric Trap

April 27, 2012 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Everyone’s been saying as they’re reading, reviewing, and tweeting about this book how Eric lives within each of us. It’s true, the mentality is there, lurking, like a slippery slope that we may intend to avoid but all of us seem to take a ride on it once in a while. During my time in ministry, and before that while my husband was in ministry, I had heard many conversations from colleagues about how frustrating ministry was, how difficult their lead pastor may be, or the crazy demands on their time and expectations of them to be “perfect”, this list could continue.

“All Eric knew was life could not continue the way it was going. Something had to give” (8).

And admittedly, we’ve been there too. The book could have easily been titled, The Pastor Trap (although, it certainly doesn’t have the same ring to it).

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking back to the intern I who just spent three months training for Children’s Ministry under my leadership. Within this book are warnings I had given him, and some more that I wished I had. (I’ll be sending him a copy)

The book itself really starts off with a BANG. We’re immediately thrown into Eric’s life, where he’s obviously committed and has a great heart for the ministry he is leading. Although, it isn’t long before the problems surface. Eric faces the age old problem, that anyone in any ministry position tackles with.

How this program, this service, this ministry runs, its effectiveness, its quality directly reflects your talents, your calling or your gifting. Somewhere, it is impossible to escape that fact. We can’t truly hide from the human desire to be successful, or to appear so. I make an effort to daily remind myself, that none of my ministry is for me, or about me, it is completely God’s. And as such, it’s critical to remember that God cares about people, he cares about kids and he cares about volunteers.

Some day’s it may seem like less hassle to tackle a problem on your own than to let someone else into the equation, to train them. But in the long run, they’ll be able to tackle that problem before it even comes to your attention. Save yourself now, delegate. I love how Gyergyo points us to Adam in this chapter; I’ve never heard the comparison before. How God the creator would have been the most logical choice to name His creations, He knew them best, but He gave Adam the Authority and responsibility to do it. Amazing. Who are we to not follow God’s example in this?

Later we see Eric face a tough interaction with his Lead Pastor. We’re reminded that as a staff pastor, we’re called to fully support and follow our Lead Pastor’s vision.

A point that I would add, that I’ve told my intern a number of times, is to seek out a  Lead Pastor who has a vision that you are excited to follow. It’s a discipline to live in submission, but it’s also difficult to align your passion to a vision you don’t believe in. In our time in ministry, we’ve learned that this alone could drain one’s spiritual endurance more than any other. We’re so thankful that we’ve been able to join staff with a Lead Pastor whose vision is one with ours, and we can go boldly forward as a team, in unity. It’s refreshing, and every day is full of hope and promise of great things. The pay, the size of the building, the congregation, the ministries, all of these do not matter if you’re following after a vision you believe in.

If you’re already there, with a pastor you’re vision isn’t aligning with, read this book. Hayes has great tips for building relationship and submitting to authority.

“Our top priority must always be to assist the pastor in his vision for the church. Period” (46).

Epperson continues to discuss Parental Leadership. We have a responsibility to inspire, equip and support parents to train their children spiritually at home. I don’t think that ‘think orange’ is a secret for any of us in kidmin these days. But incase, you’ve never heard these points or the importance of this before, Epperson does a great job of summing these up for us.

How we measure success within our ministries is often off balance with God’s measuring scale.  Englund does a great job of reminding us of real kingdom/ministry success.

“If we only go after the numbers, we miss the point. We need to align our thinking to God’s definition of success and continue to set our hearts right before Him as we plan and lead” (89)

McDaniels deals with Priorities. Yikes. A pill for all of us to swallow.

“Ministry jobs that once brought joy and excitement often leave us jaded and cynical. Why is this so?” (107).

This chapter is humbling, real and honest.

Wideman concludes the book. I’m sure we’ve all heard these lecutres before, we’ve told ourselves these truths a hundred times. We’ve faced these battles, the EricTrap too many times and allowed ourselves to be defeated by it. It’s time to tackle it, will it happen in just one day? A week? Nope. We have a constant need to remind ourselves of the Eric Trap, and intentionally avoid it. We are human, it’s easy to fall into routines and things that we feel bring human success or applause, but who are we out to serve? Ourselves? Our egos?

Be honest with yourself, with your ministry. Most of us have learned these lessons the hard way. Some of us are not even sure we’ve managed to over come them, even though we know the EricTrap is there, lurking. Read this book. I’d recommend it to those who are new in ministry as well as those who have been in ministry for a long time. For the newbies, there are things you’ll laugh at and say ‘I’m smarter than that’ or ‘that won’t happen to me’. Hopefully, your right, but it’s likely you’re very wrong. Get this info now. To those who consider themselves long past the newbie phase, if you’re tired, discouraged, fighting battles you don’t understand, read this book. Maybe there’s a tidbit or two that will help you, you may be in an Eric Trap and not even know it.

 

Thanks Wideman, Luce and Conley.

A much needed book for all of my friends who are in Kidmin or Student Ministry.

Available on Amazonor Call RBBH and place an order. ISBN-10: 0983830622 ISBN-13: 978-0983830627

Free Easter Curriculum

March 24, 2012 in Curriculum, Decoration, Easter, Free, Free Friday, Game, Lesson, Outreach, Setting, Structure with 2 Comments

Easter.

I can’t say enough about Easter in churches. It has to be given it’s due significance. To ensure this would happen with our Mid-Week outreach program, I wrote a simple curriculum specifically for the event.

I created drama’s for four major locations of the Easter story, The Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, Golgotha, and the Tomb. (Feel free to use, and adjust the dramas for your own ministry. I’ve included the link to access the document, and within the doc are comments in red following our actual use of the material for our own ministry). To accommodate this longer bible story time (3o minutes worth) we had a shorter opening and closing, and had our worship included as a portion of the ‘rotation’. Our children are divided into 6 general groups, and travel in groups of 2. So there are three main groups of children going through the locations. One started the evening in the Last Supper room, another in the Worship area, and another in the Game area. After the scheduled amount of time, they’d move onto the next area.

The important portion, is the Object Lesson. We used this time to review why the death of Christ was significant, and what it means for salvation. Providing the children an opportunity to respond, pray and ask Jesus to be their best friend.

Here are a few images of the locations we set up;

In the Last Supper Room, we used beige bed sheets on the floor and plum pillows (these are from my home) most everything else (besides the jug which our actor brought along) was found around our church. I did buy the gold plastic chargers on the table, may have been $2 each. Total cost of this area, $4.

The Garden; The only thing we purchased for this room was the green table cloths on the floor, and there are 4 of them shown, I think we purchased 2 and found the other 2 around the church. Plants and shrubbery were decorating various areas of our church, and we borrowed them for this event. The lights were borrowed from Christmas boxes, extra vines, flowers and the tiki lanterns were amongst VBS supplies from previous years. The large boulder in the back was found in a storage room, it’s a little damaged, but we thought it added to the atmosphere anyway. Total Cost; 2 plastic table cloths $5

The Tomb was likely the most work to set up. The tunnel took an hour or more with two individuals working to construct it so that children could crawl though it, and not damage the walls. There was a number of black plastic table cloths at the church, we purchased another 2-3, and some grey ones to place on the floor. The ceiling has navy ones that we found and the lighting was so dim it wasn’t noticeable that it was a different colour. Jesus left over grave clothes was a white plastic table cloth (children were not touching it or getting too close, so it wasn’t noticeable). The boulder we found with a few others. In order to give the room enough dim lighting to keep the children from being frightened, we place a light behind the boulder, and turned on a few flameless candles for ambiance. Broom and basket were found around the church. Total Cost? Maybe $8 for table cloths.

Golgotha; This room was chosen for it’s orange wall. It added a setting that we couldn’t have easily duplicated. We added clouds cut from recycled plastic table cloths to add to the wall. The giant navy one is intentionally hiding stick on decor that belongs to the Sunday School class that meets there. Removing them would have damaged them. So we covered them up. The men you see climbing around the clouds are a part of that. We created two smaller crosses for the criminals out of black bristol board and stuck those to the wall, to appear as shadows somewhat behind Jesus cross. It is out from the wall slightly, and tied to the ceiling with clear fishing line to secure it. It almost stood there eerily. Adults that came into the room all questioned how it was standing. We lit the cross with a flood light. The rest of the room we left bare, I wanted the children to focus completely on the cross and the actor.  Total Cost, $4 for bristol board crosses.

Each room was a little dimmer than they’re showing on the photos, had to have extra lighting on to get a clear image.

This event wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if it were not for the amazing actors/actresses who became the roles  that they played. The children were consumed by their stories, and better behaved than I had ever seen them. No time for disruptions when their imaginations and curiosity are engaged.

For the game time, they did an easter egg hunt, where the Bible Verse (John 3:16 – couldn’t go wrong there), was hidden inside eggs as puzzle pieces.

We like to give our children a tool to follow up on what they learned with the assistance of their parents. I created a simple take home for this reason. Feel free to access, and adjust for your own ministries.

Hope this can be of some help to you and you’re envisioning your own Easter in Kidmin!!! Let me know in the comments, if you have any questions!

Stop Kony [vs. Invisible Children]

March 8, 2012 in Mission, Truth, Tube Thursday with 0 Comments

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

 

This video is powerful, and viral. It has circulated the web in what I’d consider record time. Having over 36 million views at this time of posting.

Admittedly, this mission pulls more than one string in my heart. I had researched the RUF and their impact on Sierra Leone in High School and the terrifying reality of Child Soldiers. As a Children’s Pastor and Mother it hits many more strings.

But, please take time to read this; http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/ before sending piles of money to Invisible Children. I’m not sure the full high’s and low’s of the organization Invisible Children, nor can I judge the overall motives and methods. I do know that this video was effective in touching the hearts of many, and uniting us in a cause “StopKony” has been at the top of Twitter trends for a few days now. I do think that the Cover the Night campaign could be a similarly powerful event, yet I do not believe it necessary to purchase piles of material for this from Invisible Children. If your purpose is to make Kony famous, and urge people into action, to break the silence of the unfairness and lack of balance in our world then make your own posters and cover the night with them on April 20th.

Be sure to do due diligence on the organizations you support. Supporting these children is the right thing, holding Kony accountable is the right thing, but before you support Invisible Children, hold them accountable for their organization, their methods and actions.

Here is Invisible Children’s response to some of the criticism and an article from Washington Post re: Invisible Children’s founders posing with guns. There’s tons more out there, search it, read up on it.

The Hunger Games has become a popular book with accompanying movie. The theme continues beyond the book into our own existence. Those born into privilege in the Capitol somehow unaware of how desperate, undervalued and broken the lives of those in the districts are. We need to be aware of the situations of the many who are born into circumstances that are less favourable and who are unable to change them, so that we can change their circumstances.

Where you live should not determine whether you live. – Bono

“Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’”  Luke 18:16

Free Friday: Pin Your Interests & Find Many More

March 2, 2012 in Cost Effective, Free, Free Friday, paper, Poster, VBS with 0 Comments

There’s so much goodness that’s free for the taking online. Just sometimes it takes a little while to find. Well, let your kidmin friends find it for you. Join Pinterest.com (I’m here) and follow the many amazing #kidmin boards (search words like ‘kidmin’ and ‘children’s ministry’ for some of the newest, freshest and free ‘idea’s’ around).

Even checking out board dedicated to craft’s and children will help inspire what you can do in your ministry. The best part, finding things you like, pinning them to your own virtual bulletin board and saving those idea for when you need them at a moments notice. Items are generally pinned from websites that include instructions or purposes behind an idea. These sites are also useful tools, add them to your bookmarks bar or favourites folder and visit them when you have time to look around.

It’s like a grab-bag of awesomeness, and there’s something about the atmosphere of pinterest.com that most ideas are affordable and do it yourself. Which is quite along the same flavour of this blog. So it would be poor form of me to simply continue posting ideas and assistance to the many wonderful pastors/kidmin volunteers out there reading this, without informing you of this awesome tool.

In the throws of Sky VBS planning? There’s tons at your fingertips and it’s about looking in the right places, instead of frustrating yourself doing the work that many are out there already doing for you.  In just glance, here are a few things that I found to incorporate into Sky this year; SKY VBS (kidmin)

Found on Pinterest, jello and whip cream desert, great idea for Sky VBS Leader appreciation, or just for as a fun addition to a leadership meeting, or VBS promo/kick off event. Consider using clear plastic cups and serve on a smaller scale if serving a large number of people. Save time and hair pulling by asking leaders/volunteers within your church to prepare and bring blue jello. 

Making a poster? Need something with large impact on little to no budget?

Making an image into a poster is easy with the help of Block Posters.  Simply upload a good quality image, and block poster will cut it into segments and set it to print out to your printer so that when you cut off the margins you can reassemble the poster into a large image without having to take it to a printer and have it professionally done. It’s not perfect, nor will your printed image look as lovely as something that may be done at a printer. BUT, it’s free and an awesome tool for many things. Recently we used it to create an oversized model of a gift card that one of our kidmin programs are competing for. Cut off the margins, glue it to cardboard for stability and you’re done. It’s fun when you think of the possibility of all the oversized props you can make for your kidmin.

Are We There Yet?

February 29, 2012 in Leadership, Spiritual Perspective, Vision with 0 Comments

It’s funny how such a phrase doesn’t just apply to restless children sitting in the back seat of a minivan, which you’ve carefully decked out with all the latest gadgets and entertaining gizmos to make the transition less painful. Sadly, these toys tend to distract the eager passenger for what may seem like a very small fraction of the journey and the anticipation of the final destination or the resentment of the journey cannot be hidden.

Anticipation of a destination is a great thing, except when factors are unable to be changed, like travel time, how many bathroom breaks need to be had, or who’s getting car/plane/train sick. The common restless reoccurring and nagging, ‘are we there yet?’ cannot be altered because of an individuals ‘willing’ the final destination to magically appear and eliminate the tediousness of the journey.

What else can this analogy apply to?

Even as adults, it’s hard to resist the urgent ‘are we there yet?’ and miss the landscape unfolding before us, the relational conversation that happens during the journey, the strategy it takes to keep everyone happy, the many stops along the way to rest and stretch your legs. Sometimes it’s finances, growing a family, climbing the career ladder, etc.

It’s not all that different in ministry really. I’m the eager, sometimes hyper passionate child sitting in the back seat, thrilled to be going somewhere. Harboring great colorful visions of the future, full of hope and promise.

Are we there YET?

Patience is a part of God’s plan. Vision is a process, a journey that can’t be skipped. Everyone has to take that journey together, not everyone is eager, and sometimes your mode of transportation isn’t the fastest, but it’s what God’s given you.

Don’t get me wrong, lets eagerly anticipate the future, the goals and visions of our ministries, but don’t get so frustrated with not moving fast enough and begging ‘are we there yet’ that you miss the landscape flying past, the relationships you’ll make and the laughter that a time of growing together allows. It’ll make the destination all that much brighter and colorful when you have people you love to share it with.

Giveaway!!! ‘God is in my Corner’ Children’s Worship Album

January 31, 2012 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments

I am beyond excited to be offering this giveaway on my blog, I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while.
The most important thing? Is to give this amazing resource some exposure, this may be some of the best written Children’s Worship to hit our market.

“God is in My Corner” Videos for Kids Ministry Sampler

I’m speaking of the Ignition Kid’s worship album ‘God is in my Corner’ by Dan Bursey. Dan has created several worship albums, but this is his first that is exclusively for children. Just listening to the lyrics, leaves me a ‘wow’ moment, a lot of thought and heart have gone into these songs.

Newfoundland, and Eastern Canada have taken notice (having already won the Gospel Artist of the Year award in NL and recently receiving an ECMA Nomination for Children’s Recording of the Year, we’re keeping our fingers crossed and prayers rising for that one!) . It’s time for the rest of Canada and America to catch onto this amazing kidmin/fammin resource as well.

I’m giving away a copy of Dan’s Award Winning, ‘God is in my Corner’ CD.

To enter just follow these 5 simple steps;

1. Follow me on twitter; @CrystalCard

2. Follow Dan on twitter; @DanBursey 

3. Tweet this quote ” @CrystalCard is giving away an award winning #kidmin Worship Album frm @DanBursey God is in my Corner http://childrenshine.com #godisinmycorner ”

4. Check out Dans Children’s tunes here, on itunes or view the above sampler video

5. Comment on this post that you have done the above, and include a quote/lyric from one of Dan’s  songs from the ‘God is in my Corner’ album!

I’ll be randomly choosing a winner on my BIRTHDAY, Feb 7th. You have one week to enter.

Tube Thursday: Retooning the Nativity

December 8, 2011 in Tube Thursday, Uncategorized, Video with 0 Comments

Tube Thursday: Jesus and Santa

December 8, 2011 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

In Flanders Field

November 10, 2011 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Take some time this weekend to discuss the significance of this holiday with your family. Consider starting a new family tradition that will resonate with your family year after year.

Least we Forget.

I am Stuck

November 1, 2011 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

The past 4+ months have been of a nature all their own. It’s as if they haven’t happened, or are not real, a dream of some kind. We moved out of our rental home at the end of June as we were relocating to a new community to take up positions in a new church. Since then we have been sleeping on friends beds, living out of suitcases and whatever we have managed to fit into our car, with all of our comforts packed away in a smelly storage unit.

Why? We decided that since we were moving to a healthy real-estate market that we would build a home. In home building, it has been rapid! In life out of routine and comfort with a two-year-old, it has been torture. We’re finally nearing the end of the process and expect to move in within the week. Although, this limbo that we have been stuck in, may threaten to eat us.

We entered a new church, have gotten to know and love a new church family and the leadership. We’ve been working diligently in our ministries here. But the rest of our lives have suffered greatly, and simply have been put on hold. How do we pick them back up again?

I have a great number of friends, and acquaintances in the community we now reside, and have no time or ability to socialize with them. This blog, a great passion of mine has simply fallen along the wayside, as I’ve been refocused on keeping my toddler entertained and from demolishing the homes of the people so kind to let us sleep there. Will I ever be able to pick it all up again, will I find that strength?

Everything feels much heavier when you don’t have a home to rest in, to find that peace and quiet. Searching for that quiet. Hopefully once I find it, I’ll become unstuck, fight my way out of the ‘transitional-limbo’ I’ve become glued in.

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