Multi-Site Kids

A Learning Culture

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to have a learning culture on our staff team.  Mostly because I feel like this is something we are not doing well right now.  Of course reading a book, listening to a podcast, or attending a seminar never screams as loud as that sub you need for the 3-year-old room, the event you have coming up next Saturday, or the recruiting flyer you are designing.  But what happens when we don't take the time to learn?

• Our vision becomes limited
• Our creativity is stifled
• Our innovation is crippled
• Our growth points aren't challenged
• Our ministry slips into maintenance mode

I hope to spend some time at our upcoming Kids' City Staff Retreat talking about what it would look like to become better learners.  I would love your help in challenging our team.  How would you answer one or more of these questions:

• What books have been most helpful in developing you as a leader?
• What books have been most helpful in developing your expertise in children's ministry?
• What blogs do you follow that you find most helpful?
• What podcasts do you listen to for training or new ideas?
• What magazines do you find helpful?
• What other practices or resources have you found most helpful in your development as a Children's Ministry Leader?

Learning is critical to leading.  Maybe sometimes reading that book really is as important as that 3-year-old's sub.

Bonus Feudango!

Here's our last Feudango video...Enjoy!

The Right Time

Does the first weekend in June seem like the ideal time to recruit children's ministry volunteers?  Probably not.  But that's exactly what we did at the campus I direct here at Community.  We focused our ask on "summer subs."  Here is the text I gave our campus pastor to use in the service:

The weather finally turned warm and if your family is like mine you’re probably starting to think about having some summer fun.  In addition to Six Flags, the pool, and a trip to Wrigley Field, there is another fun place you should check out this summer.  It’s Kids’ City!  If you’ve never had the opportunity to serve in this ministry or if it has been a while since you’ve had fun with our kids, the summer is a great time to serve on the Kids’ City team.

We have over a hundred dedicated contributors who lead our children every week and most of them are making some summer plans of their own.  You can appreciate and serve these leaders by filling in as a sub for them a few times this summer.  Whether you are a parent whose kids benefit from the ministry every week, a college student who is just around for a couple months, or someone who would like to get a taste of serving in Kids’ City; serving as a sub is a great way to make a difference this summer.

Fill out the card that is on your chair and either give it to one of our exit greeters or bring it to the Kids’ City table in the lobby where our Kids’ City Director, Tammy Melchien, can give you more information.  Kids’ City will also be offering tours during a couple of services next weekend for those of you who would like to learn more about opportunities to contribute in the ministry.  Don’t miss out on this opportunity to have some summer fun!

And here is the flyer we had on every chair in the adult service:

The result?  37 people responded to the ask.  Most signed up to sub (the primary ask we made), 6 said they would like to become a regular contributor, and 8 want to take a tour of Kids' City next weekend to learn more.  The thing I love best about this is every time we make these asks it means new people will get the opportunity to serve God and make an eternal difference in the lives of kids.  37 people who weren't doing that last week will get to do that in the weeks ahead.  So don't discount the summer as a great time to recruit for your ministry.  Any time is the right time to recruit!

Feudango!

Here's another way to tell Bible stories.  Our current series is all about families.  We called it "Family Feud" and we're dealing with some of the tough stuff related to families...sibling rivalry (Cain & Able), hard times (Abraham & Sarah), and parenting/discipline (David & Absalom).  The teaching moment in our elementary large group includes these short clips spoofing the Fandango commercials.  Here are the first 3 videos... WARNING: The first one might be a little shocking...and as you can guess the 4th & 5th grade boys loved it.

Tough Questions #3

Here's one more Bob Blaugblaub gem for you addressing the tough question, "What is heaven like?"

Environmental Branding-Mobile Site

A couple posts ago I mentioned that we are starting to figure out our Environmental Branding for Kids' City and posted pictures from one of our permanent facility locations.  Here are a few pictures from our most recent mobile campus launch that meets in a junior high school.

Directional signage continues the transportation theme mimmicking the highway signs we have at our permanent facility.

We're recreating some of the scenic graphics using these panels.  Here is a version of the mural that was behind our check-in center in our perrmanent facility recreated on 2 panels that we use for our elementary large group backdrop.  These panels fold down and fit into a carrying case.

 

And the symbols for our area zones are used in these free-standing directional signs.

Tough Questions #2

Here's the second installment of our Tough Questions series.  In this one Bob Blaghblaub struggles with the question, "Why doesn't God always answer our prayers the way we want him to?"  He gets some help from another recurring Kids' City character...Paul the Appossum, the foremost Bible scholar in all the woods.

Environmental Branding

One of the things we think a lot about in multi-site kids' ministry is "branding."  What is our "brand" of children's ministry?  How do we plan to reproduce that brand from campus to campus?  This brand has to do with vision and strategy, culture, leadership structure, curriculum, value, etc.  One thing we've been working on this year is creating our environmental brand.  This has to do with what Kids' City looks like.  There are several reasons to think through your environmental brand:

1. An environmental brand is one more way to align your children's ministry across campuses.
2. An environmental brand communicates to parents that their kids will be getting the "Kids' City Experience" no matter what campus they attend (not to mention communicating that your church cares about kids enough to create inviting spaces for them).
3. An enviromental brand helps you reproduce welcoming, kid-friendly spaces without having to reinvent the wheel every time you launch a new site.

The third reason is the one that motivated me in this process.  In the past it seemed every time we launched a new site we panicked a couple weeks before trying to figure out signage and such to be both functional and inviting.  I'm hoping our new visual brand will make this an easier process. 

It will take us a while to roll all this out at our campuses (unless someone out there feels like giving large sums of money to the cause!), but here are some pictures of the new look Kids' City.  We used the same design at our Plainfield Campus when we launched it in March.  Next time I'm there I'll post some more pictures to show you the same theming plays out at another (portable) location.

Tough Questions #1

We're in the middle of a 4 weeks series called "Tough Questions" here in Kids' City.  For this series we polled our elementary kids and asked what questions they would ask God or the leaders of the church if they could ask anything.  Of course the questions ranged from "Who created God?" to "Can we have snacks in Kids' City?"  Always interesting to see what's on kids' minds!  We picked 4 of the most frequently asked questions and tried to tackle them with this series.  Of course, once you try to write curriculum addressing tough questions you realize why they are tough questions to begin with.  We didn't try to have all the answers because we don't, but we did try to help kids navigate some of these issues.

For this series we brought back several of our recurring characters.  The main one is Bob Blaghblaub, our iWitness News anchor.  In this video Bob wrestles with the tough question, "Why does God allow people to do bad things?"  Enjoy!

p.s. Another fun piece of the multi-site world...  The places mentioned in the first 3 news stories refer to locations near 3 of our campuses.  Just small ways to connect with our multi-site kids.

Conspire Recap

Things have been so busy I haven't had a chance to write anything about last week's Conspire Conference.  I think this was the best Willow Children's Ministry Conference yet.  The main sessions impacted me more than in the past and I heard lots of good feedback from my team on the breakouts.  Good job, WCA!  Here are some personal reflections from the week...

• Kurt Bruner & John Trent's Main Session was probably my favorite.  I've been pondering their observation that the "minivan years" are the most critical in a child's spiritual formation yet are also the years when parents are most distracted and often least intentional.  I really want to think through their strategy where success equals intentional families.  What does it look like to cast vision for intentionality, create a culture of intentionality, and coach intentionality?  Some good stuff to think through regarding spiritual formation in the home.
• I love teaching in the breakout format and getting to interact with people who are hungry to learn and grow.  I especially love talking about Multi-Site Children's Ministry.  For those of you who were in the session, I hope it will be helpful to you in your multi-site endeavor.  Didn't Tony do a great job teaching?  This is the first time he's team-taught with me and I thought he did a great job.  (And, yes, having him teach with me was an intentional apprenticing move--in Multi-Site it's all about developing leaders!).
• If you lug a 400 pound backpack all over Willow while rushing from breakout to breakout, you're going to end up with some pretty bad back pain.  Just so you know.
• The other Main Session that spoke to me this  year was David Stall's.  It was simple, but his "Own a Burden" and "Love One Another" points were well taken.  I'm specifically thinking through the "Own a Burden" one.  I've been praying a lot lately about where I am to focus my time and energy.  I think it really is about better defining my "burden."

So those are my thoughts.  For those of you who attended, what impacted you most at this year's conference?  Oh, and one more reflection...

• The TV's in the bathroom mirrors at the Renaissance Hotel are pretty cool.

Many thanks to the WCA for a great week at Conspire.