Children’s Ministry Online

This past weekend I went back to North Fort Worth for a few days. Josh, my intern that worked (and lived) with me all summer wrapped up his time in Austin last Thursday. When we were planning the internship, I intentionally planned to take him to DFW and see a variety of multi-site churches. We planned to visit both Fellowship Church (the Grapevine and Fort Worth campus) as well as the Fort Worth campus of Life Church. These are some of the leading multi-site churches. However, the multi-site church that I knew best was Cross Timbers. Although I had been to DFW 3 or 4 times since being let go last November, I hadn’t actually visited the church since November.

I made arrangements to visit a few churches, have lunch with the Children’s Pastors at Cross Timbers and actually visit all the Cross Timbers campuses. We drove into town and had about 90 minutes to kill before our dinner appointment. Since the restaurant was in Southlake, we visited the Keller Campus of Cross Timbers. I expected the building to be locked down for the weekend, but I was surprised to find it open. I took Josh on an extended tour of the building that was once Anchor Church (the church that brought me to Texas) and then merged into Cross Timbers. Sara and I had a many happy memories in that church building. After taking out little tour, we let Titus go and hobble around the lobby (I say hobble only because he walks like a drunk man right now). I turned to Sara and said, "Isn’t it a little surreal to see our little boy walking around in this lobby?" It was while we were at this facility that we were childless for over a year and then went through the journey of two miscarriages. Sara began to tear up. I know this may sound bad, but there are some churches that I’ve worked at that I don’t totally "miss." I was grateful for the experience and there are people we totally love, but we don’t completely miss the church. We do miss Anchor though, there is certainly still a pain in our hearts over that loss. So much has gotten muddied with mergers, new campus pastors, staff turnover, but many of those who were a part of Anchor are still around (actually, that’s who we were having dinner with a few minutes later).

On Saturday Josh and I took tours of both the Argyle Campus and Denton Campus. It was certainly refreshing to see some huge improvements that had been made over the past 9 months. The preschool hallway no longer looked like a dark and nasty pit. Ha! It looked bright and friendly. Good job Argyle. Afterward we went on up to the Denton campus. I had not seen the final product yet. Cross Timbers had just purchased the facility a few weeks before the layoff (one of the key reasons for the layoffs) and I never got to see what they did with the building. It looked fantastic. Miguel (the CP at Denton) has been doing a fantastic job with his new facilities.

It was fun visiting Cross Timbers this weekend. It was great to reminisce. There were a lot of memories formed there. It was also great to see improvements that had been made. It always feels great to see things done that you had either planned or hoped for. I can’t say it was also a little frustrating to see things that still hadn’t been done. Things that were promised initially, but never followed through. I did get to see a few people I hadn’t seen since November. For some of these people, it was so good to see them. For others I only have one word… awkward. Awkward only because of the nature of my departure. If my leaving had been under other circumstances, coming back for a visit would feel very different. There were a few people I really would have loved to have seen that I didn’t get a chance too. Maybe on my next visit. There were a few people that I didn’t see that I’m kinda glad I didn’t. Still a little awkward and still some things to continue to process in my heart… if you know what I mean.

Closing thoughts: Sara and I both felt it on Saturday. We love Keller and North Fort Worth. We could totally live there again some day.We had so much fun being there, eating at our old joints and hanging out with close friends. However, by the end of the day on Saturday, we were really ready to get home. Ha! That sounds kind of funny. We were anxious to get back to Austin… our home.

written by Kenny

Am I on vacation this week? Unfortunately, no. The nine hours I’m talking about is the nine hours I’m not scheduled to be in a meeting. So, I only have nine hours to work on things that don’t involved me being in a meeting. If I take a normal lunch hour, that brings me down to 5 hours. Yuck.

So, I do anticipate bringing a little work home this week as I think I might have a little more than 9 hours of work to do this week.

Why so many meetings? I’ve got almost 12 leadership interviews with potential new small group leaders for our new elementary program. I’ll tell you more about that project soon.

written by Kenny

I gave up coke (more specifically, diet pepsi and other carbonated goodies) almost two weeks ago. I’m a little tired of living unhealthy. I’m moving toward a more healthy lifestyle and I’m doing that one step at a time. I know myself and if I don’t move gradually, I’ll fizzle out in two weeks and be back where I started.

So for now I’ve cut out the sodas and I’m watching what I’m eating.

Moving to water wasn’t nearly as hard as I thougth it would be. I will admit, I did have two rootbeer floats on Thursday night. We were hosting a godbye party for my intern and it was an icecream float party. Other than that, I’ve been good. I haven’t eaten any of the litle chocolates and candies that are all around our offices. It feels good.

I’ve gotten on the scales and it looks like I may have actualy lost 5 pounds (no really, I drank a lot of coke). I’m not 100% sure on the weightloss. Our scale isn’t digital and I don’t totally trust it when I’m pegging the thing 360 around. I’m getting a digital scale soon so I can keep better track.

Next week I’ll start expercising. Hopefully between the exercise and the cutting back on the junk, I’ll drop some more weight before vacation, feel a little better in my clothes and be ready for some hiking in the Canadian Rockies.

Last night my wife said that I looked trim. I laughed and said, “you mean more trim, right?” This is great motivation people!

written by Kenny

Our facility is full and we’ve resorted to portable buildings… otherwise know as modular buildings… or as we like to say in South Georgia… trailers.

We have such a nice facility but for the meantime we needed to provide some extra space for our kids. Adding two of these portables will give us space for up to 120 kids (but comfortably at 80 more kids). We’re not really expecting a bunch of new kids since our services have been pretty full. It’s more about offloading space and redistributing kids. We’ve had kids meeting in spaces that were not really intended to be meeting spaces. So, in a few more weeks we’ll be moving into these buildings. They’re being painted to match the color decor of our existing buildings and the interior is being decorated to look fun and exciting like the rest of our rooms.

The kids who will be moving out to the portables are 3.5 year olds to Kindergartners. It’s the oldest part of our preschool area. The Children’s Ministry at Gateway is called Kids Quest. The Elementary age it called Kids Quest, the youngest kids (0-2.5 years old) is called Kid’s Quest Babies and the preschool wing is called Kids Quest Junior. Now the bulk of Kids Quest Junior will be moved into the portables.

Currently our preschool rooms have names such as Little Lagoon, Kids Kingdom, Asteroid Ally and Tumbleweed Trail. We’ll be naming each of the rooms in the portables similar names. There will be a beach theme room, a jungle room, an underwater room and something else as well.

However, in a meeting today we discussed how we don’t want to call these buildings portables, trailers or modulars. We want them to feel like a destination. We’ll put up signs and such, but we need to have a name for them. Something that maybe sounds intriguing or exciting. So it’s a part of Kids Quest Juniors and is a collection of four additional rooms. Any ideas on a good name for the buildings or the area. Perhaps it will even be another division after Kids Quest Juniors, but before Kids Quest Elementary. Any ideas you might have would be incredibly helpful!

written by Kenny

Just after Sara and I moved to Austin I saw this sign. We were living in the hotel at the time and we stopped at this gas station to get a soft drink. I was sitting in the car and noticed this sign. Notice the "skydancer" sign on the bottom, one over from the right. It may be a little hard to see, but I can spot the Algerian "A" from a mile away. Yes Skydancer, as long as you use Algerian, I’ll never buy your product… but since I don’t smoke I probably won’t buy your product anyway.

written by Kenny

Several of my friends have a recurring theme day for their blog. My friend Sam has YouTube Friday. Matt has a bunch of theme days like Ministry Monday’s, Two Minute Tuesdays and Sign Wednesdays. I’ve never had one of these because I’m avoiding that kind of commitment. Sad, I know.

So, I’m starting a theme day, but it isn’t committed to any particular day, or that I’ll even post along this theme every week. How’s that for commitment?

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written by Kenny

In case you didn’t figure it out from my posts a few weeks ago, I got a new computer. A MacBook Pro. No, it wasn’t a grand conversion and no I am not drinking the kool-aid. I’ve been getting a lot of pressure from friends and colleagues to give the Mac a chance. So I did. It’s been a pretty good experience so far. Am I glad I made the switch? I’ll let you know in a few more weeks.

Does my lack of enthusiasm disappoint you mac-heads? Sorry, but it’s just my own experience. So here is my personal experience.

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written by Kenny

Yesterday our church had the privilege of having Vince Antonucci as a guest speaker. Apparently he has spoken at Gateway several other times. I didn’t know much about Vince Antonucci until just last week and even as I spoke with him yesterday, I started to put two and two together. Vince wrote the book, "I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve heard great things about it. Now after hearing Vince speak, I’ll definitely read it. Vince also just announced last week that he is leaving his church in Virginia Beach and will be starting a church on the Las Vegas Strip. Amazing!

Yesterday he spoke on being uncivilized.

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written by Kenny

What John shared during this breakout is some great stuff (John’s the pastor at my church and he’s been sharing this stuff for many weeks now). In some ways it comes across as fluffy stuff we hear in a lot of churches out of the mouths of a lot of pastors. The difference here is that this stuff is really happening and has happened at Gateway. John shares story after story of people coming out of ever imaginable situation and getting reconnected with God. John shares insight on how the church today can connect with a culture that has become very disconnected with God.

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written by Kenny

Wendy Kopp is the CEO and founder of Teach for America. Teach for America is described like a Peace Corps for education. The best and brightest college graduates are recruited to give two years to teach in a failing school.

Wendy describes how even in America, where you are born does determine your educational prospects.

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written by Kenny