We’ve got a very big promotion coming up at Gateway Church. Very Big. Actually it’s so big that we’re going to host four parent meetings to explain all that is happening. To be honest, we don’t really need the parent meetings, but its another opportunity for me to speak vision to our parents, so we’re going to anyway.

• Currently we have four nursery rooms that are almost at capacity every weekend.
• Our preschool is overflowing. We have 20-25 kids in our Clubhouse (large group teaching area) and over 40 four and five year olds in our Cottage room.
• We have Kindergarten-5th grade split between two rooms.
• We offer Middle School only during our 12:30 service.

Our 9:30 and 11:00 services see similar sized crowds, but our 12:30 service has a fraction of the participants.

So, on August 24th, were making some big changes.

• We’re bringing in two portable buildings (yeah, they’re trailers) which will give us 4 more rooms.
• The kids in the clubhouse will move out to the portables
• The 40 kids in the cottage (who would be promoting kindergarten) will move to the portables.
• We’re launching a significant small group component to our 1st-5th grade rooms.
• We’ll be offering middle school during all the services (we’re giving them the cottage room)

It’s big changes for us, but we’re really excited. We’ve got a lot of fresh faces to recruit. It isn’t really any more kids (well, maybe some), it’s just more rooms and opportunities to serve. I’ll be keeping this blog up to date on our promotion efforts.

written by Kenny

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that on my blog home page, my title is jumbled up some how. I noticed it but didn’t do anything to fix it as I’ve been busy. Finally I decided to take a look at it. So, I deleted the title of my blog to see what happened. The result?

Apparently my template decided to give itself a name. Yes, my theme has a very "Apple" look, but I am not running the "One more thing" site. If you click on any individual blog posts, it’s blank.

So, until I figure out how to fix it, I’m either title-less or I’m the "One more thing" other site. I may have to go in and edit the code in the template… I just don’t know why it showed up now for no reason.

written by Kenny

Just the other day I came across another resource. It’s called cmconnnect. It’s a social network for Children’s Ministry. At first I was like, come on… another place for me to socially network. Right now I’m having trouble keeping up with Kidology, Facebook, Twitter and my ever-expanding blogroll. Sheesh, when is it going to end. However, once I jumped in, it looked kinda cool. Actually I was intrigued for two reasons.

• It was a Ning social network. My favorite podcast mentioned this a few weeks ago… I think it was ranked by webware as one of the best Web 2.0 services this last year. It’s a service where you can create your own social network. I remember looking at it and being interested in how you might take one of their templates and make a social network. Well, cmconnect has done it… and it looks pretty good, actually better than I expected.
• There were a bunch of people I didn’t know. Actually, there were several people that I knew of, but have never connected with them on kidology, facebook or any of the other standard CM gatherings.

So, I’m on cmconnect. I’m not sure what will come of it, hopefully an opportunity to connect with people I haven’t met in some of the other venues. If you make it there, look me up and I’ll be your friend (thrilling, isn’t it?)

written by Kenny

I mentioned yesterday that we’re recruiting volunteers and developing leaders for the fall promotion on August 24th. We actually did a push from the stage yesterday, but we’re looking for way more volunteers than we can get from that. I’ve been talking to my staff about how we can "saturate" the vision in as many venues as possible. Here are some of the ways we’re going to (or hoping to) get the word out among our church.

• Parent Communication: It’s fairly common for me to send out an email to all the parents who’s kids attend regularly. Next week I’ll be sending out an email to inform them of all the events and activities coming up this summer. In that email I’ll mention some serving opportunities they can take advantage of.
• Parent Meeting: So much is changing in the fall, so we’re hosting a parent meeting. Actually, we’re hosting 4 of them around two different weekends. We’ll be talking about what the ministry will look like next year. Since I’ll have so many parents face to face, I’ll share a little vision for joining a serving team.
• Men’s Ministry: I’m hoping to speak at a men’s breakfast or gathering over the summer. What better way for men to impact the next generation of men by leading a small group of boys? Oh yeah!
• Singles Ministry: Gateway has a lot of these. I’d love to infuse the CM with some younger singles, so we’ll try out this group.

My team had a few other ideas as well we’re going to look at for the future. The key though is to saturate. We need as many people as possible to know what’s happening this fall with the kids.

What other ways can we saturate the vision in the next few months? Any ideas?

written by Kenny

Last Sunday (yeah, I said last Sunday… I’m behind and catching up) I stood on stage and recruited new volunteers.

GASP!

Yeah, I know. It is something I speak against, but I’m not going to apologize.

Actually, it was my first opportunity to be introduced to my church. Two weeks earlier it was announced that the previous Children’s Pastor had resigned and would be moving to Colorado in two weeks. A lot of people thought that I was his replacement. So, it was a good opportunity for me to introduce myself and explain my new role.

Second, I had the opportunity to share a little vision. On August 24th we’re promoting for the next year and also launching over 30 small groups in our elementary program The relational element has been missing here and is certainly a felt need. So, I got to share how we’re launching small groups and how our passion is that every child be connected relationally to a small group of peers and an adult leaders.

Last of all, I told people that now is the best time of all to join the CM team. There was a piece in the program that they could fill out and drop in the offering or they could come and meet me in person after the services. We had a good response and about half of those who responded did so in person. I got to put some names to faces and shake some hands.

Here’s the deal, I’m at a huge disadvantage as I know very few people. On Sunday, I connected personally with about 20 people who are dying to plug into the kids ministry. That was great for my situation. However, I also understand that many of those people won’t make it to a serving team. A push from the stage just isn’t nearly as effective as a personal invite. So, I’m meeting with as many as I can over a meal, coffee or whatever to increase my odds and build my network.

We’re probably going to do one more of these style pushes in the early fall. Then no more. We’re banning ministry recruiting from the stage. We’ll use other methods… more effective methods. My goal though is to make some kind of presentation 4 times a year from the stage. Simply a video or testimony that shows how ministry to kids is totally rockin’! No ask… just showing off. If anything, I want serving in our ministry to be attractive to the casual attendee, not something we’re begging for help from the stage several times a year.

Oaky, so go ahead. I still did it, even if I did have a good excuse… and I’m probably doing it one more time in the fall. Feel free to tell me what you really think, I can take it.

written by Kenny

I think this is about the quietest I’ve been on the CMO blog since I came back in March. Sorry. I’ve got a whole bunch of posts swimming around in my head, I’m just saving them up! Actually, it’s been a pretty crazy 10 days.

• I got back from camp last week, on my little boy’s first birthday.
• We moved into our new house right before camp, so we’ve been unpacking a few boxes at a time… this is taking forever.
• Three groups with three different assignments. I’m in a small group with some men on staff. We’re reading a book of the Bible each week. This week is John. I’m in a spiritual development group with some guys I just met that’s been a lot of fun. We have some exercises to do every week along with some scripture memorization. As a staff we’re reading a few chapters every week from "Transforming Discipleship." So, I’m in a lot of meetings right now.
• Over the weekend my brother came in town and we hung out a lot. On Monday I took the day off and went to a huge Texas water park (haven’t you heard, everything is bigger in Texas) with my family.
• On Sunday I made the announcements, introduced myself and shared some vision for the CM at all three of our services.
• Last Friday I had an intern arrive. He’s staying at my house this summer.

written by Kenny

Last week I wrote a post entitled two truths and a lie. It was fun to see what you guys thought was the lie. Well, here goes. Since each of them have a bit of a story behind them, I’ll tell that too. I’m sure you’re not going to let me get way with not telling you about the cobra or the staple.

Okay, truth number 1: When I was 17 years old I was on a mission trip in India. I was there for two months. After the first month, the 7 or 8 of us that were there for the full summer took a quick little vacation to Madras (no longer called Madras I think). One day while there, we rented mopeds. It was near the end of the day and I was bringing the moped back into town. We had just finished watching a Cobra and mongoose fight and it was starting to get dark. As I was driving down the road, I saw a squiggly line in the road. I got a little nervous as to what it might be. As I got closer, my fear was confirmed, it was a snake. Since I had a girl riding on the back of my bike, I was afraid to run over it… I just didn’t want to get that close to a potentially deadly snake. So I swerved. By swerving, I wrecked the bike and we tumbled off right toward the snake. As I got my bearings, I found the snake. It was a few feet away from me. It’s head popped up and the signature hood flared out… yes it was a cobra. I had been told earlier that if bitten by a cobra, fatality within minutes is almost certain. Just at that moment, a friend pulled up to help us (he didn’t know “why” we wrecked). Unknowingly he pulled up right next to the cobra and the snake began climbing up the wheel of his bike and up the handle bars. We shouted at him to get off the bike just in time. Several locals who observed this whole thing came to the rescue. They grabbed the snake from behind the head, killed it and set it on fire. I was a little shocked and a little bloodied from wrecking only wearing sandals, shorts and a tank top. But, I was alive. I have a really gross story about later that night that involved my wound, bedbugs and a shower, but I’ll save that for when we meet in person.

Truth number 2: A few years later I was in college. I went to a Christian college and no drinking was involved, I promise. It was late at night and a bunch of guys were in the dorm just joking around. Then I thought of something funny to liven the mood even more. I had seen someone do something really fun with a staple gun. You know how when you pull the trigger on a staple gun, it makes the loud pop even if it is not loaded. I watched these guys take pieces of paper and “fake staple” them to their foreheads. They took paper, put a staple in it and put some sticky tape on the back. They would stick the paper (sticky side to their head) and staple (with no staple in the gun) it to their head. With the staple sound, it was really funny. I ran to my dorm room, grabbed an index card, a stapler (I didn’t have a staple gun) and some tape. I did this little trick for my friends and they thought it was pretty funny. They wanted me to do it for another friend who was in his room studying. However, they also noticed that it wasn’t very believable as after I “stapled” the card to my head, there wasn’t a staple ” in” the card. So, before I did my stunt for my other friend, I ran back to my room, loaded the stapler and put a staple in the card so at least it would look like I had stapled it to my head. I quickly ran to my friends room and said, “Hey, I gotta show you something.” I then proceeded to “staple” the card to my forehead (mind you, I wasn’t gentle either since it was a trick.) It didn’t take me very long to notice the error in my plan. When I put the staple in the card, I had forgotten to take the staples out of the stapler. Yup, I put an actual staple in my head. It didn’t really hurt that bad and the ends didn’t close in on itself, so I didn’t have to work to hard to remove it. I did have two little marks on my head for the next few days. My pride was hurt more than my head.

My Lie: This past December I was at Disney. The shuttle was set to take off while we were there. We found a good place to sit and wait. But it never happened. There was an issue, so it didn’t take off.

Well,that’s it. Thanks everyone for playing!

written by Kenny

Okay, I’m going to wrap up my series of Twitter posts with this one, sharing one more resource and a cool story.

I noticed that a lot of the bloggers I follow on twitter have installed and application that sends a twitter feed when they write a blog. It’s a great add-on. Now for most of these people, I already subscribe to their blog feed, so I’m going to read their post at some point. This application though provided another way for me to get to their post. However, there are many people on Twitter that I don’t subscribe to their feed. Through this little application, I’ve found some new blogs that I now follow. So it’s a great tool. Using Google I found this great post here. It has the 10 best twitter tools for wordpress blogs. I’m sure you can find the same tools for type pad, blogger or whatever blogging service you use. I installed the Twitter Updater which does what I just said. I also tried the "Twit This" application but I couldn’t get it to work. Because my Twitter feed update my facebook status, people who only follow me on facebook are more likely to follow or even discover my blog. You can’t tell me this isn’t great stuff.

Oh, and now for my story. I’ve actually heard a few people complain about linking your twitter feed to your facebook feed because it just looks kind of silly. True, I won’t argue with that at all. However, I know many people who don’t update their facebook status very often, so they either have an out of date status or no status at all. Those who twitter are more likely to update more often, so people following them on facebook see their update more often. *** I did notice that if you start your twitter with @someone’stwitterID (a personal note to someone), facebook will not bring that update into the status. ***

But here is what is cool. I was driving to camp last Sunday and made a snide remark on twitter about driving through East Texas in the dark. A friend who I haven’t seen in over 10 years and recently became a friend on facebook contacted me the next day and said, "you’re in East Texas… we should meet up." Three days later I had a little reunion at Cracker Barrel for breakfast as I drove back home. Because Twitter, facebook and this blog are all interconnected, I have a greater possibility to communicate to the most people possible. Isn’t that what technological advancement is all about, merging services and devices to where they all talk and work together.

written by Kenny

Please excuse another test.

written by Kenny

Okay. I know of three full time job positions available right now that are hiring immediately. Like, the positions needed to be filled YESTERDAY. Let me tell you a little about the positions:

Elementary Director: This is a full time position at a church here in Austin, TX. It’s a cutting-edge church reaching the lost and disconnected in this very "cool" city. A large percentage (I want to say over half, but I can’t confirm) of attendees have come to Christ in this church. Church attendance at this campus (multi-site) is over 3000 with an average of 500-600 kids. The Elementary ministry is moving toward a large group/small group model and needs an experienced leader to take the ministry to the next level.

Children’s Pastor: This is a full time position at the same church mentioned above. This position is for a Children’s Pastor over one of the video campuses. The campus (launched in January) runs close to 450 attendees. A strong leader who is flexible, creative and a great team player is needed to grow the ministry of this campus both numerically and in quality.

Children’ Pastor: This is a full time position for a brand new church plant in San Antonio, TX. This plant realizes that the Children’s Ministry is one of the most important ministries in a church reaching young families, so they’re "setting up" the future CP with a great opportunity. The church is being planted in on of the fastest growing areas of San Antonio, which is largely unchurched. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.

What these churches need:

If you or someone you know is interested, please forward questions/resumes to me at kenny@childrensministryonline.com. Both of these churches are non-traditional churches reaching the post-modern/Gen-X population which is very different from most traditional and many contemporary ministries. It’s messy and raw, but totally fulfilling. If you’re lame, please don’t send a resume. If you don’t have experience leading Children’s Ministry leading 100-200+ kids, you may not have the proper experience. If you’re a Children’s Pastor, Elementary Director or heck, even a Middle School Pastor (who just doesn’t yet realize how cool children’s ministry is yet) who is looking for something new and different, then shoot me your resume. Even if you are currently in a position and you simply want to explore what these opportunities might look like, just send me an email (there’s not anything wrong with that at all, so don’t feel guilty about it).

One more thing

Those of you who are perfectly happy and in the place that you know God has set you in, please do me a huge, HUGE favor. Will you send me some names of people who you think might be a good fit for this position? I ask people all the time if they know anyone who is looking and I get the "No, most the people I know are serving somewhere." To be honest, I’m not interested in those who are looking (well, I am if you know someone). I’m looking for some high quality people and more than likely they are already on staff somewhere. I want to contact them. I had a defining moment in my career as a CP where I was recruited away from the church I was at. I was not happy and it was a total "God" thing. I’ve also been contacted about positions while at another church and I’ve politely said "I’m not interested." But I was glad to be asked. So, will you give me some leads on people I can contact about joining two very exciting ministries here in Texas? I would be very appreciative.

written by Kenny