Archive for 'Events'
VBS/Kids Camp on steroids
Posted on20. Jul, 2010 by Kenny.
A co-worker recently sent me information about a little event that happens at a church in St. Louis every year. When I came across JUMP, I had two simultaneous reactions.
- I was in absolute wonder and awe of the sheer size of this event.
- I threw up in my mouth just a little bit thinking about putting on and event of this size
JUMP is a week-long VBS/Day Camp hybrid held at St. Louis Family Church. Over the years it has grown from a small outreach to an event of epic proportions. This year 3,243 participated. Here’s some of what it took to pull JUMP off:
- 987 volunteers (Thank you all!)
- 158 watermelons
- 485 gallons of Gatorade
- 5,700 bags of cotton candy
- 260 pounds and 8,350 bags of popcorn
- 6,928 pounds of ice
- 167 gallons of syrup
- 18,200 sno-cones
Amazing, huh? What spoke to me the most about this is that at Children’s Pastors, we have to constantly be creative and just because we don’t have a resource or staff or facility doesn’t mean God can’t do something utterly amazing through your ministry and church. JUMP is pretty impressive, but it’s a day camp held in the church parking lot. Chances are you have one of those, so what’s stopping you from thinking outside of the box and doing something amazing?
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Product Review: Live it Out
Posted on30. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
So a few weeks ago, we took 70 kids and leaders to summer camp. There were 400 kids there overall and I had been hired by the camp to be the Camp Pastor at one of the three weeks of camp. They had chosen reThink’s Live it Out curriculum in a box to use as a camp theme and curriculum. We use both 252 Basics and My First Look every Sunday, so I was pretty familiar with the material. However, I wanted to give a review of my experience using the material supplied. Please note though that I didn’t go out and select this product and I wasn’t in charge of determining what we used and what we didn’t. As the Camp Pastor, I was given the DVD of video elements as well as the small group materials that had been selected for small group breakouts. So, my experience is more from a “adapt and use” approach instead of “choose and use” approach.
In the 8-10 years that I’ve taught at kids camp, this is the first time I’ve ever used a curriculum. I’ve always developed the theme, written the messages and put together the small group/develotional materials. So, this was a very new experience for me as well. After using a curriculum, would I do it again? Yeah, I think I would.
Live it Out was the first curriculum I’ve used for camp and it was a good/great experience… but I think that your feelings about it are going to depend on what your expectations are. As far as the theme goes, it was fantastic. Take it In and Live it Out is based on the scripture in Matthew, “However hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like the wise man…” The first day of camp was this main point as well as the parable of the wise and foolish men who built houses on the rock and sand. The next four days we chose lessons that were parables of Jesus and they all tied in so well to the theme overall. It was a GREAT message and theme for camp. I know that hundreds of kids were powerfully impacted. Many to begin relationships with God, others to truly “Live it Out.” In addition, the theme song was a lot of fun and very well done. The kids loved it… especially learning the rap. We only used 5 messages/lessons, but there were more to choose from. There was also tons of small group activities to take part in… tons. So, there was no shortage of material. Overall, “Live it Out” is pretty much consistent with what you would expect from 252 Basics.
What did I not like? Most of this may just be personal preference and experience. In all the years I’ve led camps, I never really led small group activities as breakout times like we do on Sunday mornings. For camp, I always had devotional times where kids spent time in their Bibles and working through a guided devotional that tied to what they were learning… teaching them how to have a quite time. In the evenings, I developed discussion guides for kids to reflect on what they were learning. In so many ways, camp is go, go, go, go and it was nice to have kids all gather around on one bunk and have a discussion time, not an activity. Also, I wasn’t a huge fan of the videos. They’re good, just not nearly as funny as I feel they need to be. The way to a child’s heart is through humor and I just don’t think they’re funny enough. Most of them are of one guy telling the story which has some humor, but I think kids really love the slap-stick approach of a straight-man/funny-man approach. However, these are just my impressions and my opinions.
The uses for Live it Out are endless. We used it for camp. I essentially wrote messages to go with the theme of each day. There is some video teaching with every lesson, but it just wasn’t long enough for our taste… not personal enough to lead the room of 400 kids to the heart of the lesson. Maybe it could have been with a guided approach with an emcee, object lesson and then wrap it up with the video teaching. However, others may love the video teaching and it would do the job. This curriculum in a box would also work great for a summer series. There is enough material in here to last you most of the summer with enough stuff to carry an entire church service. You could use it for a modified VBS or any other multi-day event.
So, if you’re looking at if for something like this, I encourage you to pick it up here. It really is a great resource!
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Summer camp video
Posted on30. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
After this week I don’t plan to publish any more camp posts. My production director was on a post-camp vacation last week, so I just got the final day of camp video. It’s a great video that shows a snapshot of all the best parts of camp. It’s about 10 minutes long, so feel free to skim. 
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My secret weapon to connecting with kids
Posted on22. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
It’s funny how kids connect. If I’m sitting with a group of 5th grade boys, I might talk about my favorite video game. If I’m talking with 3rd grade girls, I might talk about… well, girly stuff. When we show interest in the things that they’re interested in, it builds report. I’m not just saying that you learn a few lines or do a little “research” so you can be relatable. You actually need to know what you’re talking about, kids see through the fake.
Well, when communicating to over 400 kids during a week of camp, I kept thinking about what that kinds of things I could do to connect with the whole audience. For me it was simple. Titus. Titus is a really cute and outgoing three year old and he just happened to be at camp with me (even if he wasn’t there, I still could have used him). Kids love younger kids and they loved Titus. I talked about Titus quite a bit in my messages, telling them stories of things he does that relate to what I’m teaching. It stuck. I felt like every kid at camp came to talk to me about Titus and every kid wanted to give Titus high-fives and hugs. He was a camp rock start… and it helped me connect with all these kids.
I noticed how quickly these kids were connecting to my son, so I actually made this video to illustrate a point on my last night… and the kids went nuts! So, just an idea to throw out there. Do whatever you can to connect with your kids.
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Communicating with parents while at camp
Posted on22. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
Over the years I’ve used a variety of ways to keep parents in the loop of what was going on at camp. In the early days, I’d shoot my admin a summary email that she would forward on to all the parents. Then in 2003 or 2004, I took a big jump and started using a yahoo group, which worked pretty well. I’ve found that the more I help parents feel connected to what was going on with their kids at camp, the more excited they’d be about the ministry that happens to their kids, both at camp and back at home. A lot of parents are nervous about being away from their kids, so they just want to see pictures of their kids all happy and having fun. These days, it’s so easy to do this, easier than ever.
Our Kids Ministry already has a facebook group, facebook.com/kidsquest. All we did was update the facebook page like crazy. Last year I did a lock-in and I gave 5-8 of my leaders access to the Kids Quest twitter account. It worked well, but only for parents on twitter. If you’re using a facebook fan page, your status updates will sync to twitter, but not the other way around. So, I had a few of my staff just posting status updates with pics as often as they could. As soon as the update published, facebook sent it out as a tweet as well.
The parents loved the updates. We told them where we were on our travels, showed them pictures of what the kids were eating and let the parents know where we were on the drive home (so they could know what time to arrive). I even created “notes” every day with the content of what I would be teaching that day and giving the parents prayer points. It was a good system and the parents went nuts. They felt like they were a part of the camp.
Next year we plan to have even more interaction. On one day we held a contest asking the parents whether they thought the girls room or the boys room was cleanest. A few hours later we uploaded a video. The parents really got into this. Next year I think we’ll do even more stuff like this to keep the parents extra engaged, even creating opportunities for parents to interact some with their kids. I also want to play with the idea of a live feed. I’m not 100% sure you can actually do a live feed with the internet service there, but we could possibly upload the services a few hours later just so parents and families can see what their kids are experiencing.
Click here to jump over to our facebook page and see the kind of content we were posting.
Below is the clean room video contest we posted while at camp.
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Personal review for camp
Posted on21. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
Kids Camp 2010 for our kids was pretty phenomenal. There are some things I’d like to see different for next year, but the experience was powerful. We took 58 kids this year and I can’t imagine we’ll take any less than 100 next year, not with the feedback parents and kids will hear from this year’s camp.
Personally, this was one of the best camp experiences I’ve ever had. It was a really unique opportunity for our church as for me. I guess I’ll start off at the beginning. I’m a HUGE believer in the power of camp. I went to summer camp as a 3rd-5th grader and have very specific and tangible memories of God’s work in my life at summer camp. Although I asked Christ into my life as a 4 year old, it was at camp as a 10 year old that I wept at the alter for the first time feeling sorrow for my sin and how it affected my relationship with God. In many ways, I see that experience as a 10 year old as the linchpin that put me on the path for who I am now. It was even at that summer camp where I got my first glimpse of my calling… something I still treasure today.
So, for the past 10 or so years, I’ve been organizing camps for the kid’s ministries I run. Only twice have I attended a camp I didn’t organize. So, in running these camps, I was responsible for organizing everything as well as delivering the messages every evening. It’s a lot of work… but I still love it.
When getting ready for camp this year, we originally booked a facility near Dallas and we would have complete control of the experience. However, by January, I was getting nervous that we would get enough kids to cover our financial responsibility. In this late hour, we found a camp (one that my children’s pastor had been involved with for years) that programed the same way we would. With this camp, there would be no financial risk as we only would have to pay for what we bring. Last of all, they hadn’t yet hired a Camp Pastor, and they offered the opportunity to me. It was a huge blessing that God just put in our lap.
So, this summer at camp, I spent as much time with our Gateway kids as possible. I also made sure to join the activities of other kids from other churches so I could get to know them as well. However, my only responsibility was to speak to the kids. It was wonderful. I spent time every morning and every evening looking over my messages and actually rehearsing, something I rarely do. By the time I actually delivered my talks, they were pretty much memorized… I could speak from my heart and not be tied to a podium. It was a wonderful experience to have just one focus.
I discovered something. I rarely get to speak to kids anymore. Maybe one or two times a year I’ll speak to the elementary kids and 3-5 times a year I’ll teach the baptism class. However, in this week of speaking 9 times in 5 days, I recognized that when I’m speaking to kids, I’m doing what I do best. I love what I do now. I’m passionate about it too. I know that I can’t speak to kids every week and still do the job I do now… and that’s fine. However, I know that I have to find ways to speak in this way becasue it truly is a gifting and a passion.
So, it was a powerful and fulfilling week for me as a Camp Pastor. I look forward to doing it some more next year.
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Kids Camp 2010 in review
Posted on21. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
It was a great week. No, it was a phenomenal week. Things got busy, so I didn’t have the time to post every day. This week I’ll probably get in 4-5 posts with information about camp, what we did and how it all went down. In addition, I’m going to review the curriculum we used, Take it In and Live it Out if you’re considering it for camp or some other event.
So, this was my first real camp experience with these kids. When I got to Gateway two years ago, about 15 kids were signed up to go to a summer camp. There hadn’t been a lot of promotion and since we were financially committed to this camp, I ate about $5,000 in expenses and ended up scholarshiping 20-25 kids. It was a fun camp, but a little weird. It felt like we were at camp with the Von Trapp family. Everyone liked to sing a lot, and everyone knew all the songs… except our kids. It was like a musical… we’d be walking down a trail and then people would just start singing. Again, it was fun… just a little weird. We didn’t do camp last year, so this year we took 58 kids (two got sick) to Camp Zephyr in Sandia, TX.
For all of the kids, it was probably the most fun thing they’ll do all summer. For most of the kids, it was life changing. Seriously. Already we’re getting feedback from parents about how moved their kids have been. Parents have been overwhelmed by what their kids are talking about. Many of the kids made first time commitments to Jesus. What a catalytic event in the life of a child. I’ll leave you with what some of our parents are saying on our facebook page.
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Camp Day Two: Love your neighbor
Posted on15. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
So, here we are at day two of Kids Camp. Yesterday the main point was:
Take it in & Live it out. Build my life on what really counts.
Today we’re adding to this with: Choose to see you the way God see’s me. The scripture base is the parable of the Good Samaritan. This morning we challenged the kids to think of who the Samaritans are in their lives. Bullies, siblings, people that are just plain hard to love. We left them with the challenge this morning to think about who the Samaritans are in their lives and what it would look like to show them love.
Tonight we’re going to challenge the kids to make a heart decision. It’s one thing to “show love” to people who are hard to love, but an entirely different thing to truly love your neighbor as yourself. We’re going to challenge the kids to see others the way God sees them. This isn’t a switch we can turn on or off, but something the Holy Spirit has to do in our hearts. We just have to be willing to let him change us.
So, join with me in prayer tonight that the 400 kids at camp this week would be attentive to the words they hear and that they would open their hearts to the work God wants to do in them. This could be the start of a Revolution of Love!
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Kids Camp Day One
Posted on15. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
So, things have been quite on the blog the last couple of weeks. Camp is to blame. I’ve been working a lot of extra hours getting ready for summer camp. Now we’re at camp and I figure I’ll post a little every day telling what’s going on at Kids Camp.
We’re using reThink’s curriculum, “Take it In. Live it Out.” It’s a great theme for summer camp, I’m really excited to get to teach it. At the end of camp (next week), I’ll review it for others who might be thinking of using it.
So, we started things off last night with Take it In and Live it out. It’s based on the passage from Matthew 7:24-28. The wise man hears the words of Jesus and puts them into practice. The wise man takes it in (hears his words) and lives it out (does what he said).
So last night we challenged the kids to be like the wise man, to build his/her life on the rock, which means to obey the words that Jesus said. It’s that simple.
Here’s a quick video of Day One of Kids Camp!
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Born into heaven: Resoruces
Posted on12. May, 2010 by Kenny.
I certainly don’t expect that if you do an event like this, you’ll do everything just the same way we did. However, there’s not point in reinventing the wheel. So here are all the pieces to this event. Again, I didn’t come up with our carry out this event. My wife dreamed up this event while pregnant several weeks back. Right after losing the baby, she gathered together with three other women at our church and the four of them put all of this together. They were willing to share, so I present to you all of their creativity and hard work.
Program – front & back
Program – inside
Resource list
Quotes
Slide
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