• What’s Your Kid Count?
Kid Count: What is the Difference Between Head-Count and Data-Base Count?
- The Head-Count Number is the actual counting of kids that come through all your programs each week. So you add up all the attendance for all your individual programs and get a Head Count number. This number will have duplicates, as the same kids might come to several of your programs per week. You would secure data here to compute perfect attendance.
- Data-Base Number should be the larger number, because it includes all your regular kids and all the visitors who have come, at least once. You have all your children regulars and visitors in one database, right?
So when I ask what is your average Head-Count Number is, per week, you will know what I am asking (your program numbers). But, if I ask about your Data-Base Numbers, I am asking about all your contacts regulars attenders and visitors, which represents your potential for growth.
What if I ask how many kids come from Member Families? This might be a smaller number, but would you have a way to tell me? So what is your Member Kid Count?
• One-Minute Poster Book
Give Away Resources (for current on-line Kidology Protege’s only, sorry)
From my exhaustive collection of the resource materials, I am hereby going to donate, to my current students only, a collection of books on various aspects of children’s ministry.
The next one is The ONE Minute Poster published by Gospel Light Publishers (189 pages, in mint condition)
Reproducible pages. It is useful for making poster and flyers to publicize Church events. This giant collection of clip art will add a professional touch to your Children’s Ministry. It’s easy! Use the masters and fill in your data and your publicity is ready to go!
Here’s the fine print, so you can get your copy:
• Coach’s Conundrum #10
Coach’s Conundrums
#10. Good Ideas Are My Ideas, And Bad Ideas Are Your Ideas!
Over the years I have learned that I am not the only repository of good ideas. As a leader, you have to know how to solicit ideas from others that can help you to solve problems, but it’s not easy. From the highly deliberate session of brainstorming, to a formal problem-solving meeting, to a casual conversation in passing, collecting ideas is the daily process of problem solving. Being open to giving another credit for their ideas is an issue here. If the only good ideas are your ideas, then you will soon discover how short sighted you really are. Leadership involves the ability to extract ideas from others and pronounce them “good.” This is your best judgment, of course.
As a leader you may have some excellent “informed” ideas, but in working with your team, sometimes giving others the first opportunity for their ideas. Holding on to your idea, which you could have put forth, but did not, might open to door to ownership. When another offers a “good” idea, they now can take ownership, because it was “their” good idea. But if that same idea is your idea, you would own it as a “good” idea and maybe advocate for it as a good idea. Being willing give away your ownership for the sake of the ownership of another, which is what deferring to others is all about.
Here are a few ownership exercises you can try to prove this conundrum.
• Tag-Team Workshops
Tag-Team Workshops
Child Evangelism Fellowship hosts two Conference for the Korean-American Churches, one in Los Angeles (April), one in Orange Country (May). Kid-Helper Resources was invited to conduct two workshops and exhibit our resources. Michael LaFond and I decided to teach both our workshops like tag-team teaching—taking turns demonstrating resources. It was so fun. One workshop focused on Object Lessons and the other was all about Gospel Illusions. We had such a good time presenting. The response to our Kid-Helper Resources was so good that we actually sold out of some resources. Wish you could have been there with us.
• Resource Center—Estonia
Kid-Helper Resource Center—Estonia
This last week Michael LaFond and I met with Pille (pronounced Pella) Havakats from Estonia to show her what was included in a Kid-Helper Resource Center. Well, she wanted one for the 85 churches in Estonia that could use these resources to help reach and team more children for Christ. So on Saturday we invited Pille to come with us to the Korean American CEF Conference in Los Angeles, where we were teaching two workshops: one on Object Lessons and one on Gospel Magic.
Well, she loved it and is now dreaming about how these resources could be used in her ministry. Sunday, I was able to share with a couple of adult classes how we could provide this resource for Estonia. So we are now raising money to provide this Kid-Helper Resource Center for Estonia. If you would like to help with this project, please contact me and we would love the help to provide these resources free to Estonia. Pilla will be returning to Estonia after Easter.
• Kidmin Clip Art Book
Give Away Resources (for current on-line Kidology Protege’s only, sorry)
From my exhaustive collection of the resource materials, I am hereby going to donate, to my current students only, a collection of books on various aspects of children’s ministry.
The forth one is the Children’s Ministry Clip Art Book published by Group Publishers (130 pages, in mint condition) Reproducible pages, with more than 300 creative, ready-to-use illustrations to add zest to your newsletters, handouts, fliers, posters and more. This giant collection of clip art will add a professional touch to your Children’s Ministry. It’s easy as 1-2-3. 1 — Choose your art, 2 — Cut it out, 3 — Paste it down, Photocopy . . . and your publicity is ready to go!
Here’s the fine print, so you can get your copy:
• Calculating Kidmin Salaries
It seems to be common practice among churches to use the local school system for comps for determining the salaries of children’s ministers. I guess, I understand how this happens for beginning positions. But as the work grows and the children’s ministry becomes more established, the salary comparison needs to be revised because the comparison of the job begins to fall apart.
Most teachers do not have the same administrative issues that are comparable to Children’s Pastors. For example: recruiting numerous volunteers, working with diverse constituencies, supervision of the Sunday school (0-12), developing and producing large events, curriculum selection for multi-age levels, being a team player with administration, boards, staff and representing the ministry to the larger community. Further, CP’s are not dealing with a compulsory attendance system, but a voluntary system where creating motivation for attendance is built into the whole church experience.
At some point, the comparison should be the Principle’s or the Assistant Principle’s salary. So where is that line? You are right to hold out years of tenure, advanced education, growth of numbers, new infrastructure, advanced training programs, successful outreach programs, diverse job description, the volume of volunteers, additional paid staff, and your own financial needs. When you add expertise, mega church/regional church components, church growth, and job satisfaction (by the church), and good job reviews, these factors should influence the salary profile. So as the work grows, the conditions for determining salary should change too. So you want a raise?
Here are My Fifteen Things to consider before asking for a raise:
• Sunday School Smart Pages
Give Away Resources (for current on-line Kidology Protege’s only, sorry)
From my exhaustive collection of the resource materials, I am hereby going to donate, to my current students only, a collection of books on various aspects of children’s ministry.
The Fifth one is The Sunday School Smart Pages published by Gospel Light. (224 pages, in mint condition) Reproducible pages for advice, answers and articles about teaching children ages 2-12. There are numerous resources for teacher training meetings for a whole year. This is an excellent resource, you will go back to this volume many times for ideas and suggestions.
Here’s the fine print…to get the book:
• Kid-Helper Resources
Kid-Helper Resources
Sharing the tools in your tool box, that’s what this is all about. Here Mike LaFond and I are demonstrating some of the exciting, time-tested gospel-outreach resources that are going into the Kid Helper Resource Centers in India. You will notice a couple of puppets, some object lessons, gospel illusions, several Evangecube products. All these items are good for outreach in areas where there are no resources. Most of these items can be found on line www.kidhelperresources.com
As funding is made available we would like distribute products like these and more to qualified leaders in other countries. Another need is to find containers and shippers that will help us get these KHRC into other countries. We are starting with Six Kid-Helper Resource Centers in India this year, but we have interest in several other places where we have been on Kid Missions in the last ten years.
Pray for village evangelists that will conduct outreach events using these resources. Also if you are interested in helping us provide these resources for the Resource Centers, kindly reply with your interest and we will be glad to work with you. If you have resources that you would like to add to these, we would be glad to speak with you about it.
• New Vehicle for Ministry
New Ministry Vehicle
One of our long time ministry donors decided that we needed to upgrade our ministry vehicle with a gift to the ministry of $25,000. So this week we picked a 2010 Honda CR-V LX (fully loaded) with only 4,400 miles. We got an excellent price and saved over $5,000. This vehicle could last us for several years of service. The rear seats fold up and there is plenty of room for all our ministry equipment. It is a light blue in color and really looks nice in front of any venue. It’s comfortable and rides really nice. Can’t wait to hit the road again with these new wheels. Praise the Lord with us for this wonderful provision that keep us on the road serving the Lord and children. This color seems to change with the colors in the sky. It is really light blue, not gray!
