In a public restroom, men make a gameplan to get in & out without touching anything. Christians do the same thing in culture. We want to get in and get out without catching a disease. The only problem with that is Jesus.
chris seay #catalyst (via kretzu)

Source: kretzu

We did a series a while ago called “I Love My Bible.” It was put together by the team at Kids On the Move and is available for free download at seeds.churchonthemove.com/
Big thanks to the KOTM team for putting out such quality stuff for free use!

This is the video we used to lead our kid through the memory verse “Hebrews 4:12”
We used the App “larry the bird” on the I-Pad 2 and some sweet video editing software to put it together. the entire process took about 1 hour to complete thanks to our video wizard Mr. Peter Holmstrom.

This is a great example of a simple way to get cool looking media into your services. There are a bunch of different apps like “Talking Tom” that record and repeat what you say. It can be a really fun way to do digital puppetry in your services. Each of those apps have a recording feature. All we did was record each segment of audio we wanted and emailed them to ourselves for editing. Once we imported them into iMovie it was as simple as putting together a 12 piece puzzle. Then we finished it of with a fun opening and some background music we found in garage band.

We did a Series for our Kid Studios Live: Family Experience recently called “It’s A Trap!” and it was loads of fun! One of the best parts was the set for it. We modeled the stage design after the game Mouse Trap. For the object lessons we built various types of traps to illustrate the main points. 

Here is how we made the rat trap, one of the object lessons. We looked online and found that the guys at Kids On The Move had already built a stage prop similar and we studied video and pictures of theirs to make our process easier.

Check out their sight for tons of ministry resources seeds.churchonthemove.com

Source: vimeo.com

We did a Series for our Kid Studios Live: Family Experience recently called “It’s A Trap!” and it was loads of fun! One of the best parts was the set for it. We modeled the stage design after the game Mouse Trap. For the object lessons we built various types of traps to illustrate the main points. 

Here is how we built the bear trap, one of our main stage props.

Source: vimeo.com

We did a Series for our Kid Studios Live: Family Experience recently called “It’s A Trap!” and it was loads of fun! One of the best parts was the set for it. We modeled the stage design after the game Mouse Trap. For the object lessons we built various types of traps to illustrate the main points. Here are some pictures of the stage design.

New Vision, New Ideas, and New Life [pt.3] - Preparation Time

When i have a new vision or idea i want to see come into reality in a healthy way there are a few things i do to ensure i am prepared.

In the initial excitement of it all i take the time to write down all the different ideas and thoughts i have no matter how crazy or sane they may be. This helps get the jumble of thoughts out of your brain and into a form you can work with more easily. I like to imagine my thoughts like spaghetti and meat balls, its a big mess with no clear beginning or end while in your brain, but once you write your thoughts down they are put in a linear orderly form. You can put all the noodles in rows together and pile up the meatballs so that it all makes sense.

I’ve learned to take my time, so ill just let the idea simmer for a couple days. The beauty of this process that ive found is that as something is present in your mind, new thoughts will emerge when you are doing the simplest things. I had to come up with a creative idea for our children’s ministry not to long ago and was having the most difficult time with it. I wrote everything down to clear my brain, but nothing made sense or seemed to work. Then a couple days later as i was brushing my teeth and suddenly the perfect thing popped in my head and because i had a clear mind i was able to process it and move forward.

I’ve also learned to go to those more experienced then i for wisdom. In our own ego we could think that our vision is going to change the entire world and after we implement it, people will never be the same! When you bring your vision to people who have been in the field for a while they can shed some healthy light on the situation and show you some possible improvements. Always be open to constructive criticism. Let me be clear on this one. Sometimes people will become jealous of a great idea because they wish they had it or they can see you progressing past them. When this happens they will treat your idea as trash until they can come up with something better. Be on guard for this and only take your new idea or vision to those select people you seriously trust. The kind of person that you would leave at a table alone with your dessert and know that when you return, your chocolate cake will still be there intact. These are the kind of people to go to for insight and constructive criticism.

What are your methods for making sense of your spaghetti brain of ideas?

New Vision, New Ideas, and New Life [pt.2]

If vision is birthed early it will need extra maintenance to nurture it to full health. If its birthed too early it wont survive. The other end of the spectrum is also true. A pregnancy that goes too long is also unhealthy and a vision carried too long may no longer matter (this is the one i had to learn the hard way). When we are given a vision or are inspired with a new idea to do something, it wasn’t just for that initial moment of excitement about what it could be. It is so that it will eventually be made into reality! Again, you must take steps to prepare and do all the things needed in order to birth it into a healthy environment, but it MUST be birthed. If you constantly question yourself of if there is something more you can do to be more prepared, the answer is yes, but sometimes those are things we need to learn on the go.

When new vision and new ideas come be sure and take the proper time to prepare all the things needed for it to be healthy. This may look like you sacrificing something for a time to ensure its health, but the sacrifice and preparation time will be worth it when you see what is produced. On the other side, once you have done everything needed to ensure its health, don’t put it off any longer. The vision or idea may become irrelevant if you wait too long and all that prep time ends up being wasted.

If you have done the things needed in preparation, there is nothing to fear, move forward and see your vision into reality. This can be a very beautiful thing.

In my own context i am now seeing some of the things i had vision for in late 2009 come to pass now, even some things i had forgotten about are showing up and vision is coming into reality.

What are some tangible things you do to prepare yourself when you have a new idea or vision?

New Vision, New Ideas, and New Life [pt.1]

It seems there are usually two sides for the topic of vision. There are those that have a vision and try to make it happen immediately, and those who wait so long the vision is no longer relevant for the time. I know that in my own life i have struggled with both. I usually tend to sit on an idea or vision too long until its timing has passed and i miss the opportunity. On the other side i have been speaking to many people lately who, it seems to me, are rushing their visions too early to the point that they wont be able to survive.

The greatest lesson i learned in this topic came from a man name Banning Liebscher. He is the leader of a movement called Jesus Culture out of Redding California. I was in a church where he was guest speaking and he taught a message titled “Birthing a move of God.”
The principles within the message apply to such a large level, whether in business or the church world, they really helped me gain a healthy view on the topic of vision.

He related the idea of having a new vision to the natural process of pregnancy. When a new vision or idea is conceived within you, theres no mistaking it. You may not know all the details of what it is or what you are supposed to do, but you know you have a fresh motivation to make something happen. At this point there are a series of things you have to do in the natural process to prepare for a baby. You begin to eat healthier to physically prepare yourself for what is to come. You begin to look through your home and make sure it is a safe place for this new life to be. You begin to think of names and just what you want for this child as it grows. Then you have about 9 months to get all the details in order until the fateful day comes when this new life announces to the world through its cry that “I have arrived!” When you return home with the child you have a place for it to sleep, bottles, diapers, plenty of plush animals to fend off monsters, all of it. 
This is a natural process that adults have been following for all time, the idea of preparing for this new thing that will be birthed. There are plenty of variables that can get in the way and make the process more difficult. What if labor begins early? What then? If the baby is birthed too early it has no chance for survival. As time progresses its chances are higher and higher, but it will still need time in the hospital to be looked after because it wasn’t fully developed when it was birthed.

The same problem can happen with your new vision or idea! Sometimes we get so excited that we have this new idea that we just want to make it happen right away and induce labor before its appointed time. What happens when you try and put your vision into action without the proper preparation time? It will be birthed, but it will be unhealthy. You will end up spending most of your time taking care of it and trying to make it healthy and able to operate at a normal health level. Maybe you didn’t develop the team you needed, you didn’t complete the paperwork, didn’t get the approval needed, didn’t get the funding or budget in order, whatever the case is you now have to go into emergency phase to make this thing healthy. I’ve been here, so pumped on an idea that i moved on it too quickly that it just flopped horribly.

If vision is birthed early it will need extra maintenance to nurture it to full health. If its birthed too early it wont survive. 

What are some tangible things you do to prepare yourself when you have a new idea or vision?

Things found on walks: rocks, sticks, and an Egyptian man

When i was younger i had a fascination with rocks, sticks, really anything i found on the ground that looked unusual to me. I would end up with pockets full of acorns, rocks, sticks, and leaves after a short walk around my neighborhood. Aside from a top notch rock collection, I also collected lots of loose change. Whenever i walked anywhere i would always have my eye on the ground just a bit in front of my steps so that i wouldn’t miss a thing. I remember a few times when i was younger i struck it rich with my findings, a $20 dollar bill! It was just sitting there in the street among some leaves. I did what my parents taught me, i looked around to see if there were any people that may have dropped it and saw no one, the cash was mine! That afternoon i feasted on candy from the corner store…

As i read this passage from 1 Samuel 30 i see the same attention to detail from David and his men… 

 

8 Then David asked the Lord, “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?” 
And the Lord told him, “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!”

9 So David and his 600 men set out, and they came to the brook Besor. 10 But 200 of the men were too exhausted to cross the brook, so David continued the pursuit with 400 men.

11 Along the way they found an Egyptian man in a field and brought him to David. They gave him some bread to eat and water to drink. 12 They also gave him part of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins, for he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for three days and nights. Before long his strength returned.

 

The band of raiders mentioned earlier had just burned down davids village and they had taken all of the women, children, and plunder they could. This was a very focused mission to get back what was stolen from these men… which was EVERYTHING they had. Yet in the midst of this we find that they took the time to nurse a foreigner back to health. It would have been easier to pass him up and continue the pursuit of the raiders, but they chose to stop. The story continues…

 

13 “To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?” David asked him. 
“I am an Egyptian—the slave of an Amalekite,” he replied. “My master abandoned me three days ago because I was sick. 14 We were on our way back from raiding the Kerethites in the Negev, the territory of Judah, and the land of Caleb, and we had just burned Ziklag.”

15 “Will you lead me to this band of raiders?” David asked. 
The young man replied, “If you take an oath in God’s name that you will not kill me or give me back to my master, then I will guide you to them.”

16 So he led David to them, and they found the Amalekites spread out across the fields, eating and drinking and dancing with joy because of the vast amount of plunder they had taken from the Philistines and the land of Judah. 17 David and his men rushed in among them and slaughtered them throughout that night and the entire next day until evening. None of the Amalekites escaped except 400 young men who fled on camels. 

 

Because David and his men took the time to care for a sick, dying, stranger, they were saved countless time and pain in retrieving what was theirs. Because of the attention to detail in the moment, in their surroundings they found a man who would lead them straight to the raiders.

I no longer have such an affinity for oddly shaped rocks and sticks… I have lost some of my attention to detail that i had as a child. I wonder what i could be missing by not truly seeing my surroundings? What am i missing by focusing so strongly on the future and whats down the road? How much time, pain, energy, money, could we save if we just took notice of what was directly in our midst? 

David and his men had a mission they were working on, yet they didn’t forget to notice what was happening in the moment. Often times God works subtly in the moment, not always dramatically in the bigger picture.

“Treat those you meat with respect and dignity no matter how insignificant they may seem, you never know how God will use them to help you or haunt you, depending upon your response to them.” - NLT study notes

Games 06/29/11

- Kids Games… you will actually play -

Here is the line up for pump up (Every kid gets to play) games this week…

Freeze Dance

While you have exciting game music playing, have all the kids in the room dance. When you pause or stop the song they have to freeze. Whoever keeps dancing after the music stops is out. The last kid or kids still in at the end of the song win. We usually end up just playing for fun for a few minutes with nobody being “out”.

Guess Who?

We put together a power point slide show with pictures of different team members of our church and also of some famous people the kids would recognize. We applied a transition effect on the slide show so that it would “Dissolve” in and set it to take 30 seconds until the picture was fully revealed. We put a black bumper slide in between each picture to create buffer space. I encouraged the kids to shout out who they thought was in the picture as it slowly appeared until finally they could all see it. We had lots of fun with this game. There were a few issues with compatibility between the power point version on the computer that created the show and the computer used to display it to the kids. Just be sure you test it a few days before you want to use it.

Speed Pass

We have four sections of chairs setup in our sanctuary. We had an adult leader posted at the corner of each section of chairs holding a bouncy ball. The challenge was for the kids in the section to pass the ball to each other as fast as they can until it reaches the end of the section of chairs, then pass it back to the first kid. The section that does this the fastest wins. The only real rule was that the ball had to touch the hands of EVERY kid in the section of chairs.

Line up for our Big Challenge (Selected kids get to play) games…

Kangaroo Pouch

We chose one boy and one girl to compete in this game. We scattered a bunch of ball pit balls on the play area and the contestants had to collect them in their trash bag while hopping inside the bag itself. It was a mix between an Easter egg hunt and a potato sack race. The contestant that collects the most ball pit balls at the end of 60 seconds is the winner. Make sure you setup a boundary around the play area because the kids watching will get very excited and want o rush into the field to join in the game. 

Props: 2 Trash bags, two bags of ball pit balls (or any object to collect)
Contestants: 2
Play Area: Large

Over Under

This is a classic game we have played for years at our church. Get a row of 8 boys lined up single file, do the same with the girls. Then give the first boy and the first girl a ball. The challenge is that the first child has to pass it to the person behind them OVER their head, the next child passes it behind them UNDER their legs, OVER, UNDER, OVER, UNDER. this happens until the ball reaches the last child and returns again to the front of the line. the first team do to this wins.

Props: 2 Bouncy Balls
Contestants: 16
Play Area: Medium

The Scoop

This game was boys verses girls. We setup the play area with four bowls (two for the boys and two for the girls). Working as a team the boys and girls had to transfer the ball pit balls from one bowl to the other as fast as they could using only spoons. The team that transferred the most ball pit balls to their other bowl was the winner. This game was lots of fun especially when the kids would drop the ball off the spoon and had to chase it down.

Props: 4 bowls, 20 ball pit balls, 4 spoons
Contestants: 4
Play Area: Medium

Lessons Learned this week:

Always, ALWAYS, test out your games in the actual play area and with the ACTUAL equipment you will be using with the game BEFORE the day of if possible.