Making the Most of Holidays with Kids

It’s not always easy to make the holidays meaningful for our kids.  Take it from me.  I learned the hard way. 

A few years ago my daughter’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving.  We had cake and presents first thing in the morning, then shifted gears to prepare for a traditional dinner with family.  Before we knew it, the house was flooded with relatives we hadn’t seen in ages, and we spent the whole afternoon playing games, watching football and catching up.

Later that night, when I tucked my daughter into bed, I asked her if she’d had a good Thanksgiving.  She gave me a confused look and said, “It was Thanksgiving?” 

She thought the whole day had been about her­–her birthday, her presents, her celebration.  I couldn’t blame her.  It was an epic parenting failure.  In the busyness of preparing for the holiday, we had never talked about what we were celebrating and why. 

Even without a birthday thrown into the mix, the busyness of the holidays can make it tough for parents to keep family discipleship on the front burner.  We want the holidays to be spiritually significant, but how can we do it in a way that’s light and easy? 

Read More on the 3DM Publishing Blog

Book Review: Pig and Sheep

Pig and Sheep is my favorite picture book to come along in years.  Not only is it a delightful story that’s well-told with engaging text and charming illustrations, it’s also a powerful story of grace. 

Little Pig lives in the Grand Pig Sty, enjoying his slops and mud, until one day he spots a shepherd leading his flock nearby.  That’s the day Little Pig begins to dream of becoming a sheep.  Once he meets the kind-hearted shepherd, that dream becomes reality. 

But as many of us have learned the hard way, the transformation from pig to sheep is not always an easy one.  When Little Pig returns to the Grand Pig Sty for one last party, he learns just how much the shepherd truly loves him.

Webinar: Building a Discipling Culture In Children's Ministry

Over the last twenty years I've chased a LOT of trends in Children's Ministry.   I've watched the pendulum swing from event-driven ministry (just how many carnivals can you do in one year?) to weekend-driven ministry to family-driven ministry.  And I'm sure in a couple of years we'll have a something-else-driven ministry model that will be the next big thing. We'll have a conference for it and everything, until, of course, a new trend emerges.

But, honestly, I'm kind of tired of chasing trends.  I'd much rather chase Jesus.  When you look at the life of Jesus, He says ministry really comes down to one thing - go and make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.  

Are we really doing that?  Or are we just keeping kids busy?  

Effective Children's Ministry is about making disciples.  It's actually much simpler and much harder than any trend we could chase.  

Three years ago, I discovered some really helpful tools produced by a group of folks who are discipleship ninjas, my friends at 3DM.  I loved their discipleship stuff so much I asked them if I could bring it to children's ministry.  

Last summer we released the first year of a curriculum called Kairos Quest that's now being used in churches all over the world.  I've been connecting with those churches over the last couple of weeks, and have learned a ton about how they are innovating and getting serious about making kid disciples in their churches.  

Next Monday, at 2:00 pm, I'm going to share some of what I've been learning in a webinar for 3DM called Building a Discipling Culture in Children's Ministry.  I'm really excited about what God's up to in unleashing a discipleship revolution with families and can't wait to dive into it with you on Monday.  

Here's the official blurb and how to register if you're interested:

Building a Discipling Culture In Children's Ministry

The tools of discipleship and mission are not just for the adults in your church — in fact, a discipling language can and should be taught to the youngest members of your community. Within the missional movement worldwide, kids are being taught to live as disciples of Jesus and to disciple their peers. Parents are being taught to take a more primary role as disciplers of their children, and the Church is empowering and equipping them to lead a family on mission that calls the next generation into a lifelong adventure in God's kingdom.

Resourcing children's workers is an important part of what we do — as well as one of the most consistent requests we receive. To that end, we would love to invite you to join us on Monday March 4th from 2-3:30p (EST) for a webinar on How to build a discipling culture in your children's ministry. 

In this webinar, Jason Byerly (Children's Pastor at Southland Christian Church and author ofKairos Quest) will discuss how churches within the missional movement are using their children's ministry to plant the DNA of discipleship and mission with children and their parents! He'll be discussing the way a shared discipleship language can give families a compass they can use it to navigate whatever life throws at them that week and what that looks like in a range of ministry contexts.

Some areas we'll be covering on this webinar:

- Our philosophy of children's ministry

- Scope and Sequence of our curriculum 

- Stories of breakthrough and practical examples

- Q&A

You can register for the webinar by clicking here or by visiting kairosquest.eventbrite.com.

We hope you can make it — and look forward to talking with you more. If you have any questions about the webinar, Kairos Quest or 3DM in general, please don't hesitate to contact Peter Wyngaard, our Resource Specialist, at peter@weare3dm.com. 

Inside Kairos Quest

Over the past couple of months since the release of 3DM's Kairos Quest, I've had some questions about what exactly it covers. What is the scope and sequence? How is the curriculum organized?  How do the units fit together?

To answer some of those questions, here's an inside peek at each unit.

If you just want a general overview of the curriculum, click here to see a previous post.  Otherwise, read on.

New Kairos Quest Curriculum Is Here!

Today I’m excited to announce the pre-release of Kairos Quest, a 39 week large group/small group elementary curriculum that I’ve spent the last year writing with 3DM Ministries.  3DM provides hundreds of churches worldwide with practical tools to do discipleship and mission in an increasingly post-Christian world.

When I first discovered what these guys were doing, it supercharged my faith like nothing I’d ever experienced in the church.  As a part of a 3DM learning community, I received some of the most helpful biblical teaching of my life.  So as a Children’s Pastor, it didn’t take long before I found myself volunteering to help bring this awesome Bible teaching to the world of Kidmin. 

Two years later we have Kairos Quest. 

Kairos Quest is all about helping kids discover the adventure of following Jesus.  It gives kids a biblical framework for their lives by exploring the two big ideas from Scripture: relationship and responsibility.   In Kairos Quest kids will discover what it means to live as a kid of the King and how God wants to use them to bring His kingdom to earth.   

Each week of Kairos Quest contains:

• A large group lesson full of creative storytelling techniques designed to bring the Bible to life.
• A huddle lesson to help smaller groups of kids apply what they’ve experienced to their everyday lives.
• A family take-home activity to do with their parents.

Overview

Quarter 1, Lessons 1-13:  Introduces something called LifeShapes, a simple way to use geometric shapes to help kids explore some big Bible concepts like discipleship, community and prayer.

Quarter 2, Lessons 14-26:  Covers the Christmas story and then begins a wild ride through the Old Testament, exploring the themes of relationship and responsibility through the key players in the Bible.

Quarter 3, Lessons 27-39:  Continues the relationship and responsibility story in New Testament with the life, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus and the birth of the early church. 

So if you’re trying to figure out an easy way to get discipleship and mission into the drinking water with the kids at your church, and you’d like to give them a strong overview of the Bible’s big story, then check out Kairos Quest.   It’s about Jesus, kids and adventure.  What could be more fun than that?

The curriculum officially releases on July 15, but you can download a free sample or go ahead and pre-order the entire 39 weeks at a significant discount.  

To download a free four week sample unit, click here.

To purchase the 39 weeks for your church, click here.  Those who pre-order during the month of June will get $100 off the total price of the curriculum.