Are You Prepared for Severe Weather?

Photo Credit: Niccolò Ubalducci Photographer via Compfight cc

What do Helen Hunt, Toto, and my Children's Ministry all have in common?  They've all faced some crazy situations thanks to tornadoes.  

During a Good Friday service in 2011, a funnel cloud was spotted near our church.  All of our environments were open, which meant we had kids from one end of the building to the other.  

The second our Children's Ministry team became aware of the threat, they sprang into action. They evacuated several dozen babies, toddlers and elementary students from their second floor environments.  Meanwhile, kids on the first floor were moved to safe zones in their rooms until the danger had passed.  

The team operated quickly and efficiently and kept kids calm because they had a plan, and everyone knew what how it worked.

Would you know what to do if that happened at your church?  Would your leaders know the plan as well as you do?

If not, I'd recommend three things:

1. Work with your church leadership to create a severe weather plan.

Identify safe areas of your building and outline a step-by-step process for moving kids. Where will you take kids and how will you get them there?  Who makes the call that it's time to move to shelter and who will give the all-clear when it's safe to return?

2. Create emergency kits for all of your environments.  

We've started using bright, red bags with a drawstring because they're easy to carry and to identify in case of an emergency.

Our preschool and elementary kits contain:

• flashlights
• rope
• bandaids
• gloves
• glow sticks
• crackers
• bottled water

Our nursery kits also contain:

• diapers
• wipes
• pacifiers

3. Make sure everyone knows the plan.  

It's up to you to ensure your team knows each step of your process and is familiar with the location and contents of the emergency kits.  That means you'll need to review the plan with your team periodically.  At my church, we communicate the severe weather plan to leaders as part of their initial orientation and then communicate it again every spring to keep it fresh.

4. Communicate the plan to parents.  

Each of our Children's Ministry welcome centers contains a card that gives new families an overview of the ministry and a separate card informing parents about what to do in case of severe weather or another emergency.

So take some time this season to figure out your emergency plan and put it into action.  Believe me, if severe weather ever does strike your church, you'll be glad you did.

Monday Makeover: Kids Pointe, Tupelo, Mississippi

Where: 
Cross Pointe Ministries, Tupelo, Mississippi

Who:  
Children's Minister, Jeremy White, and the Kids Pointe team.

What I love about this:
These guys had a lot of real estate to cover.  Just look at the sheer amount of square footage this team flipped for their kids.  Jeremy said they got a lot of mileage out of an old, broken down fence they salvaged because it was already rough and worn looking and covered a lot of space.

No professional theming companies were used, just volunteers and a boatload of creativity and sweat. This team took a simple space, and with some hard work, made it kid-friendly and cool.

How Much:

• $1,200 building supplies
• $500 paint/stain
• $250 antiques (shovels, buckets, barrels, shutters, etc)

Big Ticket Item:

• $3,000 80 inch TV (the cheapest "big" TV they could find to work in a really bright room)

Miscellaneous supplies:

• Burlap (donated) 
• Rope and barrels (found at garage sales)
• Old broken down fence (found)
• Mining cave made from a repurposed Easter prop the church had in the garage.

What's left?

• Water tower finishing touches
• Entrance sign with logo

Check out these before and after shots:

Back of Room

Stage Area 

Stage Area, House Right

Here are some detailed shots of the welcome desk, entrance and the rest of the  new space. 

Way to go, Kids Pointe!  You guys created the kind of space that builds excitement, engages kids' imaginations and reminds them kids matter at Cross Pointe.

Creative Seating for Children's Ministry

Seating for children's worship space is always tricky.  You need a place for kids to land to give them structure and keep the room organized.  However, if they're jumping up and down and dancing during worship, it's also nice to have plenty of flexibility to spread out.  

How about chairs for worship space?  Here's just a few reasons they're on my bad list:

• They get in the way during worship. 
• They're distracting to the kids.  
• They're an accident waiting to happen. 
• They're noisy.   
• It's hard to keep them in neat rows.
• They really limit your options when it comes to how you use your space.  

So what do you do?  

The best option we've found is this removable carpet floor tape.  We use it in our preschool environments at our two largest campuses.  

It sticks to the floor with industrial-grade Velcro, looks way better than gaffer tape or duct table and is super durable.  It comes in four-inch wide strips in plenty of kid-friendly colors: yellow, blue, white, red, orange and green. 

Once you stick this stuff down to your carpet, it's not going anywhere (though you can remove it and stick it down again if needed).  I was convinced our kids would pick it apart in a matter of weeks, but after months of use, they haven't even made a dent in it.

  

It has a hard, glossy finish which looks great and makes it super easy to clean or sanitize if a kid gets sick on it or if a large group lesson gets a little on the messy side.  

At our church kids check into color-coded breakout rooms (orange and blue), so we've used the same color to show where kids from the two different rooms land when they come to large group worship. This makes dismissal easy because we can call the kids out by color.

If you'd like to try this awesome carpet tape for yourself, you can order it online at Stop-Painting.com.

Kidmin Make-Over: Fountaintown Christian Church

When it comes to effective Children's Ministry, facilities aren't everything.  They're no substitute for passionate, empowered leaders, transformational teaching or helping parents to get excited about discipling their kids at home.

But, let's be honest, awesome decor sure can make a difference.  It shows kids that they're so special you've designed a place just for them.  It shows parents you take the care of their kids seriously.  And it shows prospective leaders that Children's Ministry is a fun, exciting place to serve.

That doesn't mean, however, that you have a have a huge building or million dollar budget to make it happen.  It just means you need to be intentional.  You have to make a decision that you're going to make the most of the space you have, and will make the most compelling case possible to your leaders to invest strategic dollars in your rooms.

Here's a great example.   My friends Josh and Debbie Hahn lead Fountaintown Christian Church near Indianapolis.  The church averages around 120 people on a Sunday, but they are serious about reaching kids and families.

A few years ago, I got to hang out with their kidmin team and talk about possibilities of what they could do with their space.  And guess what?  They did it.  They renovated this youth area into a really cool Children's Ministry room.

It's amazing the difference some paint, carpet and a vinyl graphic can make (not to mention ditching old furniture).

In the picture below you'll see that by removing this kitchen area, the Fountaintown team was able to capture a great corner for children's worship, complete with stage and flatscreen TV.

So how about you?  Even if you can't afford the TV or the carpet, can you throw away old furniture, clean out the clutter and get some fun colors on the wall?  How about a vinyl graphic?  They're much sharper and easier to maintain than murals or paintings.

Whatever you can do, whatever space you have, whatever your budget, just take a step.  Follow Fountaintown's example and make your kidmin space a priority.

Decor isn't everything, but when done right, it communicates that Children's Ministry is an awesome place to be.

When It Comes to Decor, Sometimes Less Is More

One of the things I love about my team at Southland is their knack for creating inviting spaces. Take this preschool breakout room, for example.  It's simple.  It's clean.  It's clutter free.  There's nothing particularly fancy about it, no murals or bulletin boards or flashing neon signs.  In fact, I'd say what makes it look so appealing is as much what you don't see as what you do see.

• You don't see any junk.  
• You don't see hand-written paper signs on the walls.  
• You don't see worn out cardboard cut-outs left-over from 1983.  

You see fun colors, intentional spaces and toys that are practically begging to be played with.

This is how the room looks right before check-in (and it's reset like this before each service).   Clearly we're expecting company because we've cleaned up and prepared the space to receive our very special tiny guests and their parents.

Leveraging the Wow Factor

When Andrew came into the breakout room, I could tell he was going to have a rough time.  It was promotion weekend, the weekend when the new 3 year-olds move up to Animation Station, our large group/small group environment for 3's-Pre K kids.

Andrew looked sleepy and clung to his dad's neck with no sign of budging.  His parents tried to coerce him to stay but weren't having much luck.  They were already running late for service and kept apologizing, obviously embarrassed.

I assured them that it was a big change for all the kids and tried to put them ease, but I knew I had to do something to win Andrew over or he'd end up in the adult service for the night.  The breakout room had blocks and puzzles on the floor but none of that was working.  I had to go big.

"Hey, Andrew," I said.  "You like robots?"  He looked up for the first time.   I said, "Come check this out, guys.  I think you're going to like it."

I led the family into our large group theater which is pretty awesome.  It's loaded with over-sized art supplies to help kids understand that God is a big artist who made them special.  And for this weekend's lesson we had a robot.

When Andrew saw it, he was sold.

But then I clenched the deal.  I showed him the coloring book.  Our coloring book is eight feet tall and ten feet wide.  When the kids walk in for the large group program, it's closed, but the storyteller opens it during the lesson to use as the backdrop for where kids are going to pretend to go that day.  It's a cool effect.

When I opened the coloring book, Andrew totally forgot about mom and dad.  They went to church, and he had a blast.  It meant the world to the parents because instead of leaving their kid crying, they got to leave him in a place he loved.   That's the magic of an amazing environment.

I pulled that same stunt several times this weekend and had 100% success rate.  Why?  Because kids couldn't wait to see what was going to happen on that stage.  They could see we'd built a special place just for them.

The cool thing is once the kids stayed, they weren't disappointed.  I saw one of hesitant girls gushing to her mom and dad after the service, "It was awesome!  You should have stayed!  It was really, really awesome!"   The parents (who an hour earlier were in the same boat as Andrew's parents) were smiling and laughing, obviously thrilled that their little girl LOVED church.

Honestly, when we built these environments, we were primarily thinking about how to use them for worship and storytelling, but since then, we've learned to leverage their wow factor in all kinds of ways.  The wow factor helps us win over new kids on special weekends like this and shows parents that we value their family so much that we put the time and money into crafting an unbelievably fun setting for their kids to discover God.

So, what about you?  What are you doing to create a wow factor in your church, and are you using it for more than just worship and teaching?

Okay, so not everyone can have a stage with a giant coloring book, but that doesn't mean you can't crank up the wow factor in your ministry.   For you, the wow factor could be as simple as a fresh, kid-friendly paint job or decking out your room with an outrageous prop.  One weekend I was teaching 3rd-5th graders about Peter walking on water and borrowed a kayak from a guy in our church.  Free wow.  The kids couldn't wait to see what we were going to do with it.

The point is, whatever resources you have, inject your environments with as much kid-appeal as possible.  Not only will it set the stage to bring the Bible to life but it will communicate tremendous value to kids and parents alike.

4 Inexpensive Ideas to Jazz Up Your Space

Image: 'Green Paint' http://www.flickr.com/photos/11495009@N00/3890162979

Found on flickrcc.net

Relevant Children's Ministries look and feel like a place kids want to go.  Think Disney. Think Build-a-Bear.  Think Great Wolf Lodge.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that these places are built for kids, and every kids who walks in the door knows it.  

These awesome environments tell kids, "This is a place just for you!"

And yet when kids come to church, they often get stuck in dingy Sunday School rooms and leaky basements.  Or at the very least we give them plain, institutional classrooms that look like school.  If we're serious about communicating the  Bible to kids by speaking into their world, this can't be good enough.  A kid's world is fun!   

We have to create environments that speak a kid's language.  We have to do everything we can create space with tons of kid-appeal.   

The biggest reason we don't?  Money!  

The great news is, though, that you don’t have to have a million dollar building or a million dollar budget to create a place kids love to go.  You just have to be smart with what you have.

Here's a place to start.  Try these four inexpensive ideas to create a cool vibe in your kids' space that will tell kids, "Church is a place just for you!"

1. Play cool music as kids are arriving the room.  This creates a sense of anticipation and fun and makes it feel more like a party than a library.  Before the kids even get to the room, they can tell that something fun is going on inside.   Choose music that sounds upbeat and current.

Here are a couple of CDs from Amber Sky Records our church is using right now for walk-in music.  Put these on next weekend and see what a difference it makes for the fun factor in the room.










Buy Zapped! here  









Buy Turn it Up here












2. Declutter the room.  Let's face it.  Children's Ministry often gets left-over space and left-over junk.  So clean out all that extra stuff, tear down the outdated posters and make intentional use of your space.  Just organizing your rooms can make a huge difference.  For a great example of clutter-free space, check out this post.

3. Slap a fresh coat of paint on the walls.  If you can’t afford to paint the whole room, just paint the wall kids see when they walk into the room.  It will make your room more inviting and draw them in.  

There's a reason Disney stuck a big castle in the middle of the Magic Kingdom.  It's designed to draw people down Main Street to get them into the heart of the park.   So, do the same thing by making the first things kids see as awesome as possible.  

When choosing a color, you don't have to go primary.  Go for something funky and fresh.  Here's a great idea from Aaron Reynolds: pick cool colors by going to stores like Old Navy or Aeropostale and look at their current gift cards.  They’re usually designed with trendy colors that kids love.

4. Finally, use a key prop from the story to build a sense of anticipation.  For example, one week I told the story of Peter walking on water, and I borrowed a kayak from a guy in our church.  It was huge!  The kids walked into what was ordinarily a pretty boring room and freaked out.  Everybody wanted to know why it was there.  Not only did it raise curiosity about the lesson, it told kids that church is a place where anything can happen.

Put these ideas into action over the next couple of months and watch how they transform even the simplest of rooms into a place every kid wants to go. 

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