Episode 21: Making Move Up Sunday Awesome for Families

Whenever you transition the kids in your Children's Ministry to a new room or grade, it's a great opportunity to make a special touch with parents. In today's episode we will look some simple ways you can be more intentional when it comes to Move Up Sunday, Promotion Sunday or whatever you may call it in your church.

You can listen in iTunes or on the media player below.

Episode 16: How to Share Vision with Parents

Do the parents in your church know what your Children’s Ministry is all about?  How do you communicate vision? If you want some ideas on how to get better at it, then check out this episode of the Simple Kidmin podcast.




Listen right here on the blog or in iTunes.

In this episode I talk about five reasons you need to share the vision of your Children's Ministry with parents.  Then, I go into seven different vehicles you can use to share vision.

One of the vehicles I mention is strategic events such as Parent Dedication, 5th Grade Celebration and KidSplash.  You can learn more about each of those in previous episodes of the podcast.

Another vehicle I talk about in this episode is starting a parent email newsletter.  You can check my church's parent newsletter here.

How to Set Up a Parent Email Newsletter

If you're interested in starting your parent email newsletter, which I highly recommend in this episode, you can use a service like Mailchimp.  There are others out there, but Mailchimp is the one I'm most familiar with.  Best of all, Mailchimp has a free option that allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers and send up 12,000 emails a month (as of the time of this post).

If you want to set up your own parent newsletter on Mailchimp, here are four easy steps:

1. Set up your account.  Start here.
2. Create an email list.  Basically this just means creating a group of people (like Children's Ministry parents) you want to send an email to.
3. Ask parents to sign up.  I would do a big push at first and then make it a part of the process for enrolling a child into your ministry.  Here's how to create a signup form.
4. Send your first email!  Mailchimp calls each email you send a "campaign."  Here's how to send one.

For more tips on how to use this awesome tool, check out Episode 16 of the podcast.

Speaking of newsletters, you can sign up for the Simple Kidmin newsletter so you don't miss a post or episode of the podcast.


How to Set Up a Parent Blog

It's a good idea to post your newsletter content to a blog as well so you can refer parents to previously published posts.  You can just put part of your content in your newsletter and link to the blog to read more so your email is relatively short or you can publish all of your content on both.

There are several free blogging platforms.  Wordpress.com is an easy one to start with.  Here's a great tutorial to walk you through setting up a blog from scratch.

How to Create Vision-Packed Recruiting Videos

Also in this episode I make a reference to our annual recruiting video/announcement and how these are a great tool for casting vision, not just for potential leaders but for everyone in the church.  Here's a post  I wrote talking about how we create those videos (along with a few examples).

Episode 14: How to Help Parents Have an Awesome First Day in Children's Ministry

Listen on the media player on the blog or over on iTunes.

What do parents experience the first time they walk into your Children's Ministry?  Does it make a great first impression?  Or does it leave parents wondering if they can really trust you with their kids?

Today we will be talking about how to win with new moms and dads in your church.  We will hit the three questions parents use to evaluate your ministry and how you can make sure the answer to each of those question is positive.

Finally, we will also talk about the vital role leaders play in a parent's first day and look at the five people you do not want greeting your guests.  Trust me.  You do not want these folks in charge of your first impressions.

Episode 009: Challenging Parent Conversations Part 2

In today's episode we're going to look at ten tips you need to consider when talking to parents about their child's behavior.  These conversations are never fun, but if we think through them in advance, they can turn into a great opportunity to build a relationship with parents and help kids thrive in church.  

Click here to listen in iTunes.

In Episode 007, we dove into part one of this conversation, what to do when parents bring a complaint or concern to us.  Today we will look at the flip side and work on a plan for the times we have to have to initiate a challenging conversation with parents.  You can find the ten steps outlined below.  

Ten Steps for Hard Conversations with Parents

1. Open the lines of communication early.
2. Choose the best time and location to talk. 
3. Put yourself on their team.
4. Clearly state what happened.
5. Watch your tone.
6. Don't diagnose someone else's child.
7. Be solution sided. 
8. Celebrate the child's success in the future.
9. Don't be afraid to call in backup.
10. Pray.

To hear more about each of these, listen to Episode 009.

Christmas Resources

On the podcast today I also challenged each of us to take some intentional time and slow down this Christmas to enjoy our friendship with God.   I mentioned my book Holiday Road: A Christmas Devotional, a fun, light-hearted devotional written to help focus your heart for the advent season.  Holiday Road is available in both paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Also, here is a free Bible study based on Holiday Road that you can use with or without buying the book.

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Episode 007: Challenging Parent Conversations Part 1

If you’ve been in serving in Children’s Ministry for more than a week, you’ve probably already had to have some hard conversations with parents. Whether they had a complaint about Children’s Ministry or you had to talk to them about their child’s behavior, these conversations are never fun, but if we handle them right, they are a great opportunity for ministry.

In today's podcast we'll cover nine tips that will help you take these potentially challenging conversations and use them to build bridges between your Children's Ministry and the families you serve.


Click here to listen in iTunes.

9 Tips for Handling Tough Conversations Download

9 tips are a lot to remember so make download the Parent Conversation Cheat Sheet and keep it on your phone or some place handy as a reference for when you're dealing with a tough conversation.


What kind of problem are you facing?

To address a parent's concern, it's helpful to know what kind of problem you're facing.  Is it a people problem?  A process problem?  A programming problem?  Or maybe a preference problem?  Download the Problem Analysis Tool to help you figure out which one you may be dealing with.  

Keep in the mind, there can be quite a bit of overlap between these four areas, and the challenges we face are often a mixture of one or more of these categories.


Finally, there's one category of problem I didn't mention, and that is a perception problem.  Sometimes the problem you're dealing with appears to be one category but it turns out to be more of a perception issue.  For example, several years ago a well-meaning mom suggested that we should consider doing a lesson or a Bible story while her kids were in Children's Ministry.  It was hard not to laugh because that's pretty much all we do.  

In her mind, this was a programming problem, because she thought we just spent the whole hour playing with the kids.  In reality, however, it was a perception problem, because the only thing she was kids playing with their leaders during check in time and watching a video during check out.   It was up to us to help her learn about what we were teaching and to point her toward the tools we provide parents so she could continue those conversations at home.  

Is this a problem to be solved or a tension to be managed?

In this fantastic leadership talk by Andy Stanley, Andy talks about the difference between problems in our ministry that need solutions and tensions that need to be managed that actually help us make progress as a church.  

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Children's Ministry Isn't Just for Kids

Who are you trying to reach with your Children's Ministry? For years, I would have said my answer was kids. After all, it is called Children's Ministry, right? Seems like a no brainer.

But the longer I've served in the church, the more I've come to realize that kids are only one of the audiences I need to consider if I want to help the next generation to fall in love with Jesus and follow him.

Okay, so if it's not all about the kids, then who are we trying to reach? Our volunteer leaders? After all, they're the ones on the front lines building relationships week after week. Or how about the parents? No question, God designed them to be the primary disciplers of their children. So maybe we should just target the parents?

Actually, the most effective Children's Ministries go after all three: kids, leaders and parents. You can build the most awesome kid-centered Children's Ministry on the planet, but if you don't build it for leaders, it could be a miserable place to serve. Or if you don't consider the needs of parents, you'll never build bridges between the church and home, and you'll never help kids reach their full spiritual potential without parents leading the way.

On the other hand, if you create a fantastic environment for leaders and parents, but don't build a place children love to go, you'll have a mutiny on your hands. Parents will have to drag their kids to church, and no leader will want to lead a bunch of bored, disengaged kids.

That's why in our Children's Ministry we've started putting everything through the lens of each audience we're trying to reach: kids, parents & leaders.  It's like a three-legged stool. It's not sufficient to have only one or two legs in place. Without all three, the whole thing collapses.

So, how do we do that?  Well, we don't always.  Some weeks we hit one better than others. On a rough week, we may strike out on all three.  But the more we approach our ministry with all three groups of people in mind, the closer we get to the mark.

When everything works right, it looks like this:

New Year's Eve Family Devotion

Holidays are a great opportunity to start spiritual conversations with our family.  They offer us a chance to build meaningful traditions and point our kids to back to God even if the holiday itself has little or no spiritual significance.  Kids love holidays, and they make a fun excuse to talk about God together.  Following is the first of several family devotions I’ll be writing in 2015 on my new family discipleship blog to help parents make the most of the holidays throughout the year.  

New Year's Eve Family Devotion

Why a separate family discipleship blog?

Because I'm super excited about equipping families and feel like God is calling me to resource parents in a whole new way in 2015.  To do that effectively I'm creating a site just for them.

The Simple Kidmin blog will continue to be a place where I'll speak directly to Children's Ministry leaders while JasonByerly.com will be my home base for parents.

At JasonByerly.com I will be writing family devotionals and sharing tips about following Jesus together.   If you'd like to subscribe to my family discipleship blog, you can sign up below.

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VeggieTales In the House

After twenty years of entertaining kids with Bible stories told by fresh produce, VeggieTales is getting yanked out of the crisper for a much-needed overhaul.  Beginning Wednesday, November 26th, families will get a chance to check out VeggieTales in the House, a brand-new show produced by Big Idea.

Best of all, if you're Netflix subscriber, you get to watch it absolutely free.  Since they're on Netflix, families will have more opportunities to discover VeggieTales than ever before.

I am super-excited about this show for four reasons:

1. The look and story-telling have been re-imagined for 21st century kids.
2. The episodes I've seen are very funny and fast-paced.
3. Each episode teaches a simple Bible truth in a seriously fun way.  There's always a key Scripture at the end.
4. Because of the popularity of Netflix, I believe this is going to connect with a lot of parents who have no connection to church.

If you're an old-school VeggieTales fan, just let me warn you, this is not the VeggieTales you know, but that's okay.  You have twenty years of classic veggie DVDs to keep you happy.  This is a show to reach new people.

So what's different?

• The character designs have been tweaked to give the veggies a modern look.  Spoiler alert!  The veggies all have pupils!
• There's no frame story with Bob and Larry introducing and wrapping up each show.
• The show is more like a continuing sitcom than a stand-alone story.
• You won't see any straight up retelling of Bible stories (like Josh and the Big Wall), rather everyday stories that illustrate the challenges of living out your faith while providing biblical solutions.
• Some of the voices are different.  For example, Junior Asparagus no longer sounds cutesy and adorable.  He just sounds like a normal guy who I think will more relatable to elementary boys.

If this freaks you out, I get it.  I started in Children's Ministry just a couple of years after VeggieTales first launched.  They were they most creative Christian kids' videos out there and were beloved by adults and kids alike.

But let's face it.  All vegetables have a shelf life, and Bob and Larry are no exception.  They why Big Idea decided to pump some fresh creative juice into these guys to make them relevant for a whole new generation of kids.

From what I've seen, it looks like Big Idea will also continue to produce DVDs, having just released a couple this fall.  The new character design will roll out with their Noah's Ark DVD in the spring of 2015.  Given that this one is based on a Bible story, I'm wondering if the DVDs will be their creative platform to do full-blown Bible stories, along with other stories that don't fit in the format of the Netflix series.

So this holiday season, if you're looking for something for your kids to watch on the road to grandma's or while you're wrapping presents, head over to Netflix and check out VeggieTales In the House.  As always the veggies will be good for you, and I believe your kids will find the new stories delicious.

Full Disclosure:  Big Idea sent me a basket of veggies as a part of their promotional package for the new show, but the thoughts and opinions in their review are my own.  Besides, my team gave the veggies away while I was on vacation, which is too bad because they really looked tasty.

You can check out the trailer here:

Jesus Party, a New Devotional for Kids and Families

As ministry leaders I know we're always looking for new ways to get our kids and parents talking about faith at home.  That's why I'm sharing a free resource with you today called Jesus Party.  

Jesus Party is a devotional for kids and families based on the book Jesus Prom by Jon Weece.  In Jesus Prom, Jon writes, “Life gets fun when you love people like God does.” But those of us with kids know that it’s even more fun when we include our whole family. 

There’s nothing like serving with our kids to remind us of what really matters in life. Not only does it touch our hearts as parents to see our kids loving others, but it sets them up for a life of purpose and joy.

That’s why I wrote Jesus Party. Jesus Party takes the ideas of Jesus Prom and explains them in a way that children can understand and put into action.

Though Jesus Party works as a stand alone resource, it's even more powerful when parents are reading Jesus Prom along with it.  

Jesus Party would make a great family devotional or could be read by older elementary kids all by themselves.  Either way you use it, Jesus Party will inspire families to have great conversations about loving God and loving people.

So, what are you waiting for? Download a free copy of Jesus Party and let the celebration begin!

6 Tools to Build Bridges Between the Church and the Home

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In my last post I talked about the fact that your church's family ministry will likely look very different from mine.  Why?  Because God has a unique plan for the families in your church.   

Because of this, the bridges you build between the church and the home will have their own distinctive feel.  But that doesn't mean you and I won't use some of the same building blocks to get there.  We might.  It's just that the way we combine and utilize them will reflect the individual identity of our church, families and leadership.  

Here are six bridge building blocks you might consider.  They're not an exhaustive list for sure, but they may be helpful in connecting with the families in your church.

Communication Pieces
This is anything you send home or pipe out digitally to families to get them having spiritual conversations at home.  

This can be everything from blog posts to family discussion cards, CDs or video links that prompt kids and parents to talk about faith together.

Sometimes you can tie these to special season like we did a few years ago for a fun series of family cards we did called the Monsters Who Stole Christmas.

Family Worship Services
Over the past several years we've created experiences to get kids and parents worshipping together. For many summers we did a big family production called Who's In the House that was half worship service, half Disney-style musical. We've also done simpler versions during our weekend services and special Christmas services, anything to get moms, dads and kids worshipping together.

Family Fun Nights
This could be a family carnivals, a holiday memory-making event, family skate night or drive-in movie night. Anything that's a fun excuse to get families to hang out together and experience community works here. It's also a great opportunity to encourage families to invite their unchurched friends to check out church in an easy, non-threatening environment.


Family Service Experiences
There's nothing that connects the bigger church to individual church families like serving together. A few weeks ago we had hundreds of kids, parents and grandparents who came together to pack a million meals in 24 hours for our friends in Haiti. You can check out the video here.

Teaching Experiences
Teaching experiences might be a sermon series on family discipleship, parenting workshops, baby dedication services or even environments that teach multiple generations at the same time. We do a cool event called KidSplash where we lay out John 3:16 in a way that both parents and kids can understand it. We've had more than 2,000 people go through KidSplash in the last five years, with lots of kids and parents getting baptized as a result of God working through this experience.

Special Touches
We encourage our Children's Ministry Life Group leaders to make a special effort to build bridges with the families they serve. Our leaders sometimes send e-mails or cards to parents introducing themselves, have face-to-face conversations to get to know parents and send kids special cards called "Fan Mail" to cheer kids on or celebrate them in some way.  

We also went the extra mile during promotion season this year and gave families some special themed photo ops as their kids promoted up to the next environment. This experience also included family open houses and a special video tour we made available to parents of children promoting up from the Nursery to our Preschool environment.


So there you go, six ideas that you can use in a ton of different ways to begin building bridges between your church and families. Use them, adapt them or throw them out. Hopefully if none of these are a good fit for your ministry, they will serve as a springboard helping you discover the unique D6 Destiny God has for your church.

Have you had success with any of these building blocks or are there others God is using in your church to get families talking about faith at home?

Family Toolbox: Recommended Resources for Parents

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One of the best things we can do to build a bridge between the church and the home is to provide our parents with solid resources that set them up to win.  Our goal is to put helpful tools in their hands that help them feel confident as they lead their kids to follow Jesus.  

Here's a list of the best resources that our Children's Ministry team recommends to parents at Southland.  

Audio

Spiritual Parenting 

In this message at Christ Community Church, Michelle Anthony provides a great framework for parenting with eternity in mind.  Powerful and encouraging.

Videos

Future Family  

Raising children is one of the biggest challenges in life. It requires all of our strengths and talents. It makes us keenly aware of our weaknesses. In this message, Andy and Sandra Stanley of North Point Community Church tell you everything they know about parenting. This isn't everything there is to know, just what they know.

Think Orange 

In this message at Southland, guest speaker Reggie Joiner shares a powerful vision for spiritual parenting and how the combined influence of church and family can impact the life of a child.  

Building Bridges Between Church & Home, Part 2

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As leaders in the church one of our greatest responsibilities is building bridges between the church and the home. I talked more about why in Part 1 of this series. The bottom line is when we build these bridges, both families and churches grow stronger.

So how do you do that? What exactly do these bridges look like?  

Well, the truth is there are a lot of different types of bridges. Here are a few examples from the bridge experts over at Wikipedia:

• arch bridges
• beam bridges
• cantilever bridges
• suspension bridges
• cable-stayed bridges
• covered bridges
• pontoon bridges
• girder bridges
• log bridges
• step-stone bridges
• draw bridges

Even in that list there are many variations in design, materials and construction. Why? Because each bridge is built by a specific group of people to serve a specific function within a specific place.

The same is true for the church. If you look at churches who are successfully building bridges between the church and the home, you will see a wide variety of models. Why? Because each bridge is built by a specific group of leaders to serve a specific congregation within a specific local church setting.

Building Bridges Between Church & Home, Part 1

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Bridges are a big deal.  Take the Sherman Minton bridge in Louisville, Ky, for instance.  It spans the Ohio River carrying thousands of drivers on I-64 from Indiana to Louisville and back every day. 

Back in 2011, inspectors discovered cracks in the structure, shut down the bridge and threw Louisville traffic into chaos for five grueling months.  $20 million later the bridge reopened and people cheered like it was the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Why?

Because without the right bridges in place, life becomes a lot harder than it needs to be.  True for commuters, but also true, and with much greater stakes, for families and the church.

Being a parent is hard.  Raising kids to love and follow Jesus is hard.  Helping your kids to be a light in a dark world is hard.   Inspiring your kids to become the people God made them to be?  Hard!

But all of this is much harder without a church that empowers and supports you.  What parents need is a bridge, a bridge that connects the church and the home, a bridge that provides you as a parent with vision, community, encouragement, and helfpul tools to make the tough journey of parenting a journey of joy and victory.  

Sure, parenting kids to follow Jesus is still hard, but when the church and families work together, amazing things can happen.  

As I tell the parents in our church, "You are the experts on your kids, but sometimes, even the experts need a little help."  

One of our greatest challenges as leaders in the church is providing that help by building bridges between church and the home.  

That's why I'm so excited that the theme of this year's D6 Conference is "Connect."  It's going to be two days focused on building these bridges between church and the home.  I'm going to be leading two breakouts to help people figure out what those bridges might look like in their church.  Here's a sneak peek:

Easy First Steps to Creating a D6 Culture
How can you build a D6 culture in your church in the midst of all of your other responsibilities?  The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  In this session, you will learn how to retool what you’re already doing to empower parents and ignite a passion for families in your church.  

Kid-Speak: Giving Parents the Language to Talk About Faith at Home
Spiritual conversations can be intimidating for parents. They may understand their own relationship with God but don’t have the words to talk about it with their kids. In this session, we’ll look at simple techniques that will give parents confidence to have faith conversations at home.

I'd love for you to join me there so that we can dive into bridge building together.  

For those of you who can't attend, I'll be unpacking some of the big pieces of bridge building over the next week right here on the blog.  We'll look at six tools for building bridges between church and home and how to take advantage of special seasons of opportunity to connect with parents.  

Check out Part 2 of this post here.

How about you?  What are you doing right now to build bridges between church and the home?

Flipping Take-Home Papers On Their Head

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For years our team has wrestled with the dilemma of the take-home paper.  You know, the stuff we send home to tell parents what we taught their kids so they can talk about it at home?  Sure, we all agree that God's plan is for parents to be the spiritual leaders at home.  We all agree that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church.

But do the papers we send at home each week really help?  Does anyone actually use them?  Or do they end up as paper airplanes or wadded up in the floorboard of the minivan on the way home?

Okay, first I think there's nothing wrong with take-home papers.  For parents who are already discipling their kids, they can be a good tool to keep the conversation going.  Also churches that have a strong discipling culture have a much better chance of seeing families actually put these to good use.

But I was really challenged last year when I read what Michelle Anthony wrote about take-home papers in her book, Dreaming of More for the Next Generation.  Anthony talks about the fact that take-home papers may be sending the wrong message to parents.  She writes, "Without saying it directly, I was communicating that we would be the primary teachers of God's Word and they would support us by reinforcing the message at home."

So what did she and her team do?  They flipped the process on it's head.  Her ministry created a pre-teach resource to equip parents to be the first one to read the Bible story to their kids.  This put the Children's Ministry in the position of just following up on what was happening at home.

"Now, instead of parents asking, 'What did you learn in church today?'" Anthony says, "we, the ministry leaders, were able to ask the children, 'What did you learn at home this week?'"

Upside-Down Prayers for Parents

Every once in awhile a book comes along that I think really makes God smile.  Upside-Down Prayers for Parents is definitely one of those books.  

Parenting devos are nothing new, but Lisa T. Bergren's approach is fresh and totally unexpected.   In fact, like the title says, these prayers are genuinely upside-down from the kind of things we typically pray for our kids.  

Praying for kids to fail, weep and grow weary is not exactly the stuff of your typical happy parenting book, but they are the kinds of prayers that make all of us more like Jesus.  Just check out some of the titles to see why I think this book makes God smile.  

Day 2   I pray you'll fail in things that don't matter - and learn to seek God in what matters most.

Day 9   I pray you'll experience unanswered prayers - and develop deeper, wider trust.   

Day 22 I pray you'll face financial hardship - and see how God is after something bigger than food and shelter.  

Yeah, I know.  No warm fuzzies here.  But like Lisa says, these are the kinds of prayers that actually lead to spiritual growth, the greatest hope we can ever have for our kids.

As a dad working through these prayers, I can tell you that sometimes they are downright painful to pray for my own kids and just as painful to pray for myself.  But this is the kind of parenting, and the kind of prayers, that will prepare our kids to face anything, and come out stronger and closer to God.

Thanks, Lisa, for stretching me as a dad to care about bigger things for my girls and for myself.  Thanks for reflecting the heart of God!

You can find Upside-Down Prayers for Parents on Amazon, and you can check out more from Lisa T. Bergren on her website.

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.