Yesterday was “Meeting Monday!” Every Monday the Waumba Land Directors from each campus meet for the first half of the day and the UpStreet and KidStuf Directors meet for the afternoon. You can read more about our meeting structure here. I thought it might be fun to share what was on our agenda this week.
Evaluate Easter: Several of us were out of town last week due to Spring Break, so today we evaluated our Easter weekend services on each campus. Capturing this information is important to our planning for next year. Here’s what we learned:
* We had more than enough volunteers! Yeah!
* Waumba Land content was great and on target. Kids were highly engaged and learning!
* Preschool Parent take-home was a BIG hit.
* Having a Friday night service caused our Sunday numbers to be lower than we expected.
* Having Easter fall during the week of Spring Break was a challenge.
* UpStreet large group content could have been stronger.
* We probably need to write separate content for kindergarteners on this weekend.
* Wearing biblical costumes in front of 5th graders is NOT cool!
Planning for July 4th: Yes, July 4th falls on a Sunday this year! We know that having enough volunteers will be a struggle. We assume that numbers will be down. (You know what happens when you assume right?) We talked about how we modify programming so that we need fewer volunteers and we will make this an “all-hands-on-deck” kind of day for staff. Still discussing…
New Website for Partnerships: We are working on a new, more user-friendly website for all of our partnerships. This will allow them to access key information like job descriptions, monthly curriculum downloads, and volunteer training pieces. Today we talked about deadlines, what needs to be finished, who will manage the project, etc., with the Waumba Land team.
JumpStart: JumpStart is our salvation presentation for kids and parents. We are changing it. Freshening up our printed pieces. Making our teaching tools super clear and kid-friendly.
We brainstormed the content for a new speaking script and have done some major tweaking. Since we are getting close to a final version, we had one of our staff (who also communicates to kids and parents in this class), do the new version of the presentation for us in our meeting today.
This wasn’t about critiquing her presentation skills (although she was awesome!). This was about fine-tuning the content. We will be presenting the new version of the content during the showcase at the Drive Conference.
Drive Conference Giveaways: We are offering six children’s ministry labs this year along with several main breakouts targeted to children and family ministry. We are giving stuff away. Practical stuff. Like our new volunteer orientation packet and a KidStuf Take-Out.
We narrowed down what we are giving away and then talked through the details of ordering, design, etc. It’s not too late to sign up for the Drive Conference 2010!
Summer Set Design: Every year we change the look and feel of the summer programming for our UpStreet Kids. We typically theme everything out, take over the KidStuf Theater, completely change the set design, add a weekly video series, and several fun elements.
This year our theme is “The Ultimate Challenge.” We are teaching our kids all about faith and forgiveness. (More about that later.) But a good bit of time in our meeting was spent hashing out the set design ideas and how that would translate to three different campuses with three different stages and existing sets.
It’s going to require a meeting in each KidStuf Theater on each campus with our KidStuf Staff and the UpStreet Director on that campus. The ideas include giant sheets of red and royal blue linoleum hanging from our ceilings all the way down to the floor. It’s a little complicated so on-going discussion is key!
We talked about a few other detail kinds of things like vacation days, budgets, and losing a whole bunch of our stats due to a computer glitch. Not all that interesting.
We are moving into a busy season of ministry. Regular communication and taking the time to hash out the details is so important for our team to be productive and efficient. This is what makes us a team and not just a bunch of leaders doing our own thing!
April 13th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Loved reading your post today. Will not be able to come to Drive this year . . . was wondering if the new volunteer orientation packet will be available to purchase? It sounds very interesting. Thanks for posting
April 13th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
First time reader. Very interesting peaking into your world. May God continue to pour out abundant creativity, answers and blessings.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Thank you Robin!
April 13th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Hi Jo,
No it won’t be available to purchase. But I’ll post some of the pieces on the blog in the coming months so that you can take them from there. Sorry we won’t see you at DRIVE but hope you have a great spring!
K
April 13th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Kendra,
I appreciate you sharing your leadership insights.
Another great, practical blog. Thank you! I appreciate your July 4 comments. We are thinking through the exact same thing and it is reassuring to be reminded that it is a universal problem.
April 14th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Our team meets monthly (all volunteers except me) and we just met Monday. We’re working through the Orange Handbook, evaluating our family ministry, and taking steps to improve each area outlined in the Handbook. Tons to do!
Our KidStuf director is coming with me to Drive and he’ll be attending the JumpStart showcase, which I’m sure will be a big help. I’m attending a lot of church plant-related breakouts but we’re both going to the Parntering with Parents pre-conference.
Thanks for all you do! Mandee sent our elementary director a ton of great information about your last KidVenture because we’re doing something similar in a couple weeks. We’re so grateful for how you help churches. I’m looking forward to the new website for partnerships.
April 15th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Hi Nick,
Glad you’re coming to Drive! Hope I get a chance to talk to you. I would love to hear the feedback of your KidStuf Director about the changes we’ve made to JumpStart!
K
April 16th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I hope we get to talk as well. I’m actually going to Orange too….registering now. That will be a crazy, fun week for sure. I noticed your breakout is sold out. A local church planter we support loves Baby Dedication after they had their first one and had their highest attendance ever
See you then….
May 27th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Hey Kendra, if you have a moment…
Question came up in our senior team about the NorthPoint Monday morning staff meeting…do they still do this? What is the agenda usually?
Testimony, Andy on a principle, strategic direction? Visiting Speakers?
Is that the primary means for communication to staff?
You are on the leadership team…what is the focus of those discussions? Is this meeting before your Monday meetings with your staff?
How would you describe the flow of communication of information and strategy from level of meeting to meeting?
BTW this is great stuff…thanks so much for taking the time to do this.
Also…is Kevin R. falling behind here?:)
Hope you get rest from Drive
May 27th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hi Brian,
I’ll write a post to answer your questions asap! And I think it will be a cold day…well you know, before we get Kevin to write on a blog. We can’t even get him to twitter! You’ll have to pick his brain in person!
Hope you get to chill a little for Memorial Day.
K