One of the biggest changes we made to KidStuf Live this season was to drop the singing element from the show and people have been asking us why, so we thought we’d blog to explain.
First a few caveats. This was a slow evolution over a couple of seasons and it didn’t happen lightly. We, by no means tell other churches that they should do the same; this was truly based on our circumstances. And, we did not drop music from the show. If anything, we are more musical, but we no longer have a designated section in the show for family singing/worship.
Here’s why we made the change:
1. The Sunday Schedule. We realized that before families came to KidStuf, kids worshiped in UpStreet for 20-minutes and parents worshiped in their adult service for 20-minutes and so neither group had a real need/desire to come into our show and sing some more.
2. Low Participation. Maybe this is different at your church, but we weren’t getting high participation in the singing segments…especially from parents. Most of the time they were checking their Blackberries or talking in the hallway instead of coming in for music and that was a deal-breaker for us. If we aren’t engaging parents right away, it’s hard to win them back.
Some of it was seating. We dropped music before we had fully committed to “Family-Style” seating and we have noticed that parent participation is so much higher when they are sitting with their kids. So it might work better now, but we still won’t do it based on reason number 3.
3. The Once-A-Month Production. When we cut our show down from weekly to monthly and made it only 35/40 minutes, we didn’t have time for anything extraneous. In the course of one show we wanted a family to grasp the big idea, the Bible basis for the month, and most importantly, that they would know how and be inspired to use our Take-Out (application tool) when they went home. And we had to wrap all three things in a clubhouse story too! Not an easy task. So, we really didn’t have time to do something that 1, wasn’t working and 2, wasn’t driving people towards our content.
So that’s the long and the short of it. We are not against music in KidStuf Live, we actually are thinking about bringing back a new version of it for our latest invention, “The KidStuf Encore.” But we can’t talk about that yet. ☺
And actually, if you want to follow all our hints for the new season of KidStuf – befriend t he “KidStuf Staff” on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!
June 21st, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Thanks for sharing! That’s awesome that you were able to evaluate it and make the change that was best for the program! You’ve got my support
June 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I had to laugh at Reason 2, because I might have been the lone parent to skew the answer for you. My sons (now 9th & 11th graders) came up through UpSt and KS with Lanny and Reggie, and their favorite part was always the story time. Aside from the “Smothers Brothers” with L&R, my favorite time was standing up and singing with all the crazy motions and getting loud. In fact, the energy in the room was so contagious that I longed to be a KS dancer and singer! When the boys were little, we’d buy the KS CDs, play them on outdoor speakers and roller blade to the songs or play them in the car. But you’re right, many of those songs are played at UpStreet each morning, though the parents don’t realize what goes on there. The kids are getting a condensed version of an old-style KS each week on UpStreet now. I’m thankful for the time we had as a family in days gone by in KS and glad to know that someone is paying enough attention to know when things aren’t working any more–lest I’d be the lone parent (sans kids now) dancing in the audience.
June 21st, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Hi Denise!
Having you on the stage each week as a host is a much better use of your talent! You are welcome to bust into song and dance any time you want to — oh wait! you already do that!
Thank You!
K
June 21st, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Thank you Jill!
July 16th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Hi - me again.. what do you mean by Family style seating?