Last week we gathered all of the KidMin staff from each campus together for a two-day retreat. We learned, listened, planned, created, laughed, and played. It was a great couple of days!

The purpose of this retreat was to help our teams across campuses build relationships and share ideas. We know that collectively we have the potential to accomplish a lot more. We also know that if there are not strong relationships across campuses, there will be friction and frustration.

We can’t eliminate all frustration, but we can build healthy teams that are capable of working through the differences to get the best end result.

Ultimately…we are better together!

Here’s what it looked like:

DAY 1

Session 1: Welcome & Quiet Time

During this session we talked about the power of working together. We introduced the 5-1 concept, and we discussed how our own spiritual health will influence the health of our team.

We gave out the book Enemies of the Heart, and wrote a personal quiet time for everyone to get alone, and do some “heart” work.

Session 2: Strength Finders

Every director met with their team and played a game to learn more about their teammate’s strengths. We give this test to everyone who works on our teams.

Lunch and Learn

We placed our staff in groups of two or three people from other campuses that they might not normally get to talk to. We gave them three questions to discuss, and sent them around town to have lunch together.

Session 3: Fall Kick Off Breakouts

Every fall we “kick off” the new school year with a big event. We mixed up all of our teams and broke into several smaller groups to talk about specific topics related to this event. We discussed things like: break outs for small group leaders, how we should train new worship leaders, what we should give the new volunteers, and what production elements to include.

Session 4: Grief and Kids

We invited a counselor who works primarily with children to talk to our staff about helping kids who are grieving. Grief happens when there is any loss. It could be a move to new city, a new school, a death, a divorce, or the loss of a pet. Great practical advice!

Drive to Gwinnett Church

At 4:30pm we all jumped in our cars and drove 30 miles to our newest campus. This is a building we are sharing with another church. Many of our staff hadn’t seen it yet. It was a great field trip. We ate dinner and toured around the building together.

UpStreet Large Group @ Gwinnett Church

Fun Surprise!

The team that plays together stays together! We had everyone bring workout clothes, and we surprised them with a fun night at Sky Zone. The pictures say it all.

DAY 2

Session 5: Difficult Conversations

One of our staff walked our teams through the importance of having difficult conversations. He gave us a great step-by-step guide for handling these kinds of discussions with integrity and hope for growth. He gave great examples and really challenged our team to lead through difficult conversations well. (I’ll post more on that later!)

Session 6: 100 Ways to Appreciate Volunteers

During this session, we had every table brainstorm as many free or almost free ways to appreciate volunteers. We did this quickly and placed them all on a creative board. It was great and got our brains rolling for the next session. (I’ll post these ideas later this week.)

Session 7: Breakouts

During this session, we broke our team up into small groups and began planning together for the following: Volunteer Appreciation Plan 2012-2013, Volunteer Training Plan 2012-2013, Look & Feel for Summer in Waumba Land & UpStreet, and KidStuf Fall Changes.

Session 8: Family Ministry Covenant & Volunteer Website

We wrapped up the retreat talking about two things:

Family Ministry Covenant: This is the covenant we give to new volunteers who want to serve with us. We did some coaching on how to communicate this during orientations, and took questions concerning how to handle any conversations that might arise from this.

Volunteer Website: We are launching a new website for all of our volunteers this month. We showed everyone the site, answered questions, and heard feedback.

Then we all said “Good Bye”!

We had fun together, got to know each other better, got some planning done, and learned a whole bunch in the process!

I wish you could know this team like I do! They are the best!

Here’s what happened:

• Launched the Big Idea of Honor
• Watched KidStuf Live
• Hosted visiting churches for Sunday’s at North Point
• Observed the crowded hallways between services
• Listened in as a large group team debriefed
• Talked through a tough situation
• Cleaned up when a child threw up in the hallway (or our amazing facilities crew did!)
• Photographed our team dressing up for the Disney event
• Welcomed our amazing volunteers to a Disney training event

Here’s a few pictures!

Our goal was to get parents and kids praying together at home.

Here’s what we did to partner with parents in February:

We invited them to KidStuf LIVE!

Click here to view the embedded video.

We sent home this Parent Card.

The front had an overview of the month.

The back had our Family Night instructions.

We gave parents the inside scoop!

Click here to view the embedded video.

And made sure they had all of the right information to make their family prayer time a success.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of my favorite things!

During KidStuf LIVE we had families write down a prayer request and pass it to another family in the room. We challenged everyone to take that card and pray for the family’s requests written on the card. We have heard such incredible stories from this simple activity. Prayer requests for fathers in Afaganastan to families struggling with additiction.

Our families are dealing with some big stuff.

How great is it that we can talk to the One who created the entire world?

I love that He tells us to, ”Call on me and I will tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3

How did you partner with parents this month?

It’s been a while since a great story has totally sucked me in this way.

The over arching theme of these books is not for young kids, but there is much to be learned from the style of the storytelling.

We are in the midst of writing the spring content for our kids. Working through bottom lines, choosing Bible stories, and finding creative angles. Wanting to present the most amazing stories ever lived in an unforgettable way.

We are teaching our kids the most important stories they will ever hear. Many of them are jaw-dropping, action packed, and emotional. I wonder if they simply listen or if they are swept away by the wonder of it all.

A few challenges from the Hunger Games:

Bring the characters to life. They should feel pain, love their little sisters, be skilled hunters, sneak outside the fences, and miss their fathers.

Every week we teach our kids the stories from the Bible full of some of the most rich characters you will ever meet. Make them alive again in the imagination of the kids.

Create an adventure. They should sneak through the woods and lie in wait. They should break the law and scavenge for food for the whole village. They should wear magnificent costumes and battle for their life and the lives of those they love.

Want to make sure your kids never forget the stories you teach? Engage them in an epic adventure. Don’t just describe the details. Don’t just tell the facts of the story. Drive them right into the middle of the action and adventure and drop them off.

Build Tension. You should want them to win and yet be against the battle. You know they are a child and yet want to see them fight like a warrior. You should want them to be safe and yet hope they risk everything.

When there is a conflict then there is emotion. When there is emotion, then you engage. When you engage…you remember. You learn.

For those of you who write curriculum, create video, and communicate the Bible stories, what can you do to make the Bible come to life for our kids?

How can you make sure it’s the BEST book they ever read?

This summer we produced a new song called Unlock the Power. We’ve been using it with our kids for the past three months and they love it.

So we thought we would share!

Take a listen: unlock-the-power-final-mix

Here are the details:

The original music was produced for worship on UpStreet, the elementary environment of North Point Ministries. Each North Point Music Accompaniment track is fully downloadable in an MP3 format from your North Point store account. It includes a digital version of the song that can be used for performances both with and without background vocals. It also includes a lyric sheet.

*We also included a LIVE Lyric video!

This song connects well when teaching kids the following concepts:
God is the one true God
God is powerful
Courage
Standing up to the enemy
Looking to God as a source of strength
I can do all things through Christ
Confidence in God
God is our ultimate Superhero

FInd it at the North Point Store!

This year we launched a NEW strategy to connect with our parents.

We dabbled in the world of social media with our parents last year and this year we decided to jump in and give it our full attention.

We want to partner with our parents. We BELIEVE that they are the greatest influencers and leaders of their kids. It’s our goal to be their greatest fan and biggest supporter.

We want to make it easy for parents to talk to their kids about God’s Big Ideas all week long at home. So, we decided to make a concerted effort to place everything they need to know right in the palm of their hands. We also believe that most parents want to work  in simple connections to spiritual things at natural times of the day. They want it to be comfortable. And we believe those small connections multiplied day after day in a child’s life will add up to something big.

We currently have 5 campuses. It’s also our desire to make our relationship with families feel personalized to their campus. We want them to easily find events and information that they need as it relates to their campus and as it relates to what their child is learning.

Here’s what we did:

1. Created a twitter account for each campus.

We created: @gwinnettkids, @brownsbridgekid, @buckheadkids, @northpointkids, and @watermarkekids

Goal: To interact with parents and connect them to the information that they need. We also want to make it easy for us to solve problems or answer questions.

2. Created a facebook page for each campus.

We created: Gwinnett ParentStuf, Browns Bridge ParentStuf, Buckhead ParentStuf, North Point ParentStuf, and Watermarke ParentStuf

Goal: This is a landing page that will push parents to our enviornment specific pages - Waumba Land, UpStreet, KidStuf. This allows our campus pastors to personalize any announcements by directing parents to facebook.

3. Created landing pages for existing facebook pages. (Waumba Land, UpStreet, KidStuf)

Goal: To create a friendlier welcome and to give parents easy access to all 3 pages from one location.

4. Created ParentStuf Blog. (www.parentstuf.org)

Goal: To create a place to inspire and equip parents to talk to their kids (or play with their kids…or pray with their kids) about God’s Big Ideas.

5. Created ParentStuf App. (for iphone, ipad, droid)

Goal: To put simple ideas into the hands of parents and make it as user friendly as possible. We want to connect parents to this information in a simple, helpful format.

We are launching the ParentStuf App this Sunday and the blog has been live for several weeks. It’s too early for me to give you an idea of success, but I promise to follow up and let you know how it’s going.

This was a really big project that required the hard work of a team of creative geniuses. It was such a pleasure to work with Matt McKee and the entire R04R team. I can’t recommend them enough.

Here’s a little more information about R04R! Our mission is simple - to see as much faith based content on mobile platforms as possible. We currently develop iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and HTML5 apps for non-profits and those that serve non-profits. We also believe that mobile apps and social networking can’t be separated. We want to help support your cause by getting the message, vision, and mission onto the one device that people carry with them where ever they go, their phone.

We’ve created a 30 minute presentation for this class called We Believe. You can find out more about this material here.

Check out this new video that we will use in the 10B4 segment in the main services to invite our parents to JumpStart. 10B4 is a video package that communicates announcements and welcomes the congregation 10 minutes before the service starts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hundreds of kids and parents arrived at our campuses ready jump in. Some came for the first time.

Preparation for this day takes months. We really aren’t preparing for just one day. We’re preparing for the whole year.

Where does most of our preparation lie? Volunteers!

We find them, recruit them, meet with them, train them, screen them, apprentice them, and hopefully inspire them.

This year we started the year with a HUGE kick off event!

We planned fun, we asked our campus pastors to communicate, we inspired, we celebrated, and we informed.

Here’s what the program for the day looked like:

1. Opening Video and Live Band Combo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of this song:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We created the percussion track using the noises of items found in our children’s environments. The band came in live as the percussion built.

2. Kidmin Staff came out and welcomed everyone.

3. Then we showed this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. The Talk. It was given by each campus pastor.

The bottom line of the talk was to encourage our volunteers to be more than just skilled at their role. We wanted to challenge them to engage in the individual stories of the children and families that they would encounter in the coming year. We are not herding the masses, we are leading each individual child into a growing relationship with their Heavenly Father. We have an opportunity, this year, to be a part of each child’s story of faith.

5. The Closer. Live performance of Van Halen’s Right Now.

We created a video similar to this - but with our message.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. Meet Your Team.

Everyone went to their classroom and met their team, got their t-shirt, and their small group roster.

It was a GREAT day that got us off to a great start for the year.

How did you prepare your volunteers for the upcoming year?

For the month of May, we are talking about JOY!

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> Every month, we promo KidStuf LIVE in the main service. It’s our chance to invite parents to KidStuf LIVE and cast vision for our partnership with them.

For the month of May, we are talking about JOY!

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2011/05/18/got-the-joy/feed/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2011/01/10/kidstuf-and-cooperation/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2011/01/10/kidstuf-and-cooperation/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:01:32 +0000 kendra http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/?p=5032

This month KidStuf introduced the Big Idea of Cooperation!

As part of our partnership with parents we send home a KidStuf TakeOut every month. The takeout is designed to equip parents to plan a family night during the week that leads to a fun discussion about the Big Idea for the month.

This month our families received a printed piece that looked like a laptop with instructions for our online game, Foto Finish! Many of our families joined us online for a competition that forced families to cooperate. It was a blast!

I was going to tell you ALL about it, but one of our families did a great job for me!

Check this out!

On Monday, January 10^th we are going to play again! The game starts at 7:00 p.m. on www.KidStuf.com. Why don’t you and your family join us?