Awesome Training Tools: Ministry Grid Review

This month I had the privilege of attending a kickoff web cast for two new ministry tools from Lifeway. First, let me say that as an individual, the event itself was top notch. I was beyond blessed by the level of hospitality and care I received from the leaders at Lifeway. I have gained some fabulous new friends in ministry, who are doing some amazing things.

As a ministry leader, I am thrilled to share a little about these two new tools. I hesitate to call them products as I think it devalues their relational capabilities. We have all seen the items at conferences that we have purchased and have let seen sit on our shelf when the excitement dies down. These do not fall in that category. As a leader I am always looking for tools that make my tasks...well, easier! We have tedious tasks, and if I can streamline them effectively so that my time can be used more efficiently, then sign me up!

First I want to mention Ministry Grid! (the other tool will be mentioned in a later post) We all have amazing teams of willing volunteers, but at the end of the day, we need to train them and keep them current on the ever changing standards of what we do. I know personally with the amount of volunteers I currently have, it is pretty much impossible to get them all in one room for a day of training. Training days provide two things for me: 1. a relational piece, a time to simply ask how people are and stay current in their lives as well as offer them a responsibility free time of fellowship. 2. Training! Educating them on the changes and expectations for our ministry.

When we have training days, we usually have a wide range of topics and do our best to cover them all. But what about those intensive topics that only apply to two or three attendees? Or the bathroom policy that changes for every age group?

Ministry Grid fixes a multitude of my training issues. It allows me to design a track of training sessions that my teams can complete online, at their own convenience. I can upload my own training videos like "Using our check-in system" or "Visitor care" or simply choose from a very large data base of training videos. The best part of this for me is the ability to tailor the tracks since we have seasonal program volunteers, as well as regular format volunteers. When workers log in they can see how far they are in their track as well as earn badges for completed studies (for those ever competitive kidmin peeps) The other feature I love is the personal devotions or personal spiritual care. Often times workers get caught up on a Sunday morning, maybe they never made it to worship, here they can also be spiritually fed as a team. I can set up a training or link Sunday's sermon right to our training page.

I know what you are thinking, how impersonal! Right? But imagine this, your people have finished a track on... policy. (oh fun!) Your entire team did it! woohoo! So you call them together (rewarding them with warm Krispy Kremes for their efforts in "continued kidmin education") and instead of a broad vague training you have a room full of people with the same knowledge ready to ask questions! Instead of the lost puzzled faces, you have a room of fellowship and discussion. This is how I personally intend on using this tool! Our training sessions will become a debrief of training that has occurred and an opportunity to clarify and of course build strong team relationships.

The best part is the fact that Lifeway has made this available for whatever lay position or ministry position you can think of. Janitors, parking lot attendants, ushers and so on. Whether you are a church of 35 or 35,000 there is a structure that works for you. Pricing is built on your church size, which means quality training is available for every budget, and might I mention, very reasonable.

Below is the link to watch a free video. Hopefully you find it useful! I would love to hear from those who try Ministry Grid.
http://www.ministrygrid.com/

Gifts of Christmas

Christmas time! My favorite time of year. A season that we can surround everything we  do with the birth of our savior. The opportunities for teaching kids this time of year is never-ending. I love pulling out the lights and handmade crafts by my kids to put on display, the fire department would cringe at the level of candles and lights throughout my home. After all the decorations have been hung and the traditions are in place, that leaves the gifts. In a season of giving, I absolutely love to get gifts for others. As I talk to parents every year during this time I am asked for recommendations. By tradition we do a family gift, something we can do together. So here is a list of ideas, gifts that are unusual and possibly irreplaceable that you can do as parents or even pass to the grand kids.

1. A Family Year Book
 (This falls under that irreplaceable type gift)
Take your favorite pictures from throughout the year and send in for a book. Best of all, the photos are printed onto the hardcover bound book, so they won't age. You can get as creative or simple as you like, and as small or large as you like. I make one for our family and someday my kids will take them, we also make a copy for the grandparents. This can even be a great gift for those hard to buy for teenagers or for homesick college students.

2. Families that play together
 Yes! I love anything that gets the family moving as a unit! And after the holidays we all usually say we need more exercise. What about a family gift of new bikes? New basketball hoop and everyone gets their own ball? Our family has a new pool table, so personalized cue sticks are something I am hunting for.

3. The gift of sports

 Did you know that most stadiums, arenas and locations where pro-teams play offer private tours? Not quite the economy to spend hundreds of dollars on pro game tickets, but maybe your kids are sports fans. On average tours are about $15 a person and kids get to discover every nook and cranny of these places including their favorite athlete's locker!

4. Game night
 Our kids love to play board games. But as they have gotten older our games have become outdated. So a wicker chest full of updated games is a great gift! If you don't have a "no TV" family game night, then a basket of games, and popcorn would be an easy way to add it to your new year!

5. The gift of giving
 A family I know will adopt a child from compassion international this year. This is actually something they choose to do at Christmas as a family. Their plan is to have the kids write letters and celebrate this child all year. I love this idea! In our home we adopt a child from the local children's home, but there are many ways that this could be done. Down to wrapping up a sum of money and the gift being letting the children how to decide to use it in a giving sense. Children who are actively involved in the decision making tend to have an ownership of this process.

Hopefully these give you a few ideas. In a world that we as Americans have so much, it's become a love to find things we can give to our children that will create lasting memories and moments that strengthen our family rather than items that will never make it out of a toy box. My children are 10 and 16 this year. They still find crazy joy in picking their yearly ornament for the tree that will someday become the starter collection for their own family. It's amazing to watch them shop for our "adopted" Christmas child and seeing them want to get everything on their list out of love. I truly believe that the investments made, when based on the knowledge that God gave us Jesus who then gave everything (His life) as an example for how we give of ourselves, make times like Christmas pure joy in giving.

No Crayon Left Behind

No Crayon Left Behind!

Where to find your free money!

This morning was an exceptionally cold morning for this California girl. The temperature was 40 degrees with a planned high of 66. Yes, that’s freezing for us! As I headed downstairs, dawned in sweats, I grabbed my robe and threw it on, and jackpot! A crisp ten dollar bill in the pocket! I know every adult has experienced this, finding a five in the laundry, a ten in a coat pocket, or even a twenty in the abyss we women call a purse. It’s exciting! However, in the moment we are completely thrilled about this free money, and we forget it was ours in the first place. While it was a fun surprise, I couldn’t help but wonder, where did I think it went? That ten dollar bill was useful funds I had been blessed with; did I even notice it was gone? I can answer that. Nope! I had completely forgotten about it.

This made me think of other resources like food, energy, time and the gifts we have been entrusted to manage that belong to our heavenly father. This of course led to ministry thoughts.

Starting in 1995 my husband and I moved into the parsonage of a small Free Will Baptist Church, and started full time ministry. On our first Sunday I noticed there wasn’t one child in attendance. Later that week I did some self guided tours of the small campus that consisted of two large buildings and made quite the discovery. Classrooms! They were there, had crayons, little chairs, little tables and flannel boards that were as old as I was. The church was a small country church, and had a general budget, but no children’s ministry budget. Over the course of a year, God placed the right people in my path to start a fully functional children’s ministry and that saw about 45 consistent children. Thanks to creativity, we were able to survive a whole year with little requested for money from the general budget. I truly believe this was training for the day when I would have to maintain a Children’s Ministry budget.

Do you ever find lost money in your ministry coat pocket? I bet you have tons of it lying around. In the world of children’s ministry, things like glitter and glue are currency. And craft kits, serious cash! I am now in a ministry with a fully functional budget and a three story building that is packed with kids! This last year I took some time to “audit” our use of the budget. (Yes, I am a math nerd. See last post.) I noticed that we spent quite a bit on craft kits, but never used them all, crayons that were replaced when they simply looked bad, and glue sticks that weren’t used, but had dried out. And then I ran across a quote by Oswald Chambers…

“Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have.” – Oswald Chambers
Thank you Oswald! How much more could I be doing with my ministry if I was really in this mindset? So rather than cut off spending, I had my team do the following things, it’s proved to conserve our budget, help local and foreign churches, and teach our kids a little lesson on stewardship.

Every quarter I ask my team to do the following:

· Take inventory – Collect the leftover craft kits, the broken crayons and the excess curriculum.

· Donate – Leftover curriculum is pure gold to foreign missions. We always have someone going overseas, and when they do, sending them with tools to take to the kids is awesome.

· Plan – All those mismatched crafts can be used. Almost every park outreach we do consists of a craft table. Rather than buy more, we have opted to use what’s on hand. This is also a great opportunity that your ministry kids can be involved in since they’ve done the crafts before.

· Evaluate – Why do we have abundance? Some is okay, but to simplify future orders is key.

· Manage – Remember the glue sticks? We now keep them in Ziploc bags to prevent drying out. Some items are a must, so finding ways to preserve them is important.

· Bless – Is there a significant amount of something we can share? Like donating a boxed curriculum that can be reused to a church with no kid’s budget? Yes!

Whether you are on a small budget, no budget, or a mega budget, our resources are God’s, and He cares about how we use them. How we manage them shows how we as leaders value them. I would love to be accused of “Giving God the best of what He has given me”. So leaders, go snoop around and see what you find. I bet you find gads of cash in your kid’s ministry cabinets!

Wait! The broken crayons! Yes, they should be rescued! Remember putting crayon shavings between waxed paper as a kid to make sun catchers? Perfect summer day camp project!

Blessings,

Heidi M Hensley

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” – CS Lewis