Archive for the ‘Valley Kids’ Category
Posted on February 23, 2010 - by kelly
Easter Eggstravaganza
Mark your calendars for another amazing family event coming to CCV, Saturday, March 27 th from 10:00am – 12:00pm. This year Valley Kids is planning on creating an over sized garden to welcome in the spring season. Our campus will be decked in spring flowers and giant friendly bugs! You are not going to want to miss attending or participating in this community attraction.
It is always thrilling to see our church pull together and provide these free community events for children and their families. In today’s economy and fast paced schedules, it is a gift to be able to provide families an opportunity to spend quality time together. The other wonderful thing that always happens at these events is that people who are reluctant to come to a Sunday church service will come to something like this. Having the chance to show them we are regular people is invaluable. Everyone coming to the Eggstravaganza will go home with an invitation to attend an Easter Service, Kids’ Camp, Providence Christian Preschool, and other events coming up.
There are lots of ways for you to get involved. Volunteer to help with setting the 40,000 eggs for our egg hunts happening every 15 minutes or help chaperon one of the indoor bounce houses. Maybe you and a small group want to host a craft or game station or help pop popcorn, whatever it is, there is a place for you! Make sure you let me know if you can help make this one of the best Eggstravaganzas ever!
Posted on January 24, 2010 - by kelly
Foundations
I happened to be watching one of those “How is this made?” type shows on TV the other night. The topic was on modern building constructions with a focus on the new Las Vegas “City Center”. The building cranes used to construct these massive towers were as fascinating as the building project itself.
The entire outcome of this massive 16,797,000 square feet building project hinged on the proper placement and durability of temporary, but vitally important cranes. The cranes themselves were set into the ground with a foundation that lay 8 stories below the earth, 800 feet below the earth’s surface! That’s quite a foundation. Besides the foundation, these cranes were then affixed to the building itself in crucial locations. One degree the wrong way, the crane could pull away from the building and bring the whole construction project to a halt causing casualties of life and property.
As a leader in Children’s Ministry I am reminded over and over the importance of laying a solid foundation for our children’s faith to grow on. I never want to forget how important these early years are in the spiritual development of the children entrusted into our ministry. But watching this building documentary reminded me of the even more important job of making sure our volunteers that help in this building process have a solid foundation to work from. If their foundation isn’t deep enough, they can easily be pulled out of the ground by the weight of the load they are being asked to carry. If they are not tethered to the building securely, they can topple, bringing down the buiding with them.
In 2010 our church is taking deliberate steps to help members grow in 3 vital relationships every Christ follower should pursue: growing closer to God, growing in our relationships inside the church, and growing in our relationships outside the church in hopes of sharing Christ with those who don’t know him.
By attending services and following up with personal study and prayer, our volunteers can ensure that their foundation remains deep and strong. By connecting with other volunteers and participating in small groups, our volunteers can tether themselves to the church; allowing them to gain a greater appreciation for the investment they are making into the lives of the children they serve. And it has been my personal experience that sharing the stories of things happening in Valley Kids with people not connected to the church always brings about questions and opportunities for me to share my faith.
Just as this architecturally stunning building complex could not be built without properly founded and secured cranes, Valley Kids could not begin to build into the lives of our children without our volunteers. I hope our volunteers never forget the importance of the “building project” they are undertaking each time they serve. It is an honor to be in the building business with such an incredible team.
Posted on December 8, 2009 - by kelly
Christmas, Valley Kids Style
This year Valley Kids is celebrating Christmas in a big way. We have decked out the building and created an exciting atmosphere that we hope children will want to bring their friends to. It is through this festive atmosphere that we intend to teach kids about the true meaning of Christmas; the “gift” behind all the gifts under the tree, the birth of Jesus.
Over the next 4 weeks I’d love to hear what your kids are saying about their mornings with us, so be sure and give us feedback! I know my own kids were very excited about their count down to Christmas chain they brought home Sunday. It prompted some great conversations during lunch and just this morning I was awoken bright and early as my six year old trying to slip a “love note” under my pillow. (He is taking these tasks very seriously.)
The following is a brief description of what your Valley Kid will be learning this month:
December 6th, “Prepare the Way”
As we “Prepare the Way” for the holidays we can become distracted by the business of shopping, picture taking, cookie decorating, and more. Kids are going to be reminded of how God prepared the way for us through Jesus.
December 13th, “Unstoppable Love”
Come experience the story of Mary’s journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus like never before. This will be a morning of discovering God’s “Unstoppable Love” for us.
December 20th, “What Christmas is Really About”
See first hand what Christmas in NOT about by journeying into the homes of our special guests as they prepare for the holidays. Kids will have a good laugh as they see the craziness of well meaning family members when they lose sight of the true menaing of Christmas.
December 27th, “Dirty Jobs – Christmas Edition”
Experience the “Dirty Kobs” of Bethlehem. With the Christmas clean up ahead, kids will hear about the dirty jobs that the children in Bethlehem encountered. They will learn how keeping focused on Jesus can help keep even the dirtiest of jobs in perspective.
We look forward to spending the month of December with your children in Valley Kids!
Posted on November 7, 2009 - by kelly
Introduction to Tithing for Kids
This Sunday in Valley Kids we introduced the concept of giving back to God what is rightfully his. Not only are we commanded to share, but we are commanded to share the first portion of our gifts, not the left overs. It is our hope that your family will use the following letter that was handed out in class to continue this practice at home.
Dear Parents,
It is our hope each Sunday here in Valley Kids to teach your children biblical truths that you as a parent can build upon at home. This letter is an attempt to give you some practical ways that you can apply 2 Corinthians 9:7 to your child’s every day life.
Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:7.
Today your child heard about giving back to God. Growing up in church myself, I was curious about why my parents put money into a bowl every Sunday. In my desire to participate I would ask them for extra change to throw in the bowls when they were passed. I can still remember the sound of the dimes and nickels bouncing around in the trays, the louder the better. As I grew older and attended “children’s church” without my parents, there was a time each Sunday where children brought their offerings up to the front of the class. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to walk proudly in front of my peers and teachers to put my offerings in the bucket. So every Sunday I made sure to ask my mom or dad for a dollar because now paper money was much cooler than change. Neither of these experiences taught me anything about the biblical principal of giving back to God what is already his.
The earlier you can talk to your child about financial matters and putting God first in their lives, the better off they will be as adults. In researching different approaches to teaching children healthy money saving and spending habits, the following approach is a simple strategy that can be easily implemented. We have provided 3 labeled envelopes to help you get started.
From the time your child begins earning money they need to know there are three categories for money management: giving, saving, and spending.
The first envelope is for giving back to God. Help your child take the first ten percent of their money and place it in their giving envelope.
The second envelope is for saving. Help your child put at least ten percent of their money into their savings envelope (even when they are not saving for anything in particular).
The third envelope is for spending. This is for the money that remains after the first designations and is to be spent whenever you see fit.
How much and how often your child earns money is up to you. For further ideas, and to share your thoughts about children and allowances, be sure to check out my blog (kellyclarkonline.com) and read more or share your ideas.
My desire is to give you the tools to lay a foundation of financial responsibility that will last throughout your child’s lifetime, but more importantly, to help your child learn to put God first in their lives.
Kelly Clark
I’d like to hear from you about how you handle chores or allowance in your home. I’ll be posting more about this topic later in the week so be sure to follow up.
Posted on October 27, 2009 - by kelly
Trunk or Treat
We tried a new event this year called Trunk or Treat. The idea was to have groups of people decorate the trunk or their car and invite children from the community to “trick or treat” from car to car in our parking lot.
Adding to this event; we planned indoor games (seed spitting, slimey/gooey guessing game, pumpkin golf, tattoo stations, etc.), put together an outdoor corn maze, planned a hayride, invited local food vendors, and inflated the jump houses.
As we do with all of our children’s events, we sent out email inviations to our data base composed of people that have: attended a children’s event in the past, attend our week day preschool program, our church data base, as well as invites given out at the food vendor’s sights.
Because this was something we had never tried before we had to explain in detail how we needed our church members to participate. Our video team put together an awesome video and the following were the steps we included in a “How to Treat out your Trunk” brochure:
“What is Trunk or Treat?” from CHRIST’S CHURCH OF THE VALLEY on Vimeo.
Step 1:
As a family or group, choose the car you are going to decorate.
Step 2:
Choose a theme.
Think about Sports (skiing or Eagles), Halloween, Time Periods (the 50’s), Places (farm, jungle, or zoo), Disney, Kids’ Movie Themes (the Wizard of OZ), Nautical, Vacation Destinations (Hawaiian Luau), etc…
Step 3:
Consider adding a game component for kids to play.
(Bean bag toss, football throw, fishing game, duck pond, etc.)
Step 4:
Consider dressing up to match your car theme.
Step 5:
Have candies or treats to pass out.
Step 6:
Be at the CCV parking lot at 5:00 pm on October 23rd for this great outreach event!
The church rallied like they always do and we had lots of volunteers excited about the evening. The weather fore casted rain so we sent out a ”rain or shine” email and CCVers rallied in a big way. The volunteers graciously brought their car themes indoors and we set up stations around the perimeter of our large worship space.
Not knowing what kind of crowd to expect (especially because of the poor weather), we waited in anticipation. I’m happy to say that it was a huge success. Hundreds of children came dressed in costume and had a great time meeting people from the church.
With any outreach event, our goal is to connect our community with the people in our church in hopes that they see other people just like them and may consider checking us out on a Sunday. Events like this also give our church families something to invite their friends and neighbors to that may not be as intimidating as a church service.
Posted on October 12, 2009 - by kelly
Movie Night – An inexpensive way to showcase your Children’s Ministry
Looking for an inexpensive family event to invite church families and friends too? We have discovered a cheap and easy way to promote upcoming children’s events as well as giving our church family an opportunity to invite their non church going friends to come onto our campus and check us out – movie night.
We have sponsored movie nights in the past with varying results, but recently stumbled upon a formula that resulted in a huge turn out.
1 – Look for the upcoming DVD releases and choose something that will be released that week, guaranteeing that not many people have seen it other than at the theatre.
2 - Design and print out movie tickets with the necessary information to hand out in the classrooms and adult service. Encourage kids to take extras to pass out to friends at school.
3 – Send an email invitation to your church data base one week prior, as well as following up the morning of the event reminding them to come.
4 – Pop lots of popcorn ahead of time! You don’t want to run out or have lines waiting.
5 – Have greeters at the door in themed outfits welcoming your guests and then handing out an invitation to the next event as they leave.
6 – Have a sign up area to gather contact information for individuals that would like to be notified of other great events.
Our Valley Kids Team is always thinking of ways we can give our children opportunities to invite their friends to church. This is one of those events that allows this to happen for families who aren’t quite ready to check us out on a Sunday morning. The more they are exposed to the people and the building, the more comfortable they feel, and who knows what it will lead to.
Posted on October 4, 2009 - by kelly
Raising Up Volunteers
Sunday I had the privilege of hanging out in our elementary classroom and observing a wave of future volunteers developing right before my eyes.
Often we have faithful volunteers and staff who bring their children to more than one service on Sundays. As a children’s ministry team we have tried to be ultra sensitive to make sure their time on Sunday morning is a meaningful one, not just hanging around for two services. We assign special tasks; setting up the game stations, helping run the power point computer, partnering with a younger or new child to Valley Kids, etc. By giving them a leadership role, they take on leadership characteristics.
From this experimentation we saw how powerful it was for kids to lead kids. Our worship team, P98 (named after Psalm 98) was developed from this concept. On occasion we will partner an older student with an adult to lead small group discussions. They are really good at it! A few months ago our elementary leader overhead two girls arguing between services about who was going to get to pray with their group. It’s not often that I hear adults arm wrestling for a turn at serving.
This particular Sunday I observed a 5thgrader partnered with one of our Kindergartners who was needing a little extra help in the classroom. Adults aren’t always the best fit for this child because he gets intimidated and less cooperative. So with supervision, our 5thgrader was asked if she would like to give it a try. She was amazing! With the energy and enthusiasm that a 5thgrader brings, she guided him from arrival station to station, engaged him in activities and interacted withother kids. When it was time for worship she led him to his group and modeled the motions to the songs and he followed right along. During large group time, she sat close and he watched her watching the teachers. She would quietly point to the stage and redirect him when he started to lose focus. And then again during small group time, she led him to the group, asked questions, and helped him get involved with the game and discussions. To close the hour, she bowed her head and prayed.
I dare say she learned more about God’s love in that hour of serving than I could have ever taught her in class. God will and can use anyone who is willing to open their heart and follow his lead. It doesn’t matter how much you know about the Bible or how much kid lingo you have going, all that matters is you are willing to try. Kids are much better at this than adults. I look forward to watching this young woman grow in her faith and become a power house for the church.
I follow this up with some advice for those who would like to use older children and young teens to serve in the classroom:
- No matter how responsible and mature these kids are, they are still kids and need supervision.
- There must be a balance between allowing kids to serve and making sure they attend their own age appropriate programs.
- Ask parents for permission before partnering their children as mentors.
- Model the behaviors you want to see them teaching. (Participate during worship, engage with the kids during arrival activities, don’t talk during the lesson, etc.)
- Pray with and for these kids, they are the future of our ministry.
- Support these young volutneers withmentors who will help them grow in their faith.
Posted on September 15, 2009 - by kelly
You’re Doing What on a Sunday Morning!?
Working for a church is an interesting experience. I have to say I was guilty of walking into our church in Texas on more than one occasion and wondering to myself, “Is this really OK with God?” My family and I attended a larger non-denominational church and our pastor often used large visuals in his message. By large we are talking military tanks on the stage, a whole kitchen back drop (down to the kitchen sink), you get the picture. And I often found myself wondering if this was really necessary.
Fast forward 5 years and I find myself in Pennsylvania working at a church that may not have Ferraris on the stage, but certainly understands the importance of visuals and doing things with excellence. And I am often asked, “Is this really necessary?” The answer to that is, “Yes!”
The reasoning is simple; we are an outreach focused church. Meaning, we care about people that don’t want or see the need in going to church. Because of that, we are keenly aware of our competition. Competition in the children’s ministry world is: Nickelodeon, Disney, Wii, X box, You Tube, etc. If we don’t pull off something amazing and excellent, we will lose every time. And I’m not willing to lose at this game.
Our visuals are big, our colors are bright, the music is loud; and more than we are serious, we are silly and outrageous. It’s not uncommon to somehow weave getting a “pie in the face” into a lesson if it fits. I know if I were a kid I would find this entertaining and just might be more apt to listen to what was being said. And that’s what it boils down to. You don’t have to be serious to teach children about God. I recognize this style isn’t for everyone, but I know our kids are having a great time while learning important life stuff. We are in competition, it’s ok to recognize and embrace it even. The more fun I can make Sunday morning, the better off, because kids learn through having fun.
So I wonder, if Jesus showed up at our church, would he be appalled or jump right in? The man who taught through parables and visuals, I think he just might like it.
Posted on August 24, 2009 - by kelly
Building A Special Needs Ministry- Part 1
Over the last few years Valley Kids has seen a growth in the number of children coming to the classroom with special needs. So far we have “managed” by pairing kids in the classroom with volunteers already serving that morning. But my heart has been telling me there is so much more we could be doing. Along with this feeling, we have seen increased numbers of children needing individualized assistance in the classroom, and the time has come to launch a new ministry area.
Because I have a limited background serving children with special needs I gathered a group of individuals that either had children with special needs or worked in a special needs related field to brainstorm ideas. From this meeting we determined that for Valley Kids, the ideal situation would be to start with an inclusive program, partnering trained volunteers with children so that they could participate in our programming.
I also reached out to the special needs community and was overwhelmed with support and advice on options, ideas, and trainings available to people in our area. (I will attach the links below of good resources.) The resounding support for an inclusive approach to meeting the needs of these special kids was heard.
This last weekend was our first program announcement; I will follow this week with an email that will go out to all members of our church body. My hope is that we will recruit 15-20 volunteers willing to partner twice a month with a CCV friend. Volunteers will be asked to complete a simple application (no special training is required ahead of time). Once I have a team built we will begin taking applications from families in need of a buddy. The goal is to partner a child with no more than 2 individuals that they would build a relationship with over the course of their time in Valley Kids. This volunteer would be in communication with the family during the week and be there in the classroom on Sunday mornings.
I know that we are headed in the right direction and look forward to watching this program grow. Valley Kids is a place where all children are accepted just as God made them.
Helpful Links:
Posted on August 19, 2009 - by kelly
Casey and Patti Show
I don’t know when it happened, about a year ago, I met two amazing women. They were team teaching in our elementary class on Sunday mornings and the chemistry between the two was infectious. The lesson that week called for a news anchor type set with Old Testament characters being interviewed. They were hysterical playing off each other in this banter of serious vs. nonsensical exchange.
Stephanie Carter, our Elementary Associate Director, and I met after the lesson and we were laughing and reflecting on what an awesome lesson it was and how much fun we had. Better yet, the kids walked away excited about the “show” and learned a lot. That morning the “Casey and Patti” show was born.
Since then, the Casey and Patti show has morphed into something between a “Saturday Night Live” Newscast and “Kids Choice” awards feel. Studio audience members are pulled on stage and get an “I was on the Casey and Patti Show sticker” to wear home. This last week the lesson was about Paul and how he used his life to change the world. They highlighted the Kids’ Camp efforts of fund raising for Kenya and encouraged our Valley Kids that they too could be life changers at a young age and many of them already are by participating in the basketball program. In typical Casey style she portrayed the journeys of Paul and let her counter part get her sea sick (with oatmeal), brave the wind storm, and survive being tossed around at sea (barraged by water guns). The kids had a blast, were entertained; but more important, they got the message.
We have incredible teams that spend numerous hours preparing for Sunday morning. This is just one example of the generosity and friendships that are born from serving Jesus in community.
Allowing these volunteers to “own” their morning has worked. The kids look forward to it, and the message comes out in the different segments just like it would in a traditional teaching venue, with much more flare. I would encourage leaders to work with their volunteers finding teams that have chemistry. Encourage them to find a format that works for them, experiment, drop the scripts, and most importantly have fun.
