Last one for now--Pictures!

This is the base of the fountain

Yup this is the sanctuary
This is Erin Dutter, the division leader I'll be wroking with this summer

This is the fountain that goes from first floor to the lower level

Phil Vischer: "Don't eat the glue"

Phil Vischer is the creator of Veggie Tales. A few years ago his company went bankrupt and he lost all that he created and had worked for. The stress of everything was literally killing him and he had lost his joy.

He said that if someone is a believer than the attributes of the Spirit will just fall out of them...it can't be helped. But among all of the stress he had lost these attributes. It was soon after this realization that he lost everything, but he realized that the great work he was doing for God wasn't as important to God as he was.

God wants us to give up our goals, dreams, ambitions and our burdens and exchange them for His. He says "Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest"

Ministry is not about job security...it's about making an invisible God visible.

We can't compete with Nickolodean and Disney, but we can do something they can't do--we can love a child.

David Staal--Notes from your best friend

David Staal is the overall director of the children's ministry at WillowCreek. He was the second to last speaker at the conference and spoke about the burdens. He said there are 2 key cornerstones to ministry, without one you'll be wobbly at best and without both you'll fall.

The first cornerstone is: Own a burden. Nehemiah 1:4 says "When Nehemiah heard these things he sat down and wept". When you have a burden you need to remind yourself of it often and when you have one you'll be willing to step up and do whatever it takes to get stuff done...you'll take actions you normally wouldn't take. And most importantly...when you have a burden never give up.

The second cornerstone is: Love each other. Kids will be effected by how you're doing on this. If you want your ministry to be effective you need to get the love each other thing right first. This is what sets us apart from everyone else in the world. To begin, figure out why you love the people you lead.

In ministry it's easy to set our hopes and expectations incredibly low. Do try to just get by? Or do you own a burden?

Creating sets for kids without blowing your budget

In the second session I went to I learned a ton of stuff about creating cool sets without using a ton of money. I can't wait to be in a church someday and use my gifts in designing children's areas. Now I also have a greater perspective on how to create them and what tools to use. Instead of listing them all here I'm just gonna post the resources that Dan Huffman gave us in his session.

Professionals:
We will list out who are the professional companies that can help you build an amazing set and how much will it cost me?
1. Wacky World Studios, Florida (Bruce Barry) www.WackyWorld.tv
2. Little Mountain Productions, Oklahoma www.LittleMountainProductions.com
3. Jonathan Martin Creative, Oklahoma www.JonathanMartinCreative.com
4. Shane Grammer Studios, California www.sgstudios.org
5. Real-Fake Buildings, Georgia (Paul Mergenhagen) www.RealFakeBuildings.com
6. Creative for Kids, Illinois (Randy & Michele’ Triplett) www.CreativeForKids.com
7. Worlds of WOW, Texas (Reagan Hillier) www.WorldsofWOW.com
Resources:
We will list out what resources you can turn to for further help. Many of them are free and available on the internet.
1. KidzTurn Ministries, West Virginia (Carl Lussier) www.KidzTurn.com
2. Free High School and College Theater Tips www.HSTech.org and www.upstagereview.org
3. Plaster Master, Pennsylvania (Dan Kijak) www.PlasterMaster.com
4. Axtell Expressions, California (Steve Axtell) http://www.axtell.com/treeform.html
5. Church Growth Today, Missouri (Dr. John Vaughan) www.ChurchGrowthToday.com
6.www.IKEA.com
7.www.sciplus.com
8.www.OrientalTrading.com
9.www.AndersonsProm.com or www.StumpsProm.com
10.www.HotWireFoamFactory.com
11. www.DemandProducts.com (Professional Hot Knife)
12.www.SculpturalArts.com (Foam Coatings)
13.www.SameDayMusic.com (LS7730 Lighting Stand)
14.www.dalite.com (BGS System Background Stands)
15.www.CamelBackDisplays.com (Pipe and Drape)
16. www.FabricGallery.com
17.www.BensonsImport.com (Bamboo Supplier)

I haven't checked them out yet, but I'm sure they're awesome!

Day 2: Recruiting and retaining volunteers

Today we got to choose 3 breakout sessions we wanted to attend and so for the first one I chose something that I hope will be sort of pre-empting for my future ministry. It's what I've heard children's pastor's struggle the most with: recruiting and retaining volunteers. There were 3 speakers from different churches; Chapel, Mars Hill and one of the Willow sites. It was cool getting the 3 different perspectives.

Here are some of their helpful hints: Recruiting is about helping people find their position on God's team not about filling a spot on our team.

We need to have a magnet mindset. Ministry values should bleed from your recruiters
Always use the best recruiters for up front announcements
God is the one who prompts his people to serve
No where to fish and when to fish for volunteers
Exact needs should be made crystal clear
Train your teams on what to look for in future volunteers

To retain volunteers you need to start by looking at your ministry. Is it a great place, great people, great program, prayer, partnerships?

What's the joy level like? Do kids want to be there? Is it inspiring?

You need build into your leaders, appreciate your volunteers, remove obstacles when you can. To do this just ask them what would make their job easier and do what you can to make it happen. And smooth the way where you can...if volunteers are always late ask them if there's something you can do to help them out.

Also it's important to connect every task to the vision. At Mars Hill they use the statement Change a diaper, change the world. You need to remind volunteers of that and tell them stories that connect their service to the vision.

We must see ourselves as cultural architects. We need to build a culture of affirmation, recreation (people are more willing to serve where they're having fun), celebration (be the ministry known for partying), and connection (with God, to the vision and with each other).

I learned a lot in this session about recruitment and retention, but it was great being able to talk with the woman from Mars Hill after the session was done. I asked if she had any advice for me as I'll be starting out in ministry soon. She said the most important thing to do is to connect in a church who values its children.

I also talked to her about myself and told her that recruiting was a big fear of mine since I am so introverted and task oriented. Her advice was very beneficial to me in this. She said I should lead out of my strengths. That I should look for the best encourager and to train them as a recruiter. I would then be able to pour myself into them and encourage them, without being drained all the time. She told me not to feel guilty about the way God designed me.

Well that was the end of session 1 onward to number 2.

The Sessions

The first speaker, Christine Yount Jones is the editor for Group's Children's Ministry magazine. She spoke about erasing your fears in ministry. She said there are three things that make us afraid: being wrong, meeting your worst case scenario, and the fear of breaking something. For each of these her advice was to stick with it and learn why something isn't working, leaning into your worst case scenario because even though it will hurt, you'll come through it and survive, and last but not least if God is calling you to break something then erase your fears and break it, because he's already gone before you in it.

The next session offered some scary statistics about losing kids from the faith, because they walk away from it when they're older. I think the most important point the speaker made was that it doesn't matter how creative our programs are at church if it's not backed up at home. The family cannot be the church, but the church can't be the family either. Both are needed and spiritual develpment must be intentional in both places.

The last session was pretty cool. They had a Disney animator come in and share his testimony. It was awesome to see how his own spiritual struggles and triumphs were portrayed in the characters and scenes he drew. He designed the characters: Ariel, Tarzan, Pocahontas, Aladdin, the beast.

Then Aaron Reynolds spoke last and gave 3 important points to children's ministry. The first, we need to know the kids on a deep level...we need to understand their world. Second we must equip kids for transformation through ruthless application. And last we must bring the Bible to life for kids and teach it with heart.

In knowing the kids, Aaron mentioned a scary statistic. He stated that 1 in 12 kids are not a virgin by their 13th birthday. Can you imagine?

Well that's it for day one...I can't wait for tomorrow!

Promiseland conference--Day 1

Today was my first time at Willow Creek and it was huge! I got in last night and met up with the family who I'm staying with these next couple days. They're very sweet and Gail is extremely extroverted, which is good. She was introducing me to people all day long, including Erin who I'll be working with this summer.

Erin and I connected very well and had lunch together today. She's great and I'm so excited to work with her. She showed me her office and where I'll be working as well. She described it as the dungeon, because there are no windows in that office area.

I also met Jeff, the large group leader I'll be working with to do set design, and Beth who I'll be staying with this summer among a whole host of other people I met today. By this time I'm socially exhausted or as I like to say I have a social hangover, but all in all the day went very well.