Not to long ago we came home late and my boys needed to get showered and get to bed. I wanted this to happen quickly, it was pushing 10pm.
Unfortunately my younger son was the last to use the tub and once again left toys scattered about – driving my 9 year old over the edge. I heard him complain about it to his brother and then heard the water start…seemed like things we moving.
As I listened it didn’t sound like anyone was in the shower. They had been moving slow and my own irritation was rising…but I gave it some more time. Still no sounds of actual washing.

I went into the bathroom and found my older son draining water from various toys rather than showering as he should have been.

“Why aren’t you washing yourself? It’s 10 o’clock and you should be in bed. Get cleaned and get ready for bed.”
I knew I was being abrupt – I wanted him to know I meant business. His response shocked me.

“I don’t care what time it is, I don’t want these toys in the bathtub.”

Decision time.
My wife, hearing this exchange was unsure if she should come rescue her son or simply call an ambulance.
Kidding aside, it didn’t sit well with me. Now, I too am angry.

Something like this can easily happen in our classrooms as well and it becomes decision time. What do you do?

Maintain control:

This is the hardest part. At home, I simply said: Get clean. Then I walked away, I could address the issue later. Sometimes that should be your response in the classroom. However, this can also be a time when you authority as the teacher has been directly challenged and you can walk away.

Even so, you must never respond in anger. To do so will mean giving away even more control – and needing to apologize later.

It wasn’t easy to walk away from my son and not “fix it” right away but I paused to think. That pause let me keep control and reminded me of my goal – get them to bed. Losing control, reducing him to tears, then building him back up would not help me to get them to bed faster – quite the opposite.

Address issues of disrespect:

It’s important that children (and adults) grasp the idea that all authority comes from God. God is the one that has placed you as the leader in the classroom.

After everyone had cooled a little and my son was closer to being ready for bed, I approached him. I calmly explained that his tone and his words were disrespectful. I let him know that I understood that he was irritated but that did not excuse his reaction. There was no punishment but he did learn that his response did not fit into what is acceptable.

The same is true in the classroom. Come back to the issue when things are calmer. Remind the child of the rules, if you understand their reaction tell them, and let them know how the rules were violated.

How do you address outburst in your home/class?

This weekend my senior pastor talked about three reasons why people should take God’s challenge in Malachi 3 and give to the church.  One of the three reasons was “financial accountability.”  In my ministry context, every dollar in the budget goes through a robust, detailed budgeting process.  When ministry dollars are spent, each purchase is scrutinized to make sure it was worth the investment and placed in the right budget.  At the end of the year our church invites an outside auditor to look over our records and publish a public report.  Financial accountability is part of our church’s stewardship of the gifts and offerings people give. 

As children’s and family ministry leaders, we are often called upon to steward church funds.  This is why I love to find ways to save money, free tools, or discounts – it helps me fulfill my Biblical role to be a shrewd manager of resources and provide financial accountability to the church and those who give.   Qpon Monkey is one of those tools.

Qpon Monkey is a new service that launched today.  Qpon Monkey provides fantastic savings for all your ministry needs.  The savings are mostly from special web deals, but printable coupons are coming soon.  Brought to you by the CMBuzz this money-saving, budget-stretching tool also supplies honest, straight forward reviews of products from local ministry practitioners.

At launch, Qpon Monkey already has deals ranging from music to video tools, so drop by the website today!

Several months ago I found out that one of my favorite children’s Bibles was being rereleased.  The Toddler’s Bible, written by V. Gilbert Beers, came out in 1992 to great acclaim.  The author, a ministry and publishing veteran, knew that in order to engage the 2-3 year old mind, heart, and eyes that he would have to “become a toddler.“  It worked.

Here are five things I love about this children’s Bible.

1. Brilliant artwork: When you glance at The Toddler’s Bible cover, you’ll immediately be struck by the vivid illustrations created by Claudine Gévry (click here to visit Claudine’s personal website).  These illustrations will quickly draw young readers into the story.

2. Interactive: When you read The Toddler’s Bible aloud, you’ll notice an ebb and flow of interactive language specifically and intentionally written for the 2-3 year old child:

Shhh. Do you see the baby?  This is baby Jesus.

Shhh. Do you see the animals?

Baby Jesus is sleeping in a manger.

- Excerpt from The Toddler’s Bible, Baby Jesus Story

3. Bible references: While each story is written in developmentally appropriate language, the Table of Contents includes the source Scripture passages.  I love it when children’s Bibles do not seek to replace Scripture, but point people to it.

4. Author introduction: I had the privilege of spending some time with the author, who lives about five minutes from my house.  Even though I have spent the better part of the last ten years ministering to kids and families, “Gil” took me to school on toddlers.  His introduction to The Toddler’s Bible is a helpful guide for parents and teachers.

5. Learnings: At the end of The Toddler’s Bible there is an outline of the attributes of God that children learn from immersing themselves in God’s Word.  I love this overt admission that the Bible reveals more than historical events, it tells us who God is.

Last week I began to talk about minimizing outbursts of anger in your classroom by providing order so that we can help our children know what to expect. However, there is a catch: when we establish rules and routines not only do we help children understand what to expect (a good thing) we can also lead them into the perception that they have certain “rights” and perhaps they do. When these rights (actual or imagined) are violated children can become angry.

In these cases it is vital that we make sure that we are debriefing children who are angry so we can understand their perceived right. It is also a good practice to make sure that our classrooms aren’t simply led by the rule of law, but by the rule of grace.

For example, our Children’s Church has three rules:

• Respect God
• Respect Others
• Respect Property

and we boil the whole thing down to one word: respect. So, when someone is interrupted they know that their “right” has been violated – sometimes this is easily corrected. Other times, this “right of respect” isn’t easily addressed and the child will come to a leader to express how they feel wronged. In these cases we’ll talk about the need for forgiveness and how doing so shows respect to God. In this way, our environment isn’t one of law but of grace – we can show respect to God by showing forgiveness to others.

If you have “taddle-tales” or children who are often upset because others did something, consider teaching a series on forgiveness and looking for other ways to introduce grace to your classroom.

As a teacher, how are you showing grace?

I’ve spent the last 8 years in full-time ministry.  One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that ministry is done best in collaboration.  Yet, there have been so many times in ministry that I have pulled away from conspiring with other children’s and family ministry leaders and as a result become far too self-dependent.  However, asking questions and networking with leaders is a great way to spur personal leadership development and grow in ministry.

This is why I’m so excited about Office Hours with Michelle Anthony.

Michelle Anthony, Family Ministry Architect at David C Cook and author of Spiritual Parenting and The Big God Story, is making herself available to you.  You can ask questions, share struggles and victories, gain encouragement and insight, and investigate best practices for spiritual development and family ministry.

Office Hours with Michelle Anthony Schedule:

Complete disclosure: I host Office Hours with Michelle Anthony, but that’s not why it’s a great idea.  There are a few things I love about Office Hours that make it a great resource for children’s and family ministry:

• No cost – Just sign up online, log on, and ask away. What’s not to love about free?
• Collaborative – You will hear questions from other children’s ministry leaders, Sunday school coordinators, and family pastors who are navigating the same ministry issues as you.
• Access – Michelle Anthony is a highly sought after speaker, typically you would have to pay to hear her in a conference setting but now you can access her directly every month.
• Personal – Some of the best ideas in kidmin do not outwardly change the program you run or the curriculum you use; they simply bolster your confidence, spiritual health, and leadership ability.

So check out Office Hours with Michelle Anthony on February 16!

As I write this I’m flying at 30,000 ft. headed back to the snowy NorthWest after a great holiday on the west coast of Mexico.  My family and I were incredibly blessed to get to spend two weeks at my Father’s timeshare.  It was an incredible opportunity to unwind from the day-to-day grind of ministry work.  As we head back, while not excited to battle the heavy snow, I am reenergized with a new since of urgency for the ministry and calling that God placed on my life.

Holiday is important because it provides and opportunity for us to disconnect and reenergize.  Whether we want to believe it or not none of us are the energizer bunny…we can’t just keep going and going. Holiday needs to be a scheduled part of our ministry rhythm if we are to stay effective.

Mark 6:31-32 says, “Because so many people were coming and going that they didn’t even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’” (NIV).  Jesus stops them.  He says, “rest”.  The work of ministry is exhilarating, especially when we are watching God perform miracles right before our eyes.  But Jesus knows that even when things are going well, we need rest…because He created us that way.

So let’s get real honest. How many of us in ministry actually Sabbath. You know, completely disconnect for 24 hours once a week. Think about your past 3 months of ministry…be honest.

Here is what I have learned from my time in ministry.  When I schedule intentional times to holiday in both my schedule and my budget I am more present and effective as a Pastor.  Ministry is all about relationships. So for me, so that I can have the energy to be fully present with others I have to make sure that holiday is a priority in my life.

I would love to tell you that I am awesome at this.  The truth is I am not.  But I’m getting better.

What’s your story?

KB

One of the problems that I faced as a dad I also see from time to time in the classroom – young children who are angry and have problems expressing their anger. My younger son went through what we thought was a “phase” of hitting – we tried many different ways to stop the behavior but what we needed to do was find out the cause of the behavior and address that. Of course, his reasons were mixed but they generally fell into the category of frustration or perceived violations.

Scream and Shout by Mindaugas Danys

The biggest thing that I learned is that when anger rears its head I need to find out what caused it…and typically that won’t happen until the anger has dissipated. In the classroom this can be difficult so the debrief my have to be done by a helper – just don’t wait to long or the child may forget. Knowing the cause of the anger can help you avoid the classroom disruptions in the future so a debrief is key.

Over the next few weeks I want to cover some thoughts on what causes anger and ways you can minimize it for your classroom. One of the biggest issues has to do with scheduling. Children are routine oriented – some of them extremely so. This orientation helps them process the world and their place in it so when there is a disruption in that schedule they can become confused and try to right the perceived wrong by becoming angry. Generally, these conflicts have to do with unmet expectations.

Unmet expectations: If a child believes that there will be a time to play and it doesn’t occur or if they think there will be a snack and it doesn’t happen anger over these unmet expectations can occur. Children are routine oriented; keep your classroom routine oriented. Follow a schedule and if you’re going to change something, let the children know in advance – minimize schedule surprises.

As adults, we like (or think we like variety) and project that onto children…but think about Blue’s Clues or any other popular children’s shows: they are all the same. Have variety within the spaces, but keep the spaces the same every week.

For instance, our children’s church almost always follows this schedule: play, clean-up, worship through song, large group teaching, small groups, play until pickup. If there’s a change for the day we try to announce it ahead of time. We can play different things, sing different songs, and teach different stories but the order is the same. We also give our children some additional anchors: In play time we have four stations: at least two (usually 3) are the same as they were the week before. In song time, our first song is almost always the same. In our teaching time there’s a place where we ask a question that they can talk about together and then we chat as a group followed by prayer. Even within your variety you can have order.

How do you provide stability in your enviornments?

This post could save you hours every month.

Every Sunday School Director, Children’s Pastor, or Christian Education Director has volunteers.  Ministry requires volunteers.  By virtue of having a volunteer team every leader has to create some system to schedule and manage their volunteers.  For years I created an Excel spreadsheet to tackle volunteer scheduling but I quickly ran into problems:

• If I sent out the schedule before getting input from the team, I ended up having to make adjustments and resending the schedule.
• If I solicited volunteer feedback ahead of time, creating the schedule meant wading through a pile of emails from every volunteer about their availability.

Then I discovered Planning Center.  Planning Center is a web-based volunteer management tool.  You can schedule and organize your teams, layout your services, and store media.  This tool puts the onus of responsibility on your volunteers to proactively put in their unavailable dates into a calendar, so when you make your schedule you automatically know who is out of town.  With Planning Center you can communicate to your entire team and team members are reminded of their serving commitment via email or text.

In my church context, we use Planning Center for multiple teams: Creative Arts, Celebrate Recovery, Administration, Children’s Ministry, and Student Ministry.  It is well-worth the monthly investment because collectively we save hours and hours of time creating volunteer schedules and the service planning tools are priceless.

I’m going to jump on Matt’s bandwagon for a moment and share a tool with you that I have been trying to put to better use.

Many of the parents at my church use Facebook – and, regardless of my personal preference, it’s good to have a presence there as well. But, I don’t have the inclination to spend much time on Facebook and I often forget how useful it can be.

That’s where Hootsuite can help. Hootsuite has several levels of support and function, but the base level is free. The free version can support up to 5 “streams” and if you need more you can move into the free version. If you tweet, your twitter account (no matter how many lists) all count as a single stream. Facebook accounts and Facebook pages/groups are another stream each.

Having one place to go that has everything saves time, makes things searchable…and best of all (for me), I don’t have to try to figure out the whole timeline thing.

But here’s the best part – and why you need this: With Hootsuite, you can schedule messages to your social network. So, on Friday’s when I am polishing the lessons for Sunday and thinking about the coming week, I can schedule messages for my facebook and twitter account and other messages for our children’s ministry facebook page. I use these scheduled messages to give a daily reminder about what we’re doing the coming weekend and how parents can begin the lessons at home. If I need to edit a scheduled message, that’s no problem either.

If you’re looking for a way to be present on facebook or twitter every day and not have to actually be there everyday, take a look at hootsuite.

Volunteer training is part of any Sunday School program, children’s ministry, or mid-week club.  Investing in children requires an investment in the volunteers who will lead them.  That’s where VoiceThread can be a helpful tool.