Today’s kids prefer to process images before text.  As leaders and storytellers present the truth of God’s Word, it is vital to incorporate visual elements into the teaching and today’s nonlinear presentation tools resources are the right tools for the job.  Why use a nonlinear tool?

• Visuals can be accessed in any order
• Increased interactivity
• Unique point of view – presenter can pan and zoom on the visuals
• Greater flexibility with multimedia and social media

1) Prezi – The mother of all nonlinear presentation tools.  Create your presentation on a large canvas, zoom in and out on the canvas, jump around from text to image to video.  Other similar tools without the panache include Pachyderm, Dizzy.js, and Speakflow.

2) PowerPoint – If Prezi is the mother of nonlinear presentation tools, PowerPoint is the father.  While not created inately for nonlinear work, with plugins like ActivePrez by GMARK, PowerPoint can add a toolbar at the top of any presentation to allow the presenter to jump back and forth through the visuals seamlessly.  A similar plug is pptPlex.

3) ProPresenter - Awesome and powerful software for Mac or PC.  I’ve used ProPresenter in multiple ministry environments and it is my favorite tool for presenting.  A fully featured impressive product.

4) Projeqt – So many cool features in this web tool: pull live tweets, blog feeds, insert audio notes or interactive maps, and view streaming video (to name just a few).  Projeqt is a crazy cool tool that you have to check out.

Have you used any of these tools or other nonlinear presentation software?  Let us know in the comments!

I am fascinated with the teaching and learning process.  As children’s and family ministry leaders, part of our work is educational so being attenuated to issues related to learning theory is critical.  In Approaches to Training and Development, Dugan Laird posits that the vast majority of knowledge (75%) is learned through seeing.  God created our eyes to help us learn.

So often in children’s ministry we overemphasize learning through hearing, even though hearing accounts for only 13% of retained knowledge.  Learning to represent ideas and concepts visually is a worthwhile skill to acquire for anyone involved in the teaching and learning process.

I know what you’re thinking:

“Wait, I don’t draw!”  “Even my stick figures are unrecognizable!”

Have no fear, technology is here to help.  Here are 5 resources that can help you begin the process of learning how to represent ideas and concepts visually.

Draw Something – This app is being played by over 20 million people all over the world.  It’s turn-by-turn Pictionary for your iPad.

Vizthink.com – Free articles, media, podcasts, and presentations cover topics like Idea Mapping, Drawing Ideas, and Visual Note-Taking.  There is a fantastic library of articles covering the basics, including how to conquer the fear of drawing.

Paper – My favorite app for the creative process.  Simple tools make it easy to pick up a “pen” and brainstorm.  Available in the iTunes store.

Napkin Academy – Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, is on a mission to help people learn to use simple pictures.  With Napkin Academy, you can begin with a variety of free lessons that help you go from “I can’t draw” to “I can draw any idea.”

How to Draw Faces – This is one of my go-to resources by author and artist Austin Kleon.  It’s a simple video of how to draw faces with a square, two dots, 2/3 of a triangle and three lines.  Watch and learn.

The purpose of this series is to equip leaders in children’s and family ministry with tools and resources from the digital world.  We’ve covered theological topics, leadership issues, volunteers, worship and music, research, budget, and social media.  Today I want to introduce you to a concept that completely changed my work style and effectiveness.  Whether you are a Sunday School Director or Children’s Pastor, you are a busy person, so busy that often people tell you, “I didn’t want to call you because I know you’re so busy.” Am I right?

The problem with being busy is that you reach a certain threshold where no matter what you are working on in the present; your mind fixates on the things you’re not working on.  We tend to think about what needs to be done instead of focusing on what we are doing.  This is a critical issue for children’s ministry leaders because in the moments when we are strolling the halls of our ministry environment, instead of looking like we have all the time in the world to stop and talk to parents and kids, we look like we’re trying to solve a complex algorithm.

Are you too busy?  Determine how much time you can spend with people without thinking about supply shopping, set-up, or curriculum and let your heart decide.

Almost five years ago I read a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen.  Getting Things Done (or GTD for short) is a system of organizing your work.  In GTD, I learned to give all of my work a place.  It was a pivotal moment for me as a leader and pastor.  I recommend the book and invite you to look across the interwebs at the myriad tools available to help you keep track of what needs to be done: Remember the Milk, Omnifocus, Nozbe, Wunderlist, Action Method, Outlook, Google Tasks, Things.

For decades, animation has won over audiences both young and old.  From the first animated film, Snow White, to the Toy Story trilogy, animation has become one of the most powerful storytelling tools in our culture.

In the early days of children’s ministry, a church producing original animations was inconceivable.  The time, cost, and expertise required greatly exceeded the average church budget or staff.  Technology has changed all of that.   Now the average Sunday School can produce high quality, original animation for free.  If you’re interested in using animation to help teach children, let me introduce you to some of the tools available.

Toontastic: Toontastic is an iPad app that uses drawing tools to bring original artwork to life. Toontastic isn’t just the brute strength of animating your artwork.  It is a storytelling tool that helps users determine a story arc, setting, and the characters.  Imagine using this with your storytelling team in a training setting to help them illustrate the Bible story!

Xtranormal: Xtranormal is a web animation tool.  You provide the script and Xtranormal animates it for you.  I’m serious.  You type in the script and Xtranormal does the work.  You select the characters and backgrounds, then add the script by typing it or submitting your own audio recording.  Xtranormal allows you to choose the emotions, actions, and gestures for the characters along with the camera angles and sound effects that go along with the script.

What other tools have you discovered to aid storytelling in your children’s ministry context?

Understanding digital learners is the most critical knowledge gap in children’s and family ministry today.

Wow. I think I just summed up what I have sensed for the past 10 years in ministry.  That phrase captures the reason why I started blogging four years ago, the purpose of my ongoing research, and the explanation behind my heart beating so quickly when I get up in front of a group of Sunday school teachers and volunteers to talk about today’s kids.

Understanding digital learners is the most critical knowledge gap in children’s and family ministry today. 

If you are involved in any type of children’s ministry (VBS, Sunday school, Awana, club programs, Sunday morning services), you are in the thick of reaching digital learners.  Discovering their characteristics, tendencies, habits and traits (especially as it relates to media) can bolster your efforts.  In most cases, it will send those efforts into a new orbit.

A great place to start is by reading and reviewing the 2010 seminal report from the Kaiser Family Foundation entitled “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds.”

The report highlights the following:

• Young people spend 7:38 each day consuming media
• Due to using multiple devices at once and the explosion of mobile tools, total media consumption averages 10 hours and 45 minutes daily
• Two-thirds of young people own their own cell phone, 76% of young people own a portable music device

Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is a must read for any children’s ministry leader.  Download it, review it, and share your notes with parents and volunteers.

What stands out to you as an action step after reading this research on kids and media?

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!

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.

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.

Music changed with the Internet.  Napster popularly yet illegally allowed people to share their music collections song by song for free.  Songs went from being sold in stores by the album to being sold online individually.  Whole music libraries went from a media cabinet to your pocket.  But most importantly, because music became cheaper, more accessible, and mobile, it fundamentally changed from a hobby to a way of life.

Children today exist with a curated soundtrack to their lives.  Understanding and influencing that soundtrack is a powerful tool for ministry leaders.  That is why I love Spotify.

Free: With Spotify, you can listen to music for free.  No more buying tracks and typing in the 58 digit alphanumeric codes to redeem an iTunes gift card.   You love free, so does your church administrator.

Selection: Unlike other music tools, you choose the music you want to listen to, create playlists, and have access to the latest music instantly.  Your music collection just went from one thousand to several million.

Relevant: I love checking in with kids to see what they are interested in.  Last week I asked my daughter’s kindergarten class if they had ever played “Scribblenauts” because I had read about the game.  Blank stares told me everything I needed to know.  Now, I can ask kids what they listen to and instead of burning through budget dollars to buy it I can listen to it legally.

Simple: To use Spotify, just visit the website and create an account. Spotify has apps for smartphones and your Mac or PC.  It just works.

Unfortunately because of licensing restrictions, you are not allowed to use your Spotify account to play music publicly (in your church, school, etc.).  However, I get so much value out of using Spotify personally that this is not a make or break feature.

If you use Spotify, please share what you are currently listening to!

I am always looking for new tools to help me understand the forces of technology.  The technological future has great implications on the culture and environment kids will grow up and learn in.

Envisioning Tech has put together an interactive map that aims to predict where technology is heading in the next 30 years.  “Looking at emerging trends and research, one can predict and draw conclusions about how the technological sphere is developing, and which technologies should become mainstream in the coming years.

Envisioning technology is meant to facilitate these observations by taking a step back and seeing the wider context. By speculating about what lies beyond the horizon we can make better decisions of what to create today.”

According to the visualization, cloud computing, gesture recognition, speech recognition, pervasive video capture, and augmented reality will be mainstream within the next 5 years.  Take note of these terms because they will play an important role in the lives of the next generation of kids and families.