Hard working moms and dads all over the world are preparing for summer.  Where will the kids go?  What experiences will be planned for them?  How will they grow as a response to the summer activities?  Many families plan a wide variety of experiences for their family over the summer.  Parents want opportunities to serve, feel the emotion of compassion, and experience spiritual revelation and depth through camps and VBS.  It’s important to have family bonding times as well.  Contrary to what the kids want, it’s also important for parents that kids retain what was learned over the previous school year and take on new academic knowledge.    And to think, there are only eight to ten weeks for such experiences.  Although it is not the church’s responsibility to provide ALL the needs for families, summer is a wonderful time to switch gears and purpose as a ministry.

It’s important as you consider the plethora of ideas for summer outreach you provide what naturally suits your congregation.  Take a look at what other churches are doing and attempt to complement one another instead of competing.  Families tend to go to all types of church organized events over the summer to meet their needs.  Don’t take offense; be grateful!  Be prepared to find your niche and meet the needs of families in your community considering God has placed you in this community body just as He pleased. You have a role to fulfill.

In order to get your ideas rollin’ we’ve listed several ideas you can use to reach your community this summer.
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Imagine having had this amazing experience on your first mission trip.  As you returned home and began showing pictures and sharing stories of how your faith was renewed and how you served others, they don’t seem to get it.  Listeners try to share your enthusiasm but cannot grasp the life transformation that took place in your life.  You wished they could have lived it with you…

If you’ve ever been on a mission trip, you’ve likely experienced that dilemma.  If one individual shared that much life change, imagine what would take place for the family unit when they serve on a mission trip together.  The conversations and moments of caring for others would be amazing.

Parents want nothing more than to have their kids carry on their faith in God.  According to Eugene Roehlkepartain in his book, The Teaching Church, if you want to double the chances that your child will continue to live for God, then they will do three things:  have caring conversations, family devotions and family service.   Providing opportunities for families to serve together or experience mission trips could provide each of these faith milestones families need to strengthen their faith TOGETHER.  Although not limited to summer, it is a great time of the year for such experiences.

You may be thinking, at this time of the year, with this amount of responsibility how could I possibly organize family serving opportunities or a mission trips?  Remember, our role as church leader is to equip the saints to do the work, not to do all the work alone.  The idea of a family missions experience can be as elaborate or simple as you need it to be.  The benefits of the work put into family missions experiences will out way the work put into pulling the ideas together.

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Summer is a time of transition

After a summer of camps, camps and more ministry than I could imagine, my kids are misbehaving, my 12 year-old daughter is having daily withdraws from the lack of activity, and I’m impatient with all the noise and whining around the house.

What is going on!?  One word- TRANSITION.

If you’re like me, then my encouragement to you is to find a support system, give yourself extra grace, and communicate to people around you that you are emotionally coming in for a hard landing after a summer of flying.  Try to give grace to others as well who may be experiencing the same transition (like your own children or your ministry team members).  I’m taking my dose of advice by the handful!

~Rhonda Haslett

We finished three weeks of Hot U at the end of July.  It was an intense time that required over 400 volunteers and served over 1000 kids.  One of the things that we looked at this year was trying to find a way to allow the kids a place to catalog what they had learned and experienced.  This year we went low-tech.  We placed a simple poster in each room with a key question on it and asked the kids to write on the poster.

We asked kids when they felt that God was with them.  We received responses like, “At my dad’s funeral.” “Never.” “When I worship.”  It was a simple journal-like way to get the pulse of what God was doing.

Next year I might try GuestReel.  GuestReel is a Mac software application that turns your computer into a video kiosk.  It looks incredibly simple.  GuestReel allows users to put in their name and write a message, then record a video using the computer’s built-in camera or a connected device.

It would be SO awesome to see kids respond after large group in this way.  There are so many possibilities!  I’d love to hear from those of you who have either used GuestReel or a video-log to capture kid’s messages.

Now that we are finished with all three weeks of our half-day summer camps, I’ll share some of the video components we created!

Each day, we told the Bible story to 225 kids (ages 3-entering Kindergarten) on video.  Throughout the week, we covered the story of Joseph.  Let me know what you think!

Tuesday’s Bible Adventure

Wednesday’s Bible Adventure

Thursday’s Bible Adventure

Friday’s Bible Adventure

I love the game of soccer.  While many people find soccer boring to watch or play, I find it fascinating.  On June 10th, the World Cup begins and 32 countries will vie for the championship.  The World Cup is a great way to talk with kids about other countries.  In my ministry context, we are always looking for ways we can ratchet up global awareness and give kids opportunities to locate other countries on a map and pray for those countries.  This summer, we’ll be using the World Cup to integrate international impact into our K-5th summer programming.  What about you?

Great places to start:

•    FIFA World Cup

•    Joshua Project - find countless stats on countries and unreached people groups

•    Nation Master – another site dedicated to world statistics

•    Explore the World through Soccer- South Africa (Book)

•    Explore the World through Soccer- Mexico (Book)

Over the past several weeks I have been working almost full-time to prepare and execute the large group environments for our summer camps, Hot U Jr (for 3 year olds – entering Kindergarten) and Hot U (entering 1st grade – entering 4th grade).  Summer camps are fun and exciting but they pose a challenge for me because I do not spend the summer preparing for the fall.  I have been carving out additional time early in the morning or when I’m eating lunch to think through some fall training materials for my elementary small group leaders.  Here’s four C’s that I think will help shape those materials.

Content: The primary focus of a small group is the content, but not just games or questions.  Our content will always be Biblically focused.  Kids and leaders will read God’s Word.  In the era of digital learners, content must have impact, be more than information that can be summoned at a keystroke, and focus on skills (studying God’s Word, applying God’s Word, prayer).

Context:  Content is delivered in two environments: small group and large group.  These contexts have different purposes.  Small groups exist for prayer, building relationships, and to talk about God’s Word.  Large group exists for corporate worship and Bible teaching.  These contexts have unique flavor and texture.  Small groups are more relational, feel small and individual, and eyeball to eyeball, moderate, muted.  Large group is a corporate experience, togetherness, part of something bigger and whole, loud, bright.

Connection: A small group leader’s role is to connect to kids through prayer, building relationship, and talking about God’s Word.  A small group captain’s role is to connect to small group leaders in this same way.  But where do parents fit here?  We asked parents to rate their relationship with their child’s small group leader and most indicated that they did not really know the small group leader at all.  However, we asked how important that relationship was (parent to small group leader) and most parents indicated that it was not important at all.

Community: KidsWorld is a church.  It is not the church of tomorrow, it is the church of today – right now.  As such, we are part of bringing children into real, authentic community where they can grow to become more like Christ.  As Reggie Joiner comments, Hollywood will always out-produce the church but it cannot do better at the church at creating community.