iKidmin

I was cleaning out my desk and found a few notebooks with notes from various places that I've taken over the years and I decided to start typing them up here and reduce the clutter. Disclaimer:  Forgive any choppiness or random ideas since they are *my* notes.  If they help you then I'm glad, but if they don't feel free to leave a comment and ask a question and I will do my best to answer. I will always link to the source so you can learn for yourself from the original. Okay, onto the first installment of "kidmin notes". Today's notes come from Karl Bastian's podcast at Kidmintalk.com .  I love his podcast. I've listened to these episodes more than once. Many times I can't take notes because I'm listening while driving or working.  Karl has tons of experience in all kinds of kidmin situations and I glean something new each time. Let me encourage you to download and listen to Karl's podcast and search for other kidmin podcasts.

Another busy week this week. Sunday - teaching small groups 5th-6th graders about Jesus in the Temple when he was a boy.  I know they've heard this story before. I'm praying for God to speak to them through it since they are right about that age.  Hopefully they will identify with Jesus being a boy their age. After church we have PIT Crew practice.  I will write about PIT Crew soon, to give a more detailed look at what we do. Tomorrow our main plan is to work on a dowel rod song to "Glorious Day" by Casting Crowns for Easter service. Monday - Day off! I hope to get some housework and planning done for April and Easter and all those activities. In the afternoon I have a planning meeting for the worship service next week. Tuesday - Work during the day and in the evening I have a Preteen Camp Taskforce meeting. It was rescheduled from last week. Wednesday - Work during the day and Power Source in the evening. Thursday - Work during the day and home errands

I don't know about you but springtime seems to be busier than the Christmas season for me and I don't even have to plan an egg hunt. (Are you jealous?) There is a lot of planning and meeting going on in the spring for all the summer events on the horizon and I am involved in several summer events and projects. As I write this, it is the day after our spring break kids event. This year we had a lock-in; our first for kids of this age group.  It was a blast and I will be writing about it soon.  In the meantime check out my inspiration for putting on an event like this at my friend Kidmin Corrine's website. So what's on my list this week: Sunday - Morning: Teach small group of kids 5th-6th grade. My son and I team teach this class but he won't be able to attend so I'm on my own. Evening: Church Council where I will report in on our event and tell stories of how kids responded to the Bible teachings and the relationships that were built. Monday - Mee

Beat the Clock Beat the Clock by Jim Wideman This is my last month in Kidmin Academy  and this is the month I've been waiting for! I love to learn about time management and organization so this book is right up my alley. As usual though, God always has more in store for me than what I could imagine.  I had my own ideas about what I would learn from the book but God had other ideas as well. Here are a few things that God showed me in this book: I was recruited to fulfill my pastor's vision; not mine (ouch! guilty!) Even though I'm pretty organized and efficient I have much room to grow in the area of procrastination and prioritizing I've learned to set goals but I still struggle with an effective plan to get there. I need to set markers, and break things down into manageable chunks along the way I still have a lot to learn about "duplicating myself"  I'm often busy, but am I doing the right thing? Plan to grow, not plan to where you are

We don't have a budget or the resources to do a purchased program on Wednesday nights but we want to do something a little different than what we do on Sundays and we wanted kids to really get a chance to dig into the Bible and retain what they have learned.   I will say that we have worked with this particular model for two years, and we make tweaks constantly.  At this point we are trying to move past just filling a schedule into giving the kids a little more time to absorb and process what they've learned and a chance to hear the Holy Spirit speak.  It is hard to hear Him when there is so much "busyness".  Today's post is the outline of how a typical Wednesday night flows. I will post later about how we choose and present our Bible content.