Ridge Stone Kids Update

I have been slightly busy with preaching, family trip and just general Easter hang over so I haven't posted in awhile here but I wanted to post some new highlights of things that are going on at Ridge Stone Kids

Average Attendance from 3/25-4/15
Tiny Town (Birth-PreK) 67
Planet Shakers (K-5th) 76

Planet Shakers has really been rolling, with one Sunday being kindof crazy (but we learned alot from) but the others have been great. Like I said before, the small group element has really taken off and Elevate has some great group activities. Tiny Town is really evolving with some great workers who are really doing an awesome job loving on the little ones. We are trying to find some more leaders for Tiny Town though, as it is growing a great deal and we need some help to make those babies feel comfy.

Overall results: Growing pains and Good Momentum

Heroes of Mega City

Here are just a couple of pics from our new series from Elevate called Heroes of Mega City



You can see our Theater Setup Here. Like I said this was one of the first times I have handed off setup in the theater to a volunteer leader, he did a good job. Josh covered the entire front of the theater curtains (which is almost 50 feet) he also added some 3D elements by attach the logo sign to Styrofoam and attaching it to the set backdrop in the center. Its always tough when there is so much room up front but I think he was able to get a good setup and still left enough room for small groups up front.


Elevate is really cool because they actually give you an entire set design with the curriculum. So basically as a 2 and a half year old church we had access to a church of 30,000 graphic design team, video squad and basically much more than we could ever do by ourselves. There is no other place in ministry where I believe this is possible.

Tell me what ya think

Monday Morning Quarterback

Stealing a page from my boy Pudge (even though he didn't hook me up with Masters tickets, JK)
I am going to try and update what happens each Sunday in our children's ministry here!

Easter Sunday April 9th 2007

Attendance
Planet Shakers (K-5th) 102 (These are totals with no repeats, we have 2 services)
Tiny Town (Birth- PreK) 88

New Curriculum: Elevate (In Elementary and PreK) from Fellowship Church

Review: Great Small groups, Props were awesome and it was one of the first times I had handed off the setup duty to one of our volunteer leaders, kids really dug our new music and teaching, check out was rough and we will look to evaluate how to make it better/ question is how to make it more effective and still keep things secure(if anyone has an idea on how to do that please drop me a line or comment here-we meet in a theater (kids are in an actual theater) and we have a tag and badge system)

Overall: Great Day!

churchplanters.com and Mountain Lake

WOW

The last few days and couple of weeks have been great.

I have visited Mountain Lake's k-5 program and let me tell you Carol and those guys are doing some awesome things. Thanks again Carol for inviting me and hanging out with Laney and me and showing us the ropes.

Then I went back to Mountain Lake (with a youth ski trip in between) and attended the Churchplanters.com conference and got super jacked up about what we do and doing it better

Its so much fun to never stop learning

networking

A huge help in my ministry has been contacting and just talking shop with other kids and student ministry people who are ahead of where we are.

Lately I have been super busy and have let the tyranny of the urgent get in the way. Not anymore though.

I have been on the phone 3 times in the past 2 weeks for a total of probably forty minutes, with student and family pastors from all over. Let me just say this is so vital to keeping focussed on not accepting 2nd best and pushing yourself to find solutions to your current problems and ways to avoid issues in the future.

The next step is to travel to a few cool churches, basically our two big brothers and sit down and really get a look at their kids programs and I am jacked to get a look and be inspired.

If you arent constantly evaluating your ministry and seeking information and wisdom on ministry then you will find yourself in ruts before you know it....trust me, it stinks but it happens all the time.

So keep the emails, phone calls and visits going if you want to keep kids happy, informed and moving towards a better relationship with God.

Yutes

Student ministries is something we have struggled with here at Ridge Stone, and I even came here to help start them, but quickly I moved to kids and have loved it ever since. Now I am involved heavily again in student ministries but this time by directing a core team of volunteers who will hopefully run it by themselves one day.

Right now we have kicked off a new phase in our student minstry called The Project and so far things are pretty good. The kids seem to be enjoying themselves and the volunteers are feeling the best the ever have about the future.

The Project is our first step in splitting up Middle and High school and having a worship service and short message for each and we have been blown away by the enthusiasm these students have for the music and the message.

I am really excited to see where this leads and really pumped about seeing our teenagers growing closer to each other and God.

Creative Meetings

Last night was our creative meeting for our next series in both Planet Shakers (K-5) and our PreK section of Tiny Town

We got some really good ideas and I am pumped about kicking these off in a couple of weeks.

We like to have the planning meeting about 3 weeks before the next series starts then have a work day sometime in the next two weeks before the kickoff and then try to get as much of the props as possible up to the theatre before we start the series, though space sometimes is an issue.

For the past couple of weeks leading up to this we have been emailing each other ideas on what would could be doing and the basic premise of the next series. This gives us information to take to the meeting to make our time more efficient.

Alot of churchs do not do as much prop creation as we do but alot of churches dont meet in movie theatres either. We always want to create an environment to remind the kids what we are talking about and inspire some excitement too.

I usually have some OK ideas but if I didnt have a creative meeting I dont know where we would be.

Creative Meetings rule.

Preston