Showing posts with label coronavirus ministry ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coronavirus ministry ideas. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Ministering To Children During the Covid-19 Pandemic


The global pandemic of 2020 has been challenging for all of us. When I began the KidFrugal blog, it was to resource others. Even though we are now retired, I still participate in some children's ministry, and I continue to read and research. Coming from a small church background we always had to rethink things. I never knew if I would have one kid or 8 kids. But over the years we were able to adapt and provide quality time for the children that came.

Ministering during a pandemic is similar in some ways. You have to re-think everything. Think outside of the box. How can we "touch" kids when they aren't even coming on campus? How can we connect. What about when we re-open?

I have already written a few posts about re-opening with kids in your services for those of you that will not be having separate children's ministries yet. You can check out worship bags here and ways to engage kids in "Big Church" here and specific ideas for worship bags here.

Today I want to give you some resources from Melissa J. MacDonald. If you aren't familiar with Melissa, aka as "Miss Mel" to many children, you owe it to yourself to read her book or listen to some of her teaching material.

Below is a 30 minute training video that Melissa did entitled, Engaging Kids Over Video. There are some really good pointers in this video. Melissa is straight forward, and engaging, which is what you want to be on video. She will give you some great ideas how to be personable even in a video. Some of her pointers include:
  1. Smile
  2. Connection not perfection
  3. How to be personable - if you are in your office, talk about some of the personal items in your office before you get into the lesson. Introduce your dog if your at home. Let kids see something about YOUR personal life in the video.
  4. Lighting
  5. Watch the video for more.





In addition to speaking and making videos, Melissa also writes. She is a regular columnist in Children's Ministry by Group and has a book entitled, Missing: An Urgent Call for the Church to Rescue Kids. 
 
Melissa also offers many different training opportunities like boot camps, coaching and seminars. Find our more at her website: Melissa J. MacDonald.

Friday, June 5, 2020

8 Ways to Engage Children in "Big Church"


Location, location, location. These are three most important words in real estate.

Connect, connect, connect. What are these the three most important words in? Intergenerational services. You could say, "Engage, engage, engage." too, but I like the connotations of what connecting means. So even though I entitled this "engage," I want the purpose of the engagement to be to connect children to the big picture of church. This entails realizing that they are a part of something bigger than their children's church or Sunday School classes. It means realizing that there is a body of believers that they are a part of. The more you can connect them to that body, the more they will feel a part of it. And the more they feel a part, the better the chances that they will maintain a life long connection with a local body of believers. Even beyond that though, children should be a part of our churches NOW, not when they are grown up. So I will give you ideas in this post, but more important than doing these things, is developing a church body that values the collective body, which includes children, the disabled, ethnicities, and, well you get it, all that are a part of the body of Christ.

Today with the event of Covid-19, as churches are facing re-opening, they are also facing incorporating children into the worship services. I did write a similar post a few years ago about alternatives to children's church, but I have included more ideas in this post. So here are 8 ideas for connecting and engaging children in "Big Church."

Sunday, May 31, 2020

The Butterfly Project



My regular readers may be aware that we retired from full time ministry in September. This entailed finding a new church and then getting involved. Hence, not many new posts...until now. Our new church had a genius idea I want to share with you during this COVID-19 crisis. This will still be great after the pandemic too, but it is particularly useful now.

This project was a mailing, but not just any mailing. The church purchased magic flying butterflies. If you aren't familiar with these babies, they are paper butterflies with wind up wings. The sender "winds the wings" up and places the butterfly in a card. When the receiver opens the card, the butterfly comes "flying" out.

You can order these butterflyers all over the internet, but we got ours at this website.
Cards were purchased at the Dollar Tree where you can get them 2 for $1.00. You could also make your own.

To make this project really special, parents were notified ahead of time that the card would be coming in the mail. You could email or text the parents, but they simply posted it in the Facebook group for their children's ministry. The children's director announced that something would be coming in the mail for the children and asked parents to film them as they opened their cards and then send the video to the church. Someone at church put the footage together and made one video which was shown during the online church service. It was a delightful surprise, and we got to "see" some of the children we hadn't seen for quite awhile. Below is the video that was shown in church.



This is a win-win project. It sends joy into the home where it is captured on film and then sent back to the church where it is shared with all. It benefited the congregation, the children's ministry, the children themselves and families.
  • The congregation benefits by getting to see the children's ministry (it created an inter-generational moment during the church service). 
  • The children see themselves shown during the "big peoples" church and thus feel a part of it. 
  • The ministry is kept before the church (they often do not see what goes on in kidmin). 
  • Finally the children & their families receive joy when they get the cards in the first place.
Have you done any mailing projects? Let us know in the comments below.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Tube People Starring in Isaac & the King


When I was in college my roommate gave me a note that said, "Procrastination is the thief of all time." Yes, I am a procrastinator. I kept thinking that I would redo the video for this post, but I realize that is not going to happen so, without further ado, here is part 2 of my tube people special.

I must admit, when I rolled these babies out I wasn't sure if they were going to go over or not. After all, "tube people," really? I like them, but I am a bit of a nerd. Not cool. Not a hipster. So I have been thrilled to see that this post has actually been more popular than my green screen post, which is, uh, more for the techy generation. And that encouraged me to do part 2 of this post.

I videoed myself acting the story of Isaac and the Wells (Genesis 26) to give you non-thespians an idea of how to use these tube people for story telling. Basically, you get the narrative down in your mind, and then you can even add lib a little. Like Rebecca telling Isaac that if they have to move one more time she's not coming. Maybe I took a little too much liberty there, no woman would have ever said that in those days, but it does sort of bring Rebecca to life for the kids. Once kids understand a story, you can let them act it out themselves. The key is to be uninhibited.



As I wrote in the original tube people post, you could use peg dolls, Lego people, or many other things to be "people" to act out Bible stories. Below are a few pictures of other ways I have made characters for story telling.

These "tube people" are made with Ian and Sue Coate's images. They are free on the websites listed below.

You can download the Coate's Bible images on Free Bible Images or on their own website, Free Christian Illustrations . Both of these sites are worth exploring for a multitude of good illustrations and Bible figures. You can find them for almost every character and event in the Bible.


The images I used for these are no longer available, but you can use images from the sites listed above
As I became more advanced in making the paper action figures above, I would make a copy of the image and then "flip" it in Word or Publisher. I ran off both copies and pasted them front and back so you could see the figures from both sides. These were a lot of work, but I saved them in a tote to reuse. You could also flatten the paper clip for storage in file folders.

Here I made flannel-graph figures with free printable Bible people.
Same printable people made into "tube people."
You can find the free download for the Bible people printable at The Activity Mom.

If you would like to see another demonstration of dramatizing a Bible event with paper figures, check out my Elijah and the Prophets of Baal post.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Tube People for Acting Out Bible Stories


Make these tube people from things you already have around your house.

I coined the term "tube people," because that's what these are. People made from tubes. Complete instructions are in the video.

As parents or teachers, you can use these people to act out Bible stories. Kids can use them for the same, or just for imaginary play. In this day of tech, playing with hands on, kinesthetic items is so important. Tech is great, but I still don't think there is any substitute for good old fashioned creative play to develop the imagination. So during this time of staying at home, here's a great activity for the whole family.

Supplies:
  • empty paper tubes (toilet paper, paper towel, gift wrap) AND/OR empty chip board boxes. You can also use card stock, manila file folders or anything stiff that can be rolled into a tube.
  • stapler or tape
  • pieces of cloth (can be old rags, sheets, t-shirts...you can even use tissues)
  • Sharpie (black)
  • rubber bands, yarn, twine, strips of cloth for tying on the "head dress"
Directions:
  1. Roll your cardboard into a tube shape and staple it
  2.  Cut the size head dress you want
  3. Cut a length of twine, yarn or cloth for tying on the head dress
  4. Put the cloth over the top of the tube person, and tie it on as pictured
  5. Draw a face on with the Sharpie and you are done
  6. If you want to get fancy you can draw on clothes
Here is the instructable in video form:
These people can be used in any number of Bible story re-tellings. Sometime in May 2020 I will post some links below to scripts I have that could be acted out with tube people. I will also have a link to a video where I actually use tube people to re-enact a Bible story so you can see how to do it (for anyone who feels inhibited, or thinks they are not creative enough to do this.) Keep checking back.



Friday, April 10, 2020

Social Distancing and Green Screen Ministries



Years ago our youth entered a video contest to try and win money to attend a conference. We wrote a script that included all kinds of crazy scenes. The girl that was going to film it took one look at the script and said, “I can’t do this.”

“Why not?” I asked.
“Can’t you just cut out the background and make it look like we are on a boat?”

“You need a green screen for that.” was her reply.

A green screen? I had never heard of it. Apparently every kid from here to Timbuktu knows what a green screen is, but I didn’t. 

Today, with social distancing being practiced, and churches doing everything online, I noticed that my old "Green Screen" post was getting more traffic. So I am going to add a little to it in light of the present situation the coronavirus has imposed upon us.

Pirate Themed Trunk & Treat

Shiver me timbers and batton down the hatch, it's trunk and treat time and have we got a theme for you. Be sure to check the video out a...