Curriculum Review: Group's Living Inside Out

Over the next several months I will be doing curriculum reviews on this site. There are tons of curriculum out there for elementary kids and I will try to get around to as many as I can. I am going to start with new ones that came out this fall and work my way back. Here are the 7 areas in which I rate curriculum:

Bible Content:

Age appropriate:

Ease of use for volunteers:

Ease of Prep for staff:

Bells and Whistles (graphics and music):

Parent Information:

Technology needed or provided:

I am rating all of these on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being needs much improvement and 5 being WOW!

I am biased when it comes to curriculum because I helped create and produce G-Force, the joint curriculum between Fellowship Church and Lifeway. I hope this gives you at least an angle in which I am coming from.

The first curriculum is going be rated is Group's "Living Inside Out". So here goes nothing:

Bible Content: (5) Group is always good at Bible Content. I would say that they are either number 1 or 2 in the nation when it comes to this aspect of curriculum. So you can't go wrong here.

Age appropriate: (3) Seems to shoot on the lower age side even for the older pieces. Activities are experiences but not quite there yet.

Ease of use for volunteers: (3) Compared to other curriculum out right now it is pretty standard. Your great teachers will pick it up easy but your not so great teachers will struggle with the prep.

Ease of Prep for staff: (2) To many things to prepare. Each small group is suppose to be 5 kids and that adds up quick. That also means a lot more volunteers which means a lot more prep for staff.

Bells and Whistles (graphics and music): (3) Graphics are not bad but they are not great. Nothing really cool that catches kids eyes. Music is bland. Typical Group music that is overly kid singing and under-produced. This is one area in which I dislike almost every curriculum on the shelf.

Parent Information: (4) Very good daily activities for the kids and parents in the take home sheets. They look good for parents and give involved parents something to sink their teeth into.

Technology needed or provided: (3) DVD and CD provided. DVD has clips that are also under-produced. Standard Group video that is done on location in Loveland, CO. A little Cheese goes a long way. Some are funny and others are funny and are not suppose to be.

Overall Score out of a possible 35 points is 23.

Summery: This is an above average curriculum for large group/small group presentations but would not use in a Sunday School Format. Your kids will not be WOWed but parents will be satisfied.

I hope this helps. Until next time and on to the next curriculum…

How to get the Secret Weapon

The first thing you need to understand about plotters are they are like:

I knew the number one question would be, "How do I afford a $7,000-$20,000 machine?". I am glad you asked, but first I must give you full disclosure. I got the one pictured below from Global Imaging for $3500 with ink included. It was their showroom model and they we getting a new one in. How did I do this? I built a relationship with them when I purchased the Zund for Fellowship Church. Now I didn't even have $3500 for this so I did the following and this is how you are going to get your plotter.

I told you that plotters are like cars. You can pay for them with cash, finance them, or lease them. I don't expect your church or business to have even $7000 to put down on a printer. I do expect your church to have $300 dollars a month over 3 years though. I also don't expect this to just come out of the Children's budget. The Children's department is not going to be the only one to use it. Why should they be the only one to pay for it. You are not the only one who should care about marketing at your church.

How does Horizon do it? We lease the current machine we have. We have a 3 year deal with a $1 buyout. At the end of 3 years, we will pay that $1 and keep it or trade it in for a new/used one. I told you, they are just like cars. Recently HP had a trade in program that would give you $7000-$10,000 for a trade in. We would be making money at that point but we are not to the point of need for a new one yet. We split the monthly expense between the Children's, Jr. High, Sr. High, Programming, and Publicity. We then split the cost of supplies such as paper and ink by who uses it. That means that I pay for the rolls of paper that I use and Programming pays for the ones that they use. Of course we share if needed but this way you know how much you have actually spent for budget reasons.

You see your first buy in is not your Senior Pastor or the boss at the business. Your first buy in is the other pastors and staff of your church or business. Then as a united front you let the Senior Pastor/boss decide if they want the 42", 60" or 96" machine.

These machines are expensive if you look at it as a cash purchase but they are very manageable if you look at it like a car. Now you don't have the excuse of it cost to much. I will continue this conversation later with the other top questions.

Sign Wednesday: The Secret Weapon

I know what you are thinking. That is not a sign and this is Sign Wednesday. If you thought this then you are correct. This is not a sign but it is the secret weapon to sign making. This is called a plotter or a large format printer. Now that the introduction has been made you don't have to be afraid anymore. The one above is the one sitting in our church office and I use it every week. It prints up to 42 inches wide and I have printed up to 18 feet long images on it. If your church, ministry, or business does not have one you should get one. I mean this with everything in me.

But it is to much, right? I don't know how to use it... What programs do I use? Where do I get supplies? Won't this take me away from real ministry or business? What is the point of having one?

These are all of the standard questions. Believe me when I say that I have heard them all. I have done more research and crunched more numbers than most people in the printing industry. I have been to more print expos than I have Children's Ministry conference. I told you I was a sign geek. I know these machines. I have even walked into a local print shop and showed the owner of the company how to use his new DisplayMaker 98 inch flatbed UV printer. Before I left Fellowship Church I did tons of work to getting this machine pictured below:

This is a Zund UVjet 215 plus. This thing is so cool that it is on the church tour. It will print on anything, wood, glass, metal, paper, foam board, up to 2 inches thick and 7 feet wide. Just for fun I put a piece of corrugated metal through it so that I could say I was the first one to do so. You don't want to know how much this one cost.

So let me go ahead and answer your questions.

1. Where do I start? If you are really considering buying one, and you should be, then start off with a HP printer. They are the standard and will get you use to all of the other printers. Buy one that is a Post Script printer to start off with. This means you can plug it into your network at church or business and print to it like you do right now to your copier. Basically no extra hardware needed. HP is running a deal right now on their 5500 series which has been the best for years because they just came out with a newer, faster model. Either the 5500 or their new Z6100 series is going to be great. Remember this is a start and you will want to upgrade in 3 to 5 years after you see what these will do for you.

2. How much? You can get a refurbished HP 5500 with a one year warranty for $6400. A new Z6100 you can get for $13,000 for the 42 inch and $17,000 for the 60 inch. Inks are going to be about $225 per color and their are 6 colors. The ink last me about 7-8 months and I use mine like crazy. It comes out to be about $0.48 per square foot for ink. The paper, vinyl, polyester, canvas, magnets, and other material will come to you priced per square foot as well. That way you know how much a sign will cost you to print. For example, a 4' X 8' sign printed on paper and mounted to foam board would cost me $485 if I got it at Kinko's or if I printed it on my plotter it would cost me $37. No that is not a misprint. Now you see if you do any printing what so ever you will pay for the printer in no time.

3. Where do I get the printer/supplies? Don't get them from Kinko's. Get them from companies like Global Imaging or Queen City Reprographics. Both are companies I use and highly recommend. No I don't get kick backs.

4. What programs do I use? The easiest programs to use with this machine are Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, or Macromedia Freehand. Believe or not though, one of the guys here in the office uses Microsoft Publisher but I wouldn't recommend it.

5. What about real ministry or business? If you couldn't tell, I believe marketing works. I believe people want real ministries and real businesses to be as professional as possible. What is the best way to convert someone into a customer or tell them about Jesus Christ? That would be one on one conversations. What is the best way to show that what you are doing matters? The way your business or ministry looks and feels. Both are very important.

I know you have more questions. I know you I have talked over your heads on some stuff. Here is the deal. These printers are not hard to use. They will save you money if you are outsourcing your signs right now. If you aren't doing signs now then you will have to spend more money. I want you to care about how your area looks. I want you to care about how other people see your area. I want to stop mediocrity in this area. If you want help you can e-mail me.

Great Ministry Spaces

I need your help. I am looking for pictures of great ministry spaces. I want the most creative, uniquely decorated, innovative spaces Sr. High, Jr. High, Elementary, Preschool, and Nursery. I have been to many churches but I am horrible at taking pictures. I know that there is one resource out there by Roger Fields that can be found at http://www.coldwatercafe.com/Places2See/1MustSee.htm. Thanks Roger for this but there has to more. You must have a bunch sitting on your computer as well. So here is what I would love for you to do, either send those photos to me by e-mail or post a link to your favorties in the comment section so that we all can find them.

Thanks for your help.

A Roller Coaster Day

Have you had a day when you go through every emotion? Saturday, September 22nd was one of those days for me. There is a famous speech by Jim Valvano that talks about days like this. I quote:

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special. "

Why was it such a day? My oldest son went through surgery and come out great. I got to baptize 4 kids that are very dear to me. I also saw Kentucky win another football game and start the season 4-0. It was a day in which I cried, I laughed, I hugged, I loved, I cheered, I feared, and most of all I was loved in returned.

I hope that you have days like I did yesterday. They wear you out but life would be empty without them.

Sign Thursday: The Bulliten Board

For those of you who follow this blog I am not changing Sign Wednesday to Thursday but I have been swamped. I will go back to Wednesday and I promise to write about the importance of the large format printer very soon. Let's get on with the show, and discuss one sign that is in most churches older than 15 years. It is the bulletin board. Here is a typical one:

Why is this typical? Crate paper, wood frame, lots of words, targeted to insiders, the use of some sort of cut out letters, and surrounded by beige walls. I was at this church recently and I could find no information about what R.I.D.E. was about? I am sure it is for kids but the rest of the little signs told me little to nothing. If you are going to make a sign please make sure that you intend for your sign to be read by dummies like myself. This will go a long way in helping you communicate.

I am not a big fan of bulletin boards. I think there time has come and gone. They are very hard to make look professional and they stay in the same place forever. Anything that stays in the same place over time gets looked over. Things that get looked over are not done well because people know that no one reads them. If no one is reading them then why do you still have it up on your wall?

Do something radical this week. Take down all your bulletin boards. I bet you that people will notice. I also bet that you might have to paint because the color of paint will be a different shade because the bulletin board has been there way to long. Then next week if you are compelled to have bulletin boards make sure they are in a different spot with different information.

Why is it that customer service has become so bad that the customer must apologize for wanting something from a business?

Prime example... A customer walks up to a deli and asks for cheese to be sliced. The employee behind the counter asks, "Do you want wax paper between your slices of cheese?" The customer's response, "I am sorry to have to put you through the work but yes, wax paper between the slices would be better." First of all, why even ask the question? Second, instead of worrying about the 1 cent you saved on wax paper, why not be more concerned about the headache that you are saving you customers by putting the wax paper in between the slices? Shouldn't it be that the deli gives you an extra slice of cheese just for coming to their store instead of the one down the street anyway?

I try not to apologize for people doing their jobs. I also hope that no one feels like they need to apologize to my ministry. If they ever do then I really need to evaluate my customer service policy.

Blogs I read: ProBlogger

Here is a site for all of you bloggers out there who want to become better bloggers. The site can be found at http://www.problogger.net. The author is Darren Rowse and it is very well written. Why do I enjoy this one so much? Darren is always giving me great ideas to blog about and keeping me focused on blogging. He just started video blogging not that long ago and I am looking into this as well. The biggest problem is that I can't post videos to my blog yet. I am waiting on an update from the 3cords guys. So anyway go check out Problogger and become a better blogger or even learn how to start a blog. Enjoy.

Preteens + Puppets =

For those of you like me who learn better through pictures, here is what I think of the title of this post.

(Preteens)

(plus)

(puppets)

(equals)

Enough said!

Sign Wednesday: Bad Neon

I am a fan of good neon signs. I like the creativity that neon brings and the attention that it brings. Of course like all sign types there are bad ones. Here is a small collection of bad neon. Enjoy.

Notice that it says "You The Best". I don't know what that means.

These two just made me laugh. I don't know if I want to go into Bad or not.

Your Neon Sign has to work.

This is the back of a building and half of it is hidden.

So there you go. There is some bad neon for you. I hope that someday I can show you great neon in our new children's area that we are about to get started on. I can't wait to have incredible signs that can stay up each and every weekend. This whole set up and tear down thing is getting old, but that is another topic for another day.

Using Twitter for Ministry Update

Sometimes I forget that timing is everything. For instance, there have been many products before their time and therefore didn't do well. Of course most of these products can be seen in the technology industry but that is besides the point. I love new things. I love to figure out how new things can improve what I am currently doing. This is why I love technology. Twitter can be a very useful tool. Below I will share with you the pros and cons that I came across while using Twitter as a ministry tool. By the way if you are not familiar with Twitter it is a text messaging/mini blogging tool that can be found at Twitter.com.

Pros

1. Information came in a different form- this is always a good thing. It makes people pay attention better.

2. It shows parents that you are trying new things and that you are staying up to date.

3. It uses a somewhat familiar technology.

4. It was easy to send information.

Cons

1. It was hard for my parents to sign up. Most parents were north of 35 years old and I had to sit down with them one on one to sign up.

2. Not all of the parents in the test group knew how to send a text message from their cell phone.

3. I couldn't have a personal and ministry account separate with one cell phone number. You can only have one account per number.

So there you have it. I stopped using Twitter without letting the test group know I was stopping. I wanted to see who missed it and who didn't care. I had 3 families come up to me this weekend and say they missed it out of 10 families who were doing it. I would assume that this is probably the average that you will have as well. I think though that if we could get even 30% of parents excited about teaching their kids about spiritual things then we are probably doing better than we are right now.

Students Reaching Students

The title for this post is also the vision statement for our Student Ministry. This is a new vision for this group. Why is it important? To many times I believe that ministry can be staff reaching students. I want to make sure that myself and my team will always remember that it is not about us. You see when it is all about the staff then the ministry will fail if and when the staff leave. If it is always about the students then the ministry will continue no matter what staff is in place. So today I want to simply say that I hope your ministry is not all about you. I hope you have found a way to make it about something else. Believe me, you are not that interesting anyway.

Sign Wednesday: Stop. Please.

This is a continued effort to end all outdoor church signs that have phrases that on them that don't make sense. Here is a prime example:

Now there are many ways in which I could go with this phrase but I won't. I will go here though. Instead of putting some cute phrase or stupid one for that matter, please just put your vision statement. Put your mission statement on the sign. If you really wanted to get crazy put what your sermon was about this past weekend. By the way, if you can't summarize your sermon on a sign this size then you needed a better sermon and your people didn't leave with much. If you really wanted to be radical then you could take down the sign and put one up that people couldn't put phrases like this on.

Fantasy Football Draft Results

I had 2 Fantasy Football Drafts over the holiday weekend. Both were live drafts that most all of the guys in the leagues showed up. I got to meet a couple of new guys and start building better friendships with former team owners. So here is how the drafts turned out for me. Let me know what you think.

Team #1 (in the order I picked) I had pick 9 of 10

Manning, Peyton	QB	IND
Bush, Reggie	RB	NOR
James, Edgerrin	RB	ARI
Wayne, Reggie	WR	IND
Gonzalez, Tony	TE	KAN
Johnson, Calvin	WR	DET
Lynch, Marshawn	RB	BUF
Branch, Deion	WR	SEA
Williams, DeAngelo	RB	CAR
Favre, Brett	QB	GNB
Cotchery, Jerricho	WR	NYJ
Taylor, Fred	RB	JAC
Welker, Wes	WR	NWE
Miami	DEF	MIA
Gostkowski, Stephen	PK	NWE

Team 2 (in the order I picked) I had pick 7 of 10

Manning, Peyton	QB	IND
James, Edgerrin	RB	ARI
Wayne, Reggie	WR	IND
Colston, Marques	WR	NOR
Brown, Ronnie	RB	MIA
Williams, Carnell	RB	TAM
Johnson, Calvin	WR	DET
Crumpler, Alge	TE	ATL
Brown, Reggie	WR	PHI
Rivers, Philip	QB	SDG
Jones, Julius	RB	DAL
Henderson, Devery	WR	NOR
Dallas	DEF	DAL
Gostkowski, Stephen	PK	NWE

So there you go. Enjoy the seconding guessing.