Staying Current

I had the following questions on my blog recently:

What resources do you use to find out about the various curriculum? How about knowing what is cutting edge out there?

These 2 questions are excellent questions. By the way, I do believe in the theory that if you ask the right people the right questions then and only then will you get the right answers. Now I don't consider myself the ultimate expert of what is cutting edge in Children's Ministry but I do try and stay as current as possible. How do I do that? Well, here is the process.

1. Look to large churches with successful programs.
-- I consider there to be 4 highly successful churches in America when it comes to Children's Ministry. These 4 are Fellowship Church, North Point, Willow Creek, and Saddleback. Why these 4? All four thrive in their community but go beyond that and have created resources that help everyone else be successful. Fellowship has Elevate, North Point has created their own company called The Rethink Group, Willow Creek has Promiseland, and Saddleback has Empowering Kids or Purpose Driven Kids, whichever one Craig is promoting at the time. These resources are great because the church is already using and tweaking them for their success. They are also great because they have staffs that can do what myself or any other Children's Minister can't do alone.

2. Look at Disney, Nickelodeon, and any theme park you can find.

3. Look at Curriculum companies next.
-- I consider Group Publishing to be the best curriculum company for Children's Ministry. There are others but all of them seem to watch the larger churches first and then see what they can come up with sell to churches. Right now, if you are doing VBS then curriculum companies are the only way to go. They put mega bucks behind there product and do things that even larger churches have trouble doing for VBS.

4. Go to conferences that aren't just product pushers
-- For example there is a new one coming up put on by the Rethink Group called Orange. It should be very good. Reggie Joiner is great about not pushing his stuff to much but having incredible stuff that you want to buy. The Children's Ministry International Conferences feel more like pushers then real purpose. It almost feels like you just sold a used car. Group's regional one day conferences are nice to take your team too and get training. Willow's is nice if you need a pump me up. Saddleback's is great if you are looking for philosophy, alliteration, and a nice time in California.

5. Search Children's Ministry Websites
-- Just for fun I put "Children's Ministry" into Google and 1,570,000 entries came back in 0.12 seconds. As you can probably tell, most are a waste of time. I am not a big fan of most children's ministry sites, including Kidology.org. It seems like it takes longer to take their ideas or products and change them to fit then it does just to create my own stuff.

There are my Children's Ministry insights for you. I do of course have 47 blogs that I try to keep up with on a daily basis. Most are not Children's Ministry related but it does help to see what other industries are doing to see how they can be applied. I hope this has helped.