Info – Group Leader
The weather outside is FINALLY cooling off, but it’s never too early to begin planning for the summer. We’ve got a few tips to help make planning your summer camp stress-free! REGISTER EARLY. Secure the date and location for your camp as soon as possible. Many of our own CentriKid Camp dates and locations are already full. You’ll also want to get the camp dates on the calendars of families in your church before their summer calendars fill up! SCHEDULE FUNDRAISERS. Camp can be costly, so you can offer some creative and easy ways to help offset the cost of camp for families. Car washes, game nights, and spaghetti dinners — the sky is the limit as to what you can do to help out your families. CAST VISION AND RECRUIT LEADERS. Camp should be a huge milestone experience in your ministry and in the spiritual lives of the kids at your church. Cast vision about the impact a week of camp can have. When parents and adults in your church understand the “why” behind camp, it will be easier to recruit leaders. We are praying for you and our camp team is always here to help you make the […]
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak as a part of CentriKid Camps again. One of my favorite parts of speaking with CentriKid is the opportunity that I have to share the stage with my friend Dylan Arms and his band. One of their members is a “kid” I once had in kid’s ministry during my early years of ministry named Coleman. A kid who grew up fast. That little, quiet first grader quickly grew into a seasoned lead guitar player, who now leads me in my spiritual walk. While at CentriKid this summer, Coleman and I recalled “that week of camp that summer” when I took him to camp. Each year, “that week of camp” made a profound impact on Coleman’s life. Overnight camps like CentriKid are not just an opportunity for kids to get away. It’s a ministry that makes a huge impact. It’s a ministry that changes perspectives. It’s a ministry that God uses to change hearts. How? Overnight Christian kids camps give kids the unique opportunity of being able to live in a kid’s world for a week. In a world bombarded with adult life, kid’s camps are a time for kids to sing and laugh […]
Sharing the Gospel with kids is something we are very intentional about at CentriKid Camps. We’ve used this poster in Bible Study as a visual aid to help communicate the Gospel with kids clearly. Get this FREE download and use as a visual aid for your kids ministry classrooms or large group setting.
As a leader, you must be clear. Despite having to balance leading a team, getting details checked off your to-do list, and actually accomplishing results, taking the time to cast a vision of clarity can seem impossible. Andy Stanley puts it this way in his book, Next Generation Leader: “Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. There will be very few occasions when you are absolutely certain about anything. You will consistently be called upon to make decisions with limited information. That being the case, your goal should not be to elevate uncertainty. Instead, you must develop the art of being clear in the face of uncertainty.” Here are 3 tips to have clarity: Know your purpose and vision. You must know the vision of your ministry or program and be able to clearly communicate it to your team. What is the vision for your ministry, event, or program? Repeat your vision. Do you remember step one? Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. Every time you speak or communicate with the people you lead, point them back to the vision. You’ll know that it is catching on when you hear the people you lead talking about the vision in their every day language. […]
What is a Team Assistant? The best high school juniors and seniors, or even young college students, that a church group can bring to camp to be Adult Leaders for their week of CentriKid. Team Assistants will get to spend more intentional time with the campers like staffers do! We want to train them to work and interact with the campers just like we train our staffers to. Check out this video to see what the Team Assistant Program is about and what a week of camp would look like for them! Bringing Team Assistants to camp can also serve as a solution to an issue that some Church Group Leaders have: a shortage of Adult Leaders. These students will count towards the standard 1 to 5 adult to kid ratio, and will be housed with your group like all the other adults you bring. But, as an added bonus, they’ll get to work alongside the CentriKid staff helping out with Recreation, Track Times, and Bible Study! This gives them a behind-the-scenes look at serving as a CentriKid Camps staffer. This is also great for the campers to see people they already know from home help lead them during camp […]
If you are a kids ministry leader, you want your kids ministry to be excellent, creative, and most importantly, reaching families for Christ. You also probably want to keep finding new ways to get across Biblical truths in creative and innovative ways to the kids in your ministry. Sometimes, though, it’s a struggle in itself to maintain a level of excellence with the nuts and bolts of your ministry (by studying your curriculum, planning events, and even just recruiting enough volunteers for a Sunday morning). You want to create new, and creative ministry tools and experiences for families, but how in the world are you supposed to find time and energy to dream, brainstorm, and innovate? Here are some tips to help get you started down the path of innovation: Find your purpose. Everything in your kids ministry should be rooted in your purpose. Like at CentriKid, our purpose is rooted in Scripture–everything you see at camp will flow from God’s Word. Before you innovate, be sure you know what you want to accomplish. Write that purpose down somewhere that you’ll see it daily. Schedule Time to Innovate. Go ahead. Put some time on your calendar each week to simply sit, think, […]
In kids ministry, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to kids is one of the most important things we can do as we minister to kids. Because of it’s importance, it can also be one of the most daunting things we can do. The real challenge comes in simplifying the language without simplifying the concepts. Kids are concrete thinkers, so when we share the gospel with kids, we must get on their level and explain the full truth in ways that they can understand. At CentriKid, we have developed a plan that we call “The Gospel: God’s Plan for Me” that we believe fully explains the gospel on a level that kids can understand. (Other Lifeway Kids resources also use this method of explaining the gospel.) THE GOSPEL: GOD’S PLAN FOR ME 1. God Rules. The Bible tells us God created everything, including you and me, and He is in charge of everything. Scripture – Genesis 1:1, Revelation 4:11, Colossians 1:16-17 2. We Sinned. We all choose to disobey God. The Bible calls this sin. Sin separates us from God and deserves God’s punishment of death. Scripture – Romans 3:23, 6:23 3. God Provided. God sent Jesus, the perfect solution to our sin […]
1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” There are times when you may feel like you don’t know why you’re staying in the position that you are in. Staying motivated can be tough to do when you aren’t seeing immediate results. Isn’t that how most things are these days?When we put so much time and energy into something and don’t get back exactly what we want to see, it’s hard to stay motivated. In Kid Ministry, we can feel like the walls are the only thing listening to what we have to say, or that you just don’t relate to the kids anymore. Staying motivated and committed doesn’t even have to be a deep theological outline. It can be very practical, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. We have to create an environment of success for us, as well as the kids. Take a minute to create a list of goals. What do you want your ministry to look like a year from now? Don’t create goals that you don’t expect to reach. You know your ministry best. Have […]
It is always a great feeling when we know that our ministries are successful. Often times, we start to look at other ministries that we consider successful and want to model ours after theirs when we feel like ours aren’t up to par. What makes a ministry successful though? It can be hard to think of ministry as a business; however, it is okay for ministries to work and operate by a business model. Incorporate a mission, values, and goals. It is a way to measure or evaluate the progress of a ministry. Are you working toward your goals? Are you holding true to your values? Are you planning around your mission? When we step back and look at it this way, there will always be areas of concern and improvement. However, the best thing about working in a ministry is that God is sovereign and works in the lives of the kids – prevailing no matter what challenges we face. That is why we should never lose hope even if we feel like we aren’t making progress! One of Lifeway’s Kid Ministry leaders, Brian Dembowczyk, gives six tips to keep in mind while evaluating your ministry in Lifeway Kids’ […]
Leading your team, whether it be three people or 300 hundred people, is huge. As Christian leaders, we want to serve Christ faithfully and steward the opportunities He has given us well, but how do we do this best? I’ve learned (and am still learning) that one of the primary ways to lead your team spiritually is through prayer. Looking at the life of Jesus, consider just a few of the times we see Christ pray to the Father. We see Jesus praying in the solitude of the wilderness (Luke 4 and 5), praying for guidance and help in the garden (Matthew 26), and praying for His disciples as He knows His time is soon drawing to an end (John 17) . We serve a Father who is faithful to listen to His children. Scripture shows us this — 1 John 5:14 says, “Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (HCSB) As we step out in leading others, may we remember our God who never fails and may we, in humility and with boldness, go to our Father in prayer. In leading your team spiritually consider these ways […]