At my church we are within weeks of completing a new children’s ministry building. We broke ground last August for this 22,000 square foot facility. This morning when I went through the building they are laying carpet and installing fixtures. We are rounding fourth base and before long will be using this beautiful new building. It looks like we are going to complete the project debt-free too (praise the Lord!).
Here’s my question. Am I a bad children’s pastor if I make a new rule that says “no more kool-aid”? We have beautiful new carpet and I am toying with making a “water-only” rule through the whole building. Okay, I guess the babies can drink milk in the nursery. I stand behind kids at the gas station paying a buck for a bottle of water, so I am thinking that making the kids drink water won’t kill them. Water doesn’t stain carpet and water is healthy. After all kids are suppose to drink 3-6 cups of H2O every day.
What kind of children’s pastor am I if I ban kool-aid? What do you think?
Congrats on new building.
Go for it, ban kool-aid! We stopped giving out candy/chocolate and sugar water over a year a go… very few complaints (none from parents), just a couple of ADD kids
Dave
I’ll tell you what kind of kid’s pastor you are….your the kind that Senior Pastors love!!!
To me it’s good stewardship…We quit doing it and we have an old area rug and our old sanctuary chairs…
Praise God for the building and being debt free!!! Glory to God!!!
I want to thank you guys again for all the impartation here. I don’t comment that often but read these ALL the time.
The Lord is leading me out of my Church. Please be in prayer with me I am going to visit with my Pastor next week to let him know what I am sensing in my Spirit.
There are a couple of churches that have been in contact with me. I really am feeling drawn to one in a small town in SW Virginia which is a longggg way from Oklahoma. The cool thing is when I approached my family they felt like it was the Lord too, even my 13yr old daughter.
Thanks again
Dave,
Thanks for the encouragement to go for it! My pastor wants me to ban cookies too, but I’m not ready to go that far! I am toying with saying teachers can only serve vanilla cookies - not chocolate, but we’ll see. I can’t cave to my pastor too fast! ha ha.
Ryan
Dave,
I just checked out your blog. Looks great man.
Everyone should jump over and look at it: http://davidwakerley.com/
Ryan
Chris,
I’ll be praying for you to have wisdom during this time. Keep us posted.
Thanks for your encouragement.
Ryan
I’ll add a bit of philosophical encouragement to your proposed kool aid ban, Ryan.
I’ve often thought that it is ironic that we claim to believe that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and the place that we teach our children that - church - is the same place that we constantly fill them up with ‘food’ that only does slightly less damage to said temples than poison.
I haven’t done anything about it yet. Maybe your example with spur me on.
We only serve water with our snack, BUT… you have to remember that my snacks are VERY messy! Remember my workshop, Yummies in the Tummies and Lessons You Can Eat???? I think kids learn in a variety of ways and one includes getting messy at times. For those not familiar with my workshops, we create snacks to go along with the lesson (yes, I am a preschool director). The kids love creating their own, they practice the Bible lesson and they fill their tummies that often come to church on a Sunday pretty empty. We try to do as many healthy snacks as possible, but we do make a mess at times!! It’s probably too late for you to incorporate, but I am helping design our new preschool wing and it will include a laminated area in each room for snack time and a carpeted area for lesson and activity time.
Jeff - good perspective!
Ryan
Carmen,
Great reminder! We did this in our toddler classroom - the half carpet and half linoleum thing. We also put a sink in the room which will be nice for clean up. Tina Houser just wrote a book (published by Warner Press) called “More than Cookies and Punch”. It’s a great book. It’s even got a big pitcher of green kool-aid on the front cover! Don’t tell Tina what I am thinking about doing with the kool-aid ban.
Click here to see Tina’s book:
http://warnerpress.com/content/products/productdetail.aspx?CatalogNumber=E1501
from a workers perspective…. i say AMEN! water is so much easier to clean up when spilled! i don’t think the kids will love you less because of the water only rule. as mentioned above, it’s good stewardship. the only reservations i have is that chocolate cookies may be next to go… where do we draw the line man?! lol.
We only serve water to our kids, and their snacks consist of pretzels or animal crackers. Once in a while a teacher brings something special that goes along with the lesson. We’ve never heard a complaint! We also stopped giving snack to kindergarten and older two years ago. The first couple weeks, the new kindergarteners asked when snack was, and soon after, they stopped asking. Once again, no one complained. We do keep an eye out, though, for kids who might not have had breakfast so we don’t leave kids hungry. But we’re finding that what little time we have can be better spent with elementary kids without snack time.
I haven’t served kool-aid or juice in years. Water is just great for all the obvious reasons. Before I was a Children’s Minister I worked at a very lovely independent Montessori school and we always served water, the drink du jour so to speak. Go for it. You’ll be glad you did.
Ryan! Shame on you, are you sure God has called you to pastor children? What do you mean no more kool-aid?!?
OK, I’M JUST KIDDING!! I was trying to give you a hard time, and I don’t know you well enough to have done that to you - usually I only do it to friends who know my personality.
Anyway, on a more serious note. I don’t think the no more kool-aid thing is a problem at all, for several reasons:
1. Kool-aid is yummy, but not a necessity, and most kids can probably still get it at home, besides water is good for us.
2. Though you are doing it because of the building. It would also be very pastoral expression of caring not only for kids spiritual lives, but also for their physical bodies.
3. I also think it would be God honoring to do your best to care for what God has blessed you with and have long term benefits. Part of why my current church building is in the shape that it’s in now is because people didn’t care how we took care of it (and still don’t do it very well. When I arrived I had to ask to have a broom, mop, etc purchased because….
Anyway, I’m not sure I would go the “water only” route, but ruling out stuff that stains I think is ok. Just like we don’t allow teachers to put masking tape on carpet because of the stains it will leave in the long run, etc. So I don’t see this as being any different than that.
4. You can also use it as an opportunity to teach kids respect for property and caring well for what God entrusts us with.
That’s my “ten” cents - most have “two” cents, but why not be different…
For us we have an all water policy. We also don’t allow anything for snacks other than gold fish and vanilla wafers. We put this in all of advertising so kids who have any allergies will know exactly what we are giving out. If any deviation from this it is only when the whole family is able to be there like at church picnics etc.
Just what we do, so don’t feel bad you are still a good children’s pastor.
We don’t serve kool-aid. Water is just fine. But my problem is with adults and their coffee. Leaving half empty or half full cups of coffee under their seats in the classrooms that children will soon be occupying. Our adults eat more then the children. Donuts, grapes, bannanas.
Good old Adam’s Ale is fine to drink! Awesome Idea!