I’ve always believed that getting new things now and then is the best way to breathe some fresh air into your ministry. Tonight during church I was thinking about some of the new things we’ve done between last Sunday and today.

1) Ladder Ball Golf - I was walking through WalMart doing my weekly candy / supply run for Sunday and picked up 2 sets of Ladder Ball Golf. What caught my eye was the fact that they were big and they require more than one person to play. I set them in the back of the kids church room for kids to play as a pre-service activity with their friends. The kids love it and the cost of each set was less than $20.

2) While at WalMart (that same day) I bought 2 boxes of Sock’em Boppers. These aren’t new to the toy department but I thought they would make a great game since my lesson last week was on bullies. We made a masking tape line on the floor and two kids took turns slugging each other with the inflatable boxing gloves. Don’t worry, they had to keep it from the head down and I managed to keep my job in the process.

3) Friday I stopped by Home Depot and bought two pieces of metal sheeting. I hung them on an empty wall in my new kids church room and used magnets to display pictures and announcement posters. Kids love looking at themselves and were excited to see their pictures on the wall this morning.

4) Today I started a new series on Jonah. I decided to try something new. I ripped a DVD of a Jonah animated movie from the resource room. I inserted short clips in the lesson. I told part of the story, paused and showed a video clip, then picked up the story and application, and so on. Ripping the DVD to my computer made it easy to seamlessly go from the PowerPoint slides (actually I use Keynote) to the video clips.

5) Today Beth and I taught the 1st Grade Sunday School class. What a fun group of kids! I used a new Group resource called Big Big God. Although this book contains 13 lessons for preschoolers, I knew the 1st graders would love it. Again, I have to tip my hat to Group for creating a resource where teachers can make hands-on learning easy and fun.

So, I’ve rambled enough. My point is not to encourage you to go and buy these new products. I want you to stop and think about what you can do (or buy) NEW for this weekend. New things can be a real shot in the arm every now and then.