Do you know how to know when the economy really, really stinks?  When college students are so poor they can’t afford wiper blades.  Today I was out at our local university doing some work.  (They have faster internet!)  As I got ready to get in my car, I noticed that the car next to me had a sock over both wiper arms.  After a little bit of sleuthing, I determined that the wiper blade had finally given up the ghost and in place of a blade, they were now using the closest thing that was most absorbent: a sock.  I was so humored by this that I completely forgot to take a picture to share, so I recreated the situation using my own car.  It’s not nearly as funny, but it communicates my point.

That got me to thinking: that guy would be a great children’s pastor.  He could probably rebuild the entire used sound system from “big church” using gum, duct tape, and some old socks.  (Admit it, you’ve used creative tools before.)  Children’s pastors seem to have a unique knack for making something out of absolutely nothing.

So in celebration of that spirit, we want to know what the most creative thing you’ve ever done to stretch your ministry budget was.  Whether it was giving every kid half a Tootsie Roll Midgee for being quiet to building a new children’s ministry building using only popsicle sticks and glue sticks, we want to hear about it.

As a little incentive to get you to share, we’re going to have a giveaway!  Just put in your name and email below (your email won’t be seen but anyone but us!), then tell us your budget-stretching story.  On March 7, I’m going to pick the most outrageously creative story.  You’ll win a children’s ministry music prize pack, containing at least 6 CDs, and more if we randomly decide to!  Make sure your submission is in by 11:59 PM EST on March 6, or it doesn’t count.  We all look forward to seeing your crazy ideas!

I love where I live. I live out in the country about 7 miles from my church and 12 miles from the KidzMatter offices. There are four houses in “my mile” of the road. When we bought this property five years ago to build, I fell in love. The one thing I didn’t consider when I bought the land and built the house? How I would connect to the internet.

There are no good options. I checked into running a T1 line, but that was going to cost me about $600 a month. Ouch. I have begged and begged for AT&T to bring DSL our way. I even offered to pay for them to bring it down our road. They said “no thanks”. So for the past few years, we have had wireless “high speed” (in quotation marks intentionally) internet from a local internet provider. To call it high speed is a stretch. At it’s best, it functions at the speed of dial up. During busy times (evenings especially) it goes dead.

We finally decided that enough is enough. We’ve seen the HughesNet commercials on our Dish and I made the call. They came today to do the install and I’m happy to tell you that my internet is running pretty fast (that’s relative I know). But guess what, it looks like I am trying to contact the moon with the satellite! It’s huge! Just look at the picture! This means that now I have three ugly satellite dishes on my house (Dish TV, Hughes Net, and my other internet dish). Do I qualify as a geek?

 This weekend, some of us on the KidzMatter team went to the Spark Children’s Ministry Conference in Milwaukee.  We had a really  great time, and the Spark team were super people.  In my downtime in the resource center, I got to browsing around at what the other  providers had to offer.  Group Publishing was right next to us, so they were a logical place to start.  They had one product that really  caught my eye that I wanted to share.

 It’s called Hope Lives.  Hope Lives is a book by Amber Van Schooneveld about compassion and poverty.  I’ve just flipped through it,  but it looks great.  In conjunction with the book, Group has released  curriculum to go along with the book.  They have a  children’s ministry kit, youth kit, pastors kit, and small group kit.   They’re cheap too: your whole church could get involved with Hope Lives for less than $150 for a 5 week series.  

The whole purpose is to help you encourage your children to develop a compassionate response to poverty.  It reminds them that hope lives.  It helps them put it into action.  If you’ve been looking for a way to get your kids involved in poverty outreach, Hope Lives is a great way to start.  You can check it out at group.com/hopelives.

You’ve got to check out what Michael Chanley learned at CPC this year. It’s a great list and maybe you can add to it. Click here to see the list for yourself.

Last night in the general session at CPC Mark Harper showed a video (click here to watch it on YouTube). This song last aired on TV in 1985. Watch the song and listen to the mention of the Trinity and a man and a woman having a baby. What would happen if this aired today on children’s television? How values have changed.

Mark Harper reminded us that as children’s pastors’ we must renew our commitment to teaching children a biblical worldview. Let’s go.