I kind of accidently stumbled across a simple post I first wrote shortly after the inception of this blog.  It was simply a quote from a Starbucks cup (you know the ones), but I thought it was worth repeating here nearly 2 years later.

The youth pastor at my church, Mike, just returned from the National Youth Ministry Conference. He was very excited and had a great time.

One thing cool about the conference was that at registration, each attendee was given a wide lanyard with their name tag. They chose from several buttons (Jr. High Ministries, Senior High Ministries, Rural Youth Ministry, Urban Youth Ministry, Small but Mighty Youth Ministry, Big Youth Ministry, etc). They were to put their buttons (as many as they wanted) on their lanyard. The idea, as you can see in the picture, is that the attendees looked for other attendees with the same buttons. This created opportunities for networking with others in similar ministries as yours. Very fun.

You might not being wearing buttons all year, but find someone (or a group of people) and start connecting. While there are cool sites like cmconnect.org to connect online (I love that site!!!!) find someone in your town or area and get some lunch. We need each other!

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.

Maybe that video short that you are looking for can be found at www.jellybits.com. I learned about this site last week at CPC. They have some good downloads that kids will love on this new site!

Check out splink from Randall House. It’s a hot new way to link your families together spiritually. Parents can sign up and get a great email each week that will help them be the family God wants them to be.

While you’re there, be sure to check out the D6 Conference coming this fall! I’m planning on being there – I hope to see you there too!

I can’t believe it, but today was Evan’s first day as a “real employee” for KidzMatter! Technically, Evan has been working for KidzMatter as our Technology Director since it’s conception in 2004. While he has never been on payroll, I’ve always tried to give Evan some cool tangibles like providing him with a laptop (Mac of course), paying for his cell phone, and sending some cold hard cash his way every now and then. With the fast growth of our company, I decided it was time to bump Evan up to employee status. Last month I talked to him about making the plunge and quitting his part-time job at Long John Silver’s so he could give us more time. He obliged.

Evan will graduate from high school this May. He has chosen to stick close to home and go to college at Indiana Wesleyan University. The plan is that he will keep working for us through college. (yah!)

You can follow Evan on Twitter. Go to http://twitter.com/kidzmatter2me.