This week I’ll be covering some of the more dumb things I’ve ever done as a Children’s Pastor. Be sure to visit www.jonathancliff.com/tags/dumbthings to keep up with all the dumb-ness happening here this week
I’m gonna close down this week’s edition of Dumb Things with one of the most unsafe, dangerous dumb things I’ve ever done in a Kidmin environment. Now, it didn’t include “Pipe-Bomb Sunday” or “Chainsaw Juggling Clowns”, but it when looking back I’m horrified of what I was thinking.
So let me say that back in the day…meaning when I first started my Kidmin journey; I didn’t have a lot of help. It would oftentimes be just me and 100+ kids in a gymnasium for 2 hours. Yes you read that right. I was crazy. I cut my teeth on this psychotic Kidmin method, and over time I brought on some great help. Admit it…many of you have been here. Anyways, I was always looking for activities for kids to do when they came into church each weekend. Coloring sheets, painting stations, Lego tables, and video games on the big screen were easy draws. One week I was talking about the Creation story in Genesis, and thought a little creating craft would be a great opening activity. I was thinking modeling clay, not your normal play-doh stuff. But the modeling clay wasn’t easy to work with, so I added some plastic butter knives to help shape it better. Then the shaped modeling clay wasn’t holding it’s shape well as I attached all the pieces, so I then added toothpicks for the kids to use as a skeleton-like setup.
Are you seeing what we have here? At an unsupervised table I left 100+ kids at a table with hard modeling clay, plastic knives, and sharp toothpicks. After a few minutes, I had sharp death balls soaring through the air. Somehow I avoided catastrophe and nobody died. I have since learned that anything that could be turned into a dangerous object will be turned into a dangerous object.
