This is a followup to a post I did back in August of 2009 // Creative Volunteer Training

Two things about me as a Children’s Pastor:

1. I hate meetings.
2. I hate meetings.

A few years ago, I read Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni and his book has helped me work to make meetings more beneficial with my staff (at least in my humble opinion.)  I have however continued to struggle with how to communicate with volunteers in an effective way.

How do I train them?

How can I communicate best practices?

How do I let them know about changes in the curriculum?

But most importantly, how do I do these things without calling meetings for every weekend or every month?

My solution has been something I call “Kidsplace Unscripted”  The unscripted videos are my way of communicating values to my volunteer team in a non-confrontational, non pizza eating after church way.  I film these videos every two or three weeks using my Macbook, iMovie and uploading them to Vimeo.  I have had issues with Vimeo, but since they now offer mobile viewing on iPhones I’m back on board with their video greatness.

So after a year of doing these video’s what new and what have I changed?

• I had about a 30% open rate in emails and newsletters. When I started sending videos, it jumped to about 50%, and now I have an open and click rate has jumped to about 80%.
• I have too many leaders to personally meet with them all each week, and I’ve seen these videos help with my ability to keep in touch somewhat with everyone.  It’s gonna sound crazy, but people feel like they know my heart and passions without even meeting me.
• I’ve now added a different video series just for my Preschool and Kindergarten leaders.  They were asking for it, when word got around about the Elementary videos.  I obliged, and tweaked the content to fit that demographic.
• In 2010, I’m tackling best practices in each area.  I’m defining a best practice as those things that we do each and every week with no exception.  They are the same whether doing large group storytelling, or leading a group of 2nd grade girls in a small group.  So far so good in 2010.

Here are my most recent videos for both Preschool/Kindergarten and Elementary.

Kidsplace Unscripted #12 from Jonathan Cliff on Vimeo.

Preschool Unscripted #5 from Jonathan Cliff on Vimeo.

There is a Vimeo shortcut to my videos on the right side of this blog, just click the tiny V.  You can also visit my Vimeo page directly at www.vimeo.com/jonathancliff and even subscribe to my new videos at http://vimeo.com/jonathancliff/videos/rss.

For the record:  I do still have meetings from time to time, but the Unscripted videos have allowed me to be much more intentional about when we do need to have in-person meetings with volunteers and those on my ministry team.

The ceremony/event/service(whatever you want to call it) where parents are recognized and children are “officially” dedicated isn’t much different than years past.  We have a slide show that shows a picture of each child, with birth date, scripture verse (selected by their parents), and a meaning for the child’s name.  We asked parents to email us this information in the two days immediately following the dedication class.  We will help parents with the verse and name meaning if they don’t have anything specifically picked out.  This is always fun, and where we get most of our oohs and ahhs during the Dedication ceremony. :)

These slides are displayed on the main screens as I read their names and they approach the stage with their child and any additional family that wants to be on stage.  With families on stage I give a 60-second recap of what the parents have done by attending the class, and making this great commitment to spiritually lead their children.  I also exhort the congregation to support these families with their prayers, words, finances, and service. I remind the families that their children are receiving a small Bible as a gift, and it is their responsibility as parents to help the truths of this Bible to come to life in front of their children.  I will then ask that our Senior Pastor come up and with the support of the congregation pray over these parents and their children.

Each family is given a gift bag that includes the book Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna (this is usually my recommended book for those with small children looking to start good family habits,) a small decorative gender-specific children’s bible, and of course a teddy bear.  Why a teddy bear?  I don’t know, except its what has always been done. :)  Somethings just don’t need changing, right?

I have sent out a follow-up survey to parents that went through the steps to dedicate their children, and I hope to be compiling their thoughts for future adaptations.

What would I like to see changed?

I would like to do more things at the actual dedication ceremony to bring more light on our parents and the commitment they are taking to spiritually lead their families.  Things beyond my control will have to change, but stranger things have happened.

I would like to do something more celebratory for our families.  I know of some churches that hold special celebration services for people to invite friends and families to.  This is a cool idea, and something we will be working towards.  If you do this, please share your ideas!

I would like to create a more personal gift for the families that have gone through the Dedication process.  I’ve loved the things that Ned Gable did at his church with their Dedication book.  (A+ Nedgible!)

I’m still thinking through how to connect this dedication process with the other family moments I identified.  How can I tie in Child Dedication with Baptism and Salvation moments?  How can I help parents stay open to parental encouragement and learning?

I looking into offering the class on two different dates to keep the number lower, and create a more intimate classroom setting.  More is not always better.  I also think that offering an identical class on a different week night, might open a door for families that couldn’t attend the Wednesday night class option.

I would like to offer this same 80-minute talk over a few 5 weeks.  I think it might make a great parenting seminar type thing.  I’m not sure there will be interest, but I’m going to just keep the idea on the shelf in case it happens later.  I am teaching the class for our school’s parenting night, so that’s a bonus!

Overall I think that for our first go-round with Child Dedication changes it went well.  There are some reading this that think everything I’ve done is super lame; but we had to start somewhere.  We went from a do nothing to doing something pretty well.  There is tons of room for improvement, but with this small victory under our belt I will working to evolve this event into even greater things for our parents and children at Trinity.

So here are my questions.  What do you do at your church?  Where are the holes in my plan?  What would you suggest to add more meaning and takeaway for parents?  Is there something I did that you like?  Do Share!

Here is a detailed recap of what the Child Dedication class looked like:

What did I teach?

I taught the Essence of Family talk that Reggie Joiner has taught many times before.  You can get the entirety of the talk in the book, “Think Orange.” You can also read my thoughts on the Five Essential Parenting Skills by reading the blog posts I wrote on all five of these skills. (You do read this blog, right?  Follow the links on the class description to ready along.)

The Essence of Family: At the heart of every family is a primary calling to lead a generation to the heart of a perfect, loving God.  No other passage in the Bible defines the family role as clearly as Deuteronomy 6, and in this study we will challenge parents to Imagine the End in order to stay focused on the big picture, Fight for the Heart of their families by loving God with all their hearts, Make it Personal and let kids see what God is doing in their parents, Create a Rhythm so time together as a family will nurture everyday faith, and Widen the Circle and make sure kids have additional influences to guide them.

I really love this teaching because it sits somewhere between the theoretical and the practical.  It’s not a bunch of to-do’s to make your kids obey, and neither is it a bunch of parenting philosophy.  I also added tons of my own story to this teaching, and really worked to make it my own.  I give the ReThink group and Reggie Joiner tons of credit, but I had to make it my own and fit my style.

How did I make it my own?

Before I taught a single principle, I showed off pictures of my kids.  I shared my own struggles of feeling like an inadequate parent, and my own fears for the future of my children.  I was intentional about making sure the parents in attendance knew that I was in this with them.  I was teaching, but I wanted them to know that I was simply out in front leading.  Not sharing my infinite wisdom with lesser people (not that they thought that, but I wanted us to be clear.)  I think to many times we’re scared to just be honest with parents about who we really are.  This is a strength for me, so I just put it out there for them all to see.  Sincerity is a great asset.

What was the format?

The class started at 6:40 pm (advertised for 6:30) and ended at 8:20 pm.  But I didn’t talk that entire time.  I built in 4 table talk times of 5 minutes each throughout the talk.  This was key for breaking up the classroom style, and letting families get to know each other well.  The table talk questions were general in nature, nothing very personal or revealing.  I wanted to be respectful of those that may not feel comfortable sharing. So I would teach a point, then turn it over for table talk time.  They would answer questions related to the topic I had just taught.  This went about 3-5 minutes each time.  I had Children’s Ministry leaders spread out at each table, to make sure discussion happened.  These leaders were prepped with the questions in advance, and given some direction for how to get people to open up and share.  Each person had the fill-in-the-blank notes to keep along with the class materials.  It was two pages, front and back.  I personally hate teaching where people fill in the blanks along the way, but I wanted to make sure everyone went home with material.

What was room setup?

We had 20 families in attendance, with two people from each family in attendance.  There were 7 round tables setup with the families split evenly throughout.  We had coffee, water, fruit, cookies, and other snacks setup on a few banquet tables off to the side.  I also had my entire Children’s Ministry staff and some key volunteers spread out at each table.  They were instrumental in making this work, and I can’t give them enough credit for being awesome.  I am truly blessed with a great team!

How did it end?

I assigned homework.  Not the kind of homework that is turned in, but the kind of homework that the Holy Spirit convicts them to complete.  I ended the class explaining that the reason I wanted two people from each family in attendance was so that they could hold each other accountable for the things they learned.  Part of that accountability was to go home and think through the 5 homework questions.  The questions were:

1. Write down your vision for your child’s future. What values, character and traits do you want active in their lives? What are your dreams and hopes for them?
2. How important is it to be trusted?  Who are the people that you trust, and what about them do you want to emulate?
3. Identify the weaknesses in yourself that you want your children to avoid.  What are they?
4. What things can you do to help create spiritual rhythms right now? Put these on your calendar today!
5. Who will you commit to make a part of your child’s life?  Think of names and reasons why for each person.

Download: Teaching NOTES and HANDOUT.

The key to any change is to be prepared.  I’ve found to be the most prepared I need to give myself ample time to get things in order.  The first change I made was to cancel the dedication that was scheduled.  We did this thing every 3 months, but we would be taking a 6 month break before coming in with something radically different.  I needed time to drive up some momentum, and get all my ducks in a row.

Then I began to lay out the steps parents would be taking to dedicate their children.  I really wanted to add some hoops for parents to jump through to dedicate their kids.  That sounds bad, doesn’t it?  I was prepared to give our parents incentive to attend the dedication, but I needed to see how committed they were to the process.  If you will go to our child dedication site you will see these steps laid out.

#1 Listen to the Power of Influence podcast.  I created the audio file to be played on the website, or downloaded in iTunes.  It’s only 25 minutes of audio, and it was meant to get the wheels spinning in the brains of our parents.  The podcast is from a talk I gave at Trinity Church in August 2008.  In it I talk about the power of Hannah’s influence over her son, Samuel.  I know it sounds pretty self-serving, but when I was looking for some audio to have parents listen to I just kept coming back to what I had already done.  Sorry.

#2 Register for the class online, and agree to the pre-requisites.  What were the pre-requisites?  They had to listen to the previously mentioned podcast, and had to agree to attend the class with another person.  That’s right.  Nobody was going to be allowed to attend the class by themselves.  If they were single parents, they were asked to bring grandparents along.  If the father was being a jerk and wouldn’t attend, they had to invite someone they hoped might positively influence their child.  I felt it was important that everyone in attendance have someone close to them hearing the same things we would cover in the class.  I hope that makes sense, but I got no push-back from parents on this.  They all seemed to understand.

#3 Attend the class.  This sounds like the most obvious, but it was the most important.  For 40+ years parents registered kids for dedication by filling out an application.  Now they had to attend this short 75 minute class.  If they missed the class, they would NOT be dedicating their child.  If they left 30 minutes into the class, we would NOT be dedicating their child.  If they showed up 30 minutes late, we would NOT be dedicating their child.  My assistant called all the families on the Monday before the class reminding them of all these details.

We blitzed the church in the weeks leading up to the class.  We sent 100’s of postcard-sized flyer’s home with parents of children 2 and under, promoted it on the church-wide video announcements, had posters up in all the normal church communication areas, and sent out a huge email newsletter outlining the changes and how to register.  Everyone of these communication methods just teased the class, and pointed them back to the website.  The website was the destination for all information.

In future posts, I will address what we used in the class and what format I taught from.  Until then, I encourage you to go to http://dedication.trinitykidsplace.com and check it out our promotion!

For the entirety of my Children’s Ministry career (can you call it that?)  I’ve been a part of a few different child dedication events.  You’re probably familiar with the idea.  This will sound very nonspiritual, but it’s basically the evangelical alternative to infant baptism.  There, I said it.  It’s not a holy sacrament, like communion or baptism; but it’s important nonetheless to many parents.

So what is it exactly?  It’s an event where parents sign up their children to be prayed over in front of the church.  I know that many churches do it differently, with many churches adding more meaning than others.  Some churches do it only once a year, some do it every few months, and even some others do it every month.  It’s a cute event, where babies and young children are dressed up in flowing dresses and toddler suits.  I think it’s wonderful that parents want to “dedicate” their kids to the Lord, and want support from their local congregations to parent them accordingly.  There are however some inherent problems with a Child Dedication.

At our church we’ve done the cattle-call method for years.  Line ‘em up and pass them through.  In fact, we’ve done it this way for 40+ years.  It’s slightly memorable, and slightly forgettable all at the same time.  It’s quite the conundrum for someone in my position.  I love the idea of child dedication, but was disturbed by the lack of meaning and substance for the family.

Here’s where I’ve taken action.  If you identify the moments in a parents life that they are open to opinions, help, and assistance; the weeks and months after having a baby is prime time to have an influence.  There are other times as well (kids starting school, child baptism, etc..)  In my case, I had the open door of Child Dedications already in place at Trinity, I just needed to add somethings to make it more meaningful.

Then about 2 years ago I met and corresponded with some friends that helped change my way thinking.  (Thanks Kenny and Gina!)  I listened to their spiels, read their teaching notes, bounced ideas off of them, and eventually formed something for where I’m ministering at.  As a group they really challenged me to rethink the way we dedicate kids at Trinity.  I then began to plant in the hearts and minds of my leaders what could happen if we changed our process.  I mentioned it to people in and around our children’s ministry, and eventually I had some bites on the line.  Change was going to happen.

Over the next three posts, I’ll be laying out what we’ve done at Trinity to add meaning and substance to our Child Dedication process.  It isn’t a perfect plan, but I like to think of all that we’ve done as step #1 in a bigger plan to see parents awakened to their spiritual responsibility in the home.  Remember, baby steps are still steps.