I want to begin by introducing our children's ministry to you. Much of this blog will entail HOW we got to where we are and what is to come. This post is simply a quick snapshot of where we are. I am going to take pictures of the classrooms tomorrow and hopefully post them up this weekend so you can see what it all looks like.
We currently have three classrooms. There is an infant, toddler, and younger elementary classroom. The age breakdowns are currently as follows:
Infant: 2 months-18 months (depending on child's development)
Toddler: 18 months-4 years old
Younger Elementary: 5-8 years old
*These are not our ideal age breakdowns. However; we simply do not have enough manpower to make more classrooms at the moment. For now, with our church's current children and families, this breakdown works.
Our volunteer structure is currently as follows:
2 volunteers in Infant on Sunday (at least one adult female) (each volunteer serves approximately once a month)
1 Teacher in Toddler on Sunday (three teachers for this classroom total; each serves every third Sunday)
1 Teacher in Younger Elementary on Sunday (currently only two teachers for this classroom; each serves every third Sunday. Class closed one of the Sundays in the rotation due to a shortage in teachers)
Each volunteer goes through a process in order to become a volunteer. The process is as follows:
1. Application and app approval
-age 12 or above, needs to be a church member, background checked (unless a minor)
2. Personal interview with me (about an hour)
3. Go through a training seminar (about an hour)
Our classrooms are visible from outside the classroom (from the lobby area at our church). Each class has a glass door. The Toddler and Younger Elementary classrooms are connected with a glass door as well. This is important for many reasons, which I will get into in the next week in another post.
*It has been nice having the two older classrooms connected. Sometimes our Toddler classroom gets a lot of children. The Younger Elementary teacher will sometimes help out if the Toddler class needs it.
Our Organizational structure looks like this:
1. Lead Pastor at FGC- Pastor Matt Troupe
2. Children's Ministry Leader (volunteer position)- myself
3. Volunteers
I coordinate scheduling, new applications, background checks, teacher and new volunteer trainings, and major curriculum decisions. I report to Pastor Matt as needed or about twice a month. This is helpful and important! Also, I have a very open line of communication with volunteers. They are the backbone of the ministry. Without them, we would not have any classrooms! Their input is very valuable, especially since I am not in EVERY classroom. I myself am a teacher in the Toddler classroom, which means I see what happens there the most. I rely on the volunteers of every class for valuable ideas and input on how things are running.
Lastly, I am spending at least 5 hours each week working on children's ministry "stuff", sometimes more if there is an event or something time consuming comes up.
I hope this gives you a pretty solid glimpse of what Free Grace Church's Children's Ministry looks like at the moment. We have many plans on improving this ministry, but for now this is what we are capable of and are hoping meets the needs of our people. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Buckle Down... Autobiography Time!
I want to welcome you to my blog! I have created this blog out of a passion for children's ministry and motivation by the Holy Spirit. I want to introduce myself a bit, and perhaps give you a clearer picture of what this blog is about and how it may help you.
My journey with children's ministry has been quite a strange one. I was saved at the age of fifteen and was quickly plugged into a local church. Perhaps my second Sunday attending I got recruited to serve in children's ministry. I "helped" out in the 3-5 year old classroom for many years at this church. My (now) husband was saved two years later at the age of 18. He also got recruited for children's ministry at the same church. I spent a total of five years serving there; my husband about two. He served as the Children's Ministry Assistant for one summer, and I served after him in this position for one year. This was a very challenging period of my life and much of my current fears and wisdom that I may currently have come from this 5 years of "hard knocks".
I then took about 2 years off of serving in children's ministry. I was SO burnt out and afraid of getting "sucked" back in. Both my (then) boyfriend and I began attending a different local church. That lasted about another two years.
During this time, I began going to college at Fresno State and majored in Child Development. I graduated a year and a half ago from Fresno State. Woohoo!
I was married during the winter break of my sophomore year to my awesome husband Aaron. I like to call him A-Ron. : ) A-Ron has had a desire to become a pastor since about the first day he was saved. Some would describe it as "calling". Our "honeymoon" was spent during spring break partying it up in Cancun! I'm just kidding. We are ridiculously way too serious. We actually went to Seattle for an Acts 29 Bootcamp. A-Ron has had a desire to church plant, so we thought, "What the heck! We will go for our honeymoon!" THAT is how lame we are. I also ended up in the Emergency Room, but that's a different story... FUN!
Since our "honeymoon", we have been following the Acts 29 movement, and A-Ron has always expressed a desire to be a part of it. One day, while at Starbucks (as all amazing life events happen at Starbucks), A-Ron needed a place to sit and study. There was only ONE seat left in the joint. He sat down and quickly noticed the guy next to him wielding a Macbook Pro and a Bible in his stylish man bag. A-ron also had a Macbook Pro and a Bible in his very own stylish man bag. A-ron quickly began a conversation with this fellow nerdtacular. Turns out the guy is a pastor named Matt Troupe. Of a local church plant. Matt asked A-Ron what he wanted to be, and A-Ron stated he wanted to be a pastor and church planter through the Acts 29 Network. Matt laughed to himself, turned his computer screen towards Aaron, and lo-and-behold, Matt was filling out the Acts 29 application for his church plant.
After much praying and visiting the church Matt pastored (Free Grace Church), Aaron and I decided to make the move from our current church to Free Grace. It was a sad move for me, because I really loved our church. Ultimately, we believed, and still do, that God was directing us to begin attending and serving at Free Grace. We still attend Free Grace, which is now officially an Acts 29 church. I LOVE our church, despite the initial struggle.
For a year or so at Free Grace, I stiff armed the idea of serving in children's ministry. I really did not want to get sucked into a draining ministry as I had experienced before. A-Ron and I became pregnant around this time, which really left me with no choice of serving.
That was my last semester of college. I had our first child, a baby girl, in March of 2011. I had been serving a bit in our 10' by 10' room of infants through 5 year olds. We had no official "leader", just a scheduler. Meanwhile, the church had about 20 people attending at the time. SMALL!!!
After about 6 months, we started to grow. We outgrew our tiny pie-shaped building and 10 by 10 classroom. We couch surfed for a few months at a local Baptist church while we signed a new lease at a new building. (By new, I mean roach infested, leaking, dirty building. Hey, new for us!) In November of 2011, Free Grace Church launched our first service at our "new" building, complete with post-insecticided roaches still upside-down and wiggling on the floor. I started leading the children's ministry officially (WHAAA????) and we began teaching curriculum for the first time in January of 2012.
Since January, we have grown from about 30 people to about 70 and see new faces every Sunday. We total, on a large day, about 18-20 children. Three more babies are due within three months of now. We have added two rooms, at the sacrifice of our contractor's tendon in his arm (also a fun story for later). We have some systems and procedures, a fancy policy book, background checks, are roach free, and moist play-doh!
I have been brief (yes, this was considered brief) about the details of most of our journey because there are so many lessons I have learned in the process. Each future post will expand upon these lessons, hopefully bringing you some help, encouragement, and probably relief that you aren't as screwed up as I am. My goal here is to help you overcome many obstacles in children's ministry and church planting and have a proper view of the Gospel in the midst.
I hope you can learn from a pregnant again, 23 year old stay-at-home nobody. If not, I will feature your children's ministry in one of our Guest Posts so I and everyone else can learn from you!
Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. Here we go!
My journey with children's ministry has been quite a strange one. I was saved at the age of fifteen and was quickly plugged into a local church. Perhaps my second Sunday attending I got recruited to serve in children's ministry. I "helped" out in the 3-5 year old classroom for many years at this church. My (now) husband was saved two years later at the age of 18. He also got recruited for children's ministry at the same church. I spent a total of five years serving there; my husband about two. He served as the Children's Ministry Assistant for one summer, and I served after him in this position for one year. This was a very challenging period of my life and much of my current fears and wisdom that I may currently have come from this 5 years of "hard knocks".
I then took about 2 years off of serving in children's ministry. I was SO burnt out and afraid of getting "sucked" back in. Both my (then) boyfriend and I began attending a different local church. That lasted about another two years.
During this time, I began going to college at Fresno State and majored in Child Development. I graduated a year and a half ago from Fresno State. Woohoo!
I was married during the winter break of my sophomore year to my awesome husband Aaron. I like to call him A-Ron. : ) A-Ron has had a desire to become a pastor since about the first day he was saved. Some would describe it as "calling". Our "honeymoon" was spent during spring break partying it up in Cancun! I'm just kidding. We are ridiculously way too serious. We actually went to Seattle for an Acts 29 Bootcamp. A-Ron has had a desire to church plant, so we thought, "What the heck! We will go for our honeymoon!" THAT is how lame we are. I also ended up in the Emergency Room, but that's a different story... FUN!
Since our "honeymoon", we have been following the Acts 29 movement, and A-Ron has always expressed a desire to be a part of it. One day, while at Starbucks (as all amazing life events happen at Starbucks), A-Ron needed a place to sit and study. There was only ONE seat left in the joint. He sat down and quickly noticed the guy next to him wielding a Macbook Pro and a Bible in his stylish man bag. A-ron also had a Macbook Pro and a Bible in his very own stylish man bag. A-ron quickly began a conversation with this fellow nerdtacular. Turns out the guy is a pastor named Matt Troupe. Of a local church plant. Matt asked A-Ron what he wanted to be, and A-Ron stated he wanted to be a pastor and church planter through the Acts 29 Network. Matt laughed to himself, turned his computer screen towards Aaron, and lo-and-behold, Matt was filling out the Acts 29 application for his church plant.
After much praying and visiting the church Matt pastored (Free Grace Church), Aaron and I decided to make the move from our current church to Free Grace. It was a sad move for me, because I really loved our church. Ultimately, we believed, and still do, that God was directing us to begin attending and serving at Free Grace. We still attend Free Grace, which is now officially an Acts 29 church. I LOVE our church, despite the initial struggle.
For a year or so at Free Grace, I stiff armed the idea of serving in children's ministry. I really did not want to get sucked into a draining ministry as I had experienced before. A-Ron and I became pregnant around this time, which really left me with no choice of serving.
That was my last semester of college. I had our first child, a baby girl, in March of 2011. I had been serving a bit in our 10' by 10' room of infants through 5 year olds. We had no official "leader", just a scheduler. Meanwhile, the church had about 20 people attending at the time. SMALL!!!
After about 6 months, we started to grow. We outgrew our tiny pie-shaped building and 10 by 10 classroom. We couch surfed for a few months at a local Baptist church while we signed a new lease at a new building. (By new, I mean roach infested, leaking, dirty building. Hey, new for us!) In November of 2011, Free Grace Church launched our first service at our "new" building, complete with post-insecticided roaches still upside-down and wiggling on the floor. I started leading the children's ministry officially (WHAAA????) and we began teaching curriculum for the first time in January of 2012.
Since January, we have grown from about 30 people to about 70 and see new faces every Sunday. We total, on a large day, about 18-20 children. Three more babies are due within three months of now. We have added two rooms, at the sacrifice of our contractor's tendon in his arm (also a fun story for later). We have some systems and procedures, a fancy policy book, background checks, are roach free, and moist play-doh!
I have been brief (yes, this was considered brief) about the details of most of our journey because there are so many lessons I have learned in the process. Each future post will expand upon these lessons, hopefully bringing you some help, encouragement, and probably relief that you aren't as screwed up as I am. My goal here is to help you overcome many obstacles in children's ministry and church planting and have a proper view of the Gospel in the midst.
I hope you can learn from a pregnant again, 23 year old stay-at-home nobody. If not, I will feature your children's ministry in one of our Guest Posts so I and everyone else can learn from you!
Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. Here we go!
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