31 days of Children's Ministry

Normally You will find me blogging about crafts I have made, recipes I have tried out or just general LIFE stuff.  THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT.
This month I am going to be participating in the 31 days blogging event for the month of October.

I only decided I would definitely do this on Saturday afternoon, so I haven't had much time to plan and since the next 3 weeks are some of the busiest I have experienced for a while it could be an interesting ride!

I will be blogging about Children's ministry, both in a church environment with children from church backgrounds and outside the church, in local schools.  I'll be sharing stories, ideas and experiences over the next 31 days.

For the day 1 post, scroll down to below this list, but for other days, follow these links:

1. Children's Ministry - My experience
2. Open the Book
3. Operation Christmas Child - My experience
4. Sunday's Cool - and - Free to Use Online Sunday School Curriculum
5. Bible Story Props and Costumes
6. Story Telling (including recording of big Bad Brian the Lion)
7.
8. Learning stories by the BONES method to tell them from memory
9. Getting the full attention of a room full of 15 year olds
10. Lords Prayer  school assembly
11. Why Prayer Spaces in Schools
12. Kids Worship
13.
14.  First thoughts on returning from Prayer Spaces Training
15. TRACING - the Non Arty Kids Leader's Best Friend
16.  Audio Story - Tattercoats
17.  Open the Book video - A Tale of Two Houses
18. Some Sample Prayer Stations
19.
20.  How I choose assemblies
21.  1st Sunday's Box - Quiet box
22.  Prayer Spaces in Schools - The Big Picture
23.  Audio Story - Dr Good and the Strangers
24.
25.  Small Groups vs Kids Church
26.  Spring Term Assemblies List
27.  All things to all people or get help?
28.  5th Sunday's Specials
29.
30.  It's important for the children in your church kids group to see you participate in the full life of the church
31.  November's Assembly - Facing your G I A N T S


Day 1 - Children's Ministry - My Experience
As we start this 31 days journey together I thought it would be a good idea to tell you a little bit about myself and my experiences in Children's Ministry.

I am 41 years old, and I have been involved in children's ministry here in the UK for many years.  Initially when we began attending our current church I began teaching the under 5's as my children were in that group and we had so much fun together, marking out whole towns on the floor with masking tape for the little ones to play with the toy cars, or cleaning tables with shaving foam, along with lots of singing and learning about God.

Eventually I was asked to take over leading the team that worked with that age group and I did that until I was asked to move up and take over the older age group, over 10 years ago.

I've seen a lot of changes in our church, various people have come and gone, different ways of thinking about children's ministry and different sets of materials have come and gone and I have taken breaks from the ministry at times but always I have come back.  I currently lead a team involved in teaching our 7 to 11 year olds, which we call Sunday's Cool.

I am also responsible for our children's outreach programme in local primary schools and occasionally at community events.
I am also a registered presenter for Operation Christmas Child and other Samaritan's purse projects, but do less presenting for that than I used to, this year only giving 4 talks to groups of children, which I will be sharing about this week and next week as it IS that time of year.

And that's it for today except to say, yes, that's me up there with the puppet, her name's Lisa, and she lives on my stairs.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.