churchrelevance.com

When it started raining, it did not look good for the 2008 Easter Egg Hunt at The Rock Church (Lynnwood, WA). Fortunately, the children’s ministry director had the innovative idea to move the Easter egg hunt indoors and bury them underneath thousands of packing peanuts. For an extra measure of fun, they added a blower.

Lead Pastor Scott Harris offers this warning to churches who want to host their own packing peanut Easter egg hunts - “The packing peanuts go everywhere, including the HVAC system!” Often the best ideas require more effort.

By its very nature, children’s ministry is challenging, but special needs ministry takes the challenge to a whole new level. Any children’s pastor familiar with teaching special needs children understands the importance of developing a unique approach and relationship with each child. It takes a great deal of effort, but it is well worth it when you can effectively connect and minister to a special needs child.

Autistic children are known for avoiding eye contact. And new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has identified why.

Autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat.

That is good to know, especially if you minister to autistic children.  It was previously assumed autistic children struggled to process faces because of a malfunction in the brain’s fusiform region. This new research, however, shows that autistic children have “fundamentally normal” fusiforms but try to avoid eye contact because it over-arouses their amygdalas (an area linked to anxiety and mood disorders).

For Discussion:
- What advice do you have for ministering to special needs children?

[via ScienceDaily]

It is always interesting to see what other churches are doing for Easter. One trend is evident this year - more and more churches are moving away from the traditional Easter cantata. I already highlighted what two Tulsa churches did for Easter 2008, but here are three other examples of unconventional Easter events this year.

Granger Community Church (Granger, IN)
Photo Credits: Jeff Petersen & Dustin Maust.

For a sermon illustration, Mark Beeson had the congregation play a giant game of Simon using glow sticks and music by Daft Punk.

The Rock Church (San Diego, CA)

The Rock Church had their hip-hop ministry, Rock Steady, perform.

Mariners Church (Irvine, CA)
Photo Credits: Mariners Church website.

Easter egg drops have been around for years. I don’t know who first started them, but almost two decades ago, Jim Wideman dropped 17,000 candy eggs from an airplane for his children’s ministry. In recent years, helicopter egg drops have grown in popularity. And this Easter, Mariners Church hosted quite a large Easter egg drop.

For Discussion:
- What other unconventional things are churches doing for Easter?

Children’s ministers and missionaries have been using clown ministry for years, but University of Sheffield researchers discovered that most children ages 4 to 16 dislike clown images. The research was an effort to find ways to improve healthcare environments for children and young people.

As adults we make assumptions about what works for children. We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.
- Dr. Penny Curtis :: Researcher :: Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth

Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don’t look funny, they just look odd. Children are much more happy with things stuck on the wall that have some sort of personal relevance for them, not some images that are foisted upon them by adults.
- Patricia Doorbar :: Child Psychologist

I find Patricia Doorbar’s remarks particularly fascinating because she suggests that clowns are from an era that is no longer relevant to today’s children. Despite this, I am aware of some clown ministries that children do enjoy, but I wonder if they would be even more effective if they repackaged their look but kept the same techniques.

[via BBC News]

Earlier today children’s ministry expert Jim Wideman of World Outreach Church (Murfreesboro, TN) blogged the following good reminder for church leaders:

God is just as concerned about how we treat the people we lead as what we get accomplished.

Remember, they may be your leaders, but they are His kids.

So don’t let the success of results be at the expense of relationships.

Jim Wideman is a leadership and children’s ministry expert, who recently made his monthly leadership MP3 resource called The Club available to young church leaders for free. There are only three requirements:

1. You must be under 30 years of age.
2. You must be in full-time ministry.
3. You must agree to pray for Jim at least once a week.

If that is you, sign up now.

Why is he doing it? In his words:

There are things I know I want to spend the rest of my life passing on to the next generation of leaders.

Children’s ministry expert Jim Wideman recently blogged about 10 ways to win the confidence of those you lead. Here are the first five:

1. Believe in yourself.
   No one wants to follow an insecure leader. At the same time you can put too much confidence in yourself. The key here is to be confident that Jesus has called you to be a leader.
2. Be upbeat and not discouraged or overwhelmed.
   Things are never as bad as you think, and you are not as wonderful as you think you are either. Be passionate and enthusiastic.
3. Carry yourself like a winner.
   Always look your best and dress for success. Know how to clean up well when you need to and don’t be silly.
4. Identify your present leadership level.
   How would rate yourself as a leader? How would your volunteers rate your leadership? If you are a five, sevens and eights can’t look up to you. You must grow as a leader. Ask yourself these four simple questions, and you’re on your way to your next level. 
   >> What level are you now?
   >> Where do you want to be?
   >> What do you need to do?
   >> What steps can you take to begin?
5. Become a student of leadership and keep growing in your abilities.
   Always be reading. Listen to leadership teaching and mentors. Discuss what you are reading and learning with other leaders.

To read five more ways to gain people’s confidence while leading them, check out Jim Wideman’s original post.

According to The Barna Group, born again Christians in the U.S. are predicted to spend $1 billion on media products for children younger than 18 this Christmas. Unfortunately, many of them are concerned about the media content of the products they buy.

• 70% of those who bought downloads for their kids’ mobile phones were concerned about the content 
• 46% of video game purchasers were concerned about the content 
• 33% of CD purchasers were concerned about the content
• 31% of magazine purchasers were concerned about the content
• 26% of DVD purchasers were concerned about the content
• 24% of computer software purchasers were concerned about the content

Obviously, if parents are concerned about the content, they should not buy it. Unfortunately, somewhere between a quarter and a half of all Christian parents still buy the media products.

Questionable content often shapes culture in unquestionably negative ways. It makes the jobs of children’s pastors and youth ministers more difficult when even the Christian students subject themselves to negative influences, particularly when parents are the ones buying the bad influences.