Leadership
Student Ministry
What Thanksgiving Leftovers Taught Me
1:48 PM
So I have confession to make! I love thanksgiving leftovers.
I love them almost as much as I love the original meal. I don’t know why that
it is but I get just as excited about getting ready for the 2 and 3 time as I do when for the first! It’s a little bit of a reminder
for me of the first meal and how good it was. Now, everything is not as fresh
and it is impossible to get it all at the right temperature when you microwave
it, but it is a great substitute for taking the time to make it all over again
every day of the weekend!
Something occurred to me this weekend that really never had
before! My kids DON’T LIKE leftovers! What?? When I realized it I was almost
ready to kick them out of the family!! It was blasphemy. There were a lot of
reasons they didn’t like it. The texture changed a little, it wasn’t fresh and
out of the oven and it over all just didn’t impress them a bit! They were all
over the original meal but not so much when we tried to reheat it and make it
work again.
I think that can apply to what we do when it comes to
creating environments for children and students! They love to have their minds
blown but every time we try to redo it the same way it loses a little bit of
its flavor and the texture changes a bit. It doesn’t take long for kids to see
right through that and begin to become board. Environments for children and
students need to engage all the senses! They need to be fresh every week and
the level of excellence needs to be high. When they encounter something new
their senses are heightened and they really focus in on what you want to
communicate to them! But if we try reheating the same thing month after month
week after week eventually they get to the point where they may come but they
don’t really want to.
Here are 3 ways we keep environments fresh at oneChurch.tv
Different Content – in
our Children’s environment we change subject matter every month by talking
about different virtues. In our Students we change series about every 3 weeks
or so. This means the subject matter is always different. We keep them engaged
by promoting and playing to the different subjects when we shift topics.
Different Look – Every
month we try to theme out our environments to what we are talking about in that
series or to go with that virtue. This creates a level of excitement for the
kids and students each time we make a shift in topic. It helps our leaders get
excited as well. They know they are setting something up to blow their minds!
Different Speakers – We
use different speakers in each environment to allow different people’s style to
engage children and students in different ways. This really helps engage them
from different perspectives.
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