Have a puppet ministry at your church? You can get free scripts at PuppetResources.com. They have Christian and non-Christian skits. They can be used with puppet ministries or as general skits to help you teach various Bible lessons or points of life application.

I love it when an organization will give their hard work away for free! It’s all about the kingdom work, right!

Since my church does not have a paid videographer or tech person, I’m the one who edits almost all of my ministry videos and children’s worship slideshows. I’m often looking for interesting sound effects to round off the presentation. I have found a great site for free sound effects called Partners In Rhyme. You can purchase a good deal of effects, but they offer a large number of free ones. You can access all of these off of the main page.

If you are looking for a simple and free sound effects player that will run effects directly from your computer to your soundboard, then V-Sampler Basic from Kidzturn Labs (go to bottom of page) is what you need. You get a limited 20 banks of effects, but it is a nice basic program which should meet most ministry needs.

If you are like me, you are in the absolute HEAT of recruiting for the fall. I mean there is no other ministry in the church that recruits 100 people at a time right?

I’ve found a great video on Vimeo that is a handy recruitment tool. If you are not familiar with Vimeo, it is a site much like You Tube, but filled with videos from much more competent videographers. You can also download straight from the Vimeo site. Many churches have found Vimeo a useful site for sharing their work.

You can view the video below or see it directly from the site here.

When I Grow Up… from Marty Taylor on Vimeo.

If you are like me, you spend a ton of time with children, preparing lessons, working with your volunteers and running around looking for last minute subs. Unfortunately, the position of Children’s Pastor often does not lend itself to regular time in corporate worship. I listen to my pastor’s messages weekly, but also get spiritual growth through other pastor’s messages. John Piper’s website is full of incredible resources I wanted to be sure you knew about. I love the spirit of sharing, which is why I love John Piper’s work so much.

On Pipers site, you can download messages of his from 3 decades ago, articles he has written as well as conference messages of which he has been a part (like the recent Advance ’09 Conference in my town of Durham, NC). You can also download Scripture study guides and virtually every book which Piper has written in PDF. Yes, the books are all free. I have to say that the Desiring God site is one of the most comprehensive of any ministry I have seen. It is definitely worth bookmarking and using as an occasional resource for your own spiritual growth or for study materials as you prepare to teach children.

**Please, no comments about Piper’s Calvanism or my affinity for him. I am not a follower, I just think he has some great resources!

Anyone in CM has had to deal with children losing a loved one. Aside from my prayers, encouragement and counsel, I recommend that parents take a look at some articles on the Christian Works website. You can find some specific articles on grief here. I have found them to be biblical and helpful to Christian parents trying to help their children understand death.

If you have not stumbled upon Max 7 yet, you are really missing out. They have forms, curriculum, audio and videos. You must take a look at the video: Aim Lower. If your pastor would let you show it in “Big Church” during recruitment time, you should take him up on it!

Well, I’m at camp again this week! Aside from my own camp with Grey Stone Baptist Church, I’ll be doing 3 other church camps this summer. I’m in the second of three right now. Needless to say, I’ll be brief in the next few posts. But that reminds me…if you are looking for a retreat/camp speaker or worship leader, feel free to get in touch!

Here’s a blog similar to Free CM Stuff. It’s called Children’s Minister Blog. He has some ideas and reflections, but also links to free or low cost resources.

I’ve been at camp this week, so not much time to comment. Want some free curriculum and puppet skits? Check out Fishers of Kids.

Note: I’ve found that even if I do not use sites like this to establish my entire scope of curriculum, I can often use it to accentuate other lessons I might be organizing or children’s sermons I am writing.

Several months ago, I came across a ministry called Visionary Parenting. You can go to their website to see all that they offer, but I wanted to highlight the free MP3′s on parenting that they offer. I have not listened to all of them, but the ones I have listened to are very biblical and filled with some great advice. Check them out.

You may could even contact the founder to see if he would be okay letting you distribute several of them on CD’s as follow up for new families. They are a great resources not only to get you excited about discipling your parents, but to pass along to parents as well.

I’ll leave you with a short 2 minute clip of the founder’s vision for Visionary Parenting:

You may recall a post of mine back in April on a free internet filter called K-9. Filters are great, but we need to be educated about what is being filtered. Children are so precious that any and every step should be taken to protect them from the dangers of internet predators, pornography and scams.

Besides internet filtering, parents and leaders of Children’s Ministries need to be well educated about what is out there facing kids and how to protect them. That’s were a great website called NetSmartz comes in. NetSmartz is a resource of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. NetSmartz has a parent resource section including free training/education videos, back to school safety checklists and link to a knowledge base called NetSmartz411. It also hosts a kids site for educating children using games, kid-friendly articles, videos and fun characters. This kid-centered site is called Netsmartzkids.

The kid site is a bit busy, but proves to have some valuable tools. This site is a definite resource to pass along to families and kids within our ministry. Please comment below if you have any other sites that are beneficial to educating kids and families about internet safety issues.