This blog has been going now for over 6 months and I’m so excited that you count me worthy of being a resource provider for you. I’m going to be taking about a 2 week break to enjoy time with family as well as attend CPC in Nashville. I’ll be leading a workshop there on Tuesday morning at 9:20am called “60 Freebies in 60 Minutes” that is based on my work on this site. If you are a regular reader, you probably don’t want to come to this one, but I will be giving away:

• Several Kidzmatter resources
• Several books by Scott Turansky and Joann Miller
• Riggleberry Bloke by Jon Slone
• Kid Lead by Alan Nelson

I’ll be back to the blogging world bringing you free resources 3 times a week on January 11th! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and remember that whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (I Corinthians 10:31)

Hey, here are some free looping backgrounds just in time for your after Christmas weekend service…or for next year! These are courtesy of the folks at Soul Refinery.

1) Red Tree Loop

2) Green Tree Loop

This is a site of various free materials. Videos, music, design ideas, lessons, etc. I’d call it a hodgepodge of church freebies. I’m not sure how updated they keep it. I saw a few “2004″ years around there, but there is a good deal of content.

Recently I have commented on several tools for communicating to others in rough circumstances. One was called Make a Child Smile and the other PrisonerAlert. Both of these are great opportunities for the kids and families in our churches to share love and encouragement along with the gospel message. Another one of those opportunities is called Let’s Say Thanks. It is mostly supported by Xerox, but you can see the list of partner companies here. The front page is a little difficult to operate, but it becomes easier if you choose the “View All Designs” link on the left side of the page. When I did it, I choose “other” as a message and wrote my own message thanking them for their hard work and sacrifice. I also wove the gospel message into it. It’s just another creative way that our kids and families can share the gospel with people all over the world!

Get some high quality Christmas lessons for your children’s worship from Kidz Blitz Curriculum. Use these in a Sunday morning children’s worship service, for a special family service, or on a Wednesday or Sunday night when you just don’t know what to do! We have been using Big City Studio for almost 3 years now and it is the best children’s church material I have seen!

If you are up for taking your kids through 1 year of systematic theology (yes, even preschoolers!), then check out Praise Factory. This is a free curriculum (they ask for a small donation if your church is able) that is a ministry out of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. It is the church of Mark Dever and the home of 9 Marks.

This curriculum contains one year each for 2/3 year olds, 4/5 year olds, and elementary students. I have not used this personally, but it comes from Mark Dever’s wife, so I know it would be theologically sound.

No this is not a personal ad. I’m completely happy with my wife Michaella! I’m letting you know about a great tool that our technological families may want to have. It’s called Cozi and is an online family organization system. Here’s a quote from the website:

Use Cozi to manage your busy family life with a shared online calendar, shopping lists, to do lists and more. Plus, capture favorite holiday memories—all in one spot. Cozi is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, and any mobile phone.

I’ve been wanting to try it out, especially since I could sync my family calender with Outlook, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll probably need to wait until we replace our 9 year old computer! Have you dealt with the application? Let me know by commenting below!

Church budgets always seem to be tight no matter what the state of the economy. However, if you can prove to those in your church that you are budget-minded and tenacious at being frugal with church resources, they may just crown you as the King or Queen of Savings! Here are a few tips across the various areas of your ministry that can save you money:

Events

• Get several quotes from equipment providers (buses, inflatables, t-shirts, entertainment). Getting a few quotes takes a couple of extra minutes and you can often save hundreds of dollars. When I came to Grey Stone, I did this and cut the VBS t-shirt budget in half!
• Partner with other ministry areas to slice the costs in half. We did this for a volunteer banquet. The education ministry and children’s ministry did a somewhat joint thank you banquet for our volunteers. We got a better deal on the food (b/c of volume) and we split the entertainer fee.
• For camps or events that require parents to pay for their kids, many of us build a portion of this into our budget to subsidize the one’s who can’t afford it. I have found that a simple announcement in the bulletin explaining the need for scholarships draws a good bit of money. I explain exactly what it would cost to send one kid to that event so they have a concrete figure. I also have several “givers” in my contact list who have been very gracious in the past that I can call on for assistance. Try this one for extra camp spending money for needy children too!

Large Projects

• Sit down for 20 minutes and brainstorm about volunteers who can help you get the project done. We did a $10,000+ renovation project for our elementary worship room for around $5000 b/c of volunteers in our church who did things for free or at cost.
• Do the work yourself. Plan on spending 60-70 hours a week at church over those 2-3 weeks and show the church some hard work ethic!
• Schedule volunteer “work days” to help get the grunt work of large projects done. Schedule them at key times in the project plan and on days and times which working people are easily available.

Curriculum

• Use free curriculum, especially for short run programs, like Wednesday nights in the summer, or for Christmas/Easter lessons. Go here to find out about links to many of these free curriculum resources. Another great resource for this is Open from LifeChurch.
• Partner with a local sister church to alternate the sharing of curriculum. This would cut your budget in half. Even with dated curriculum, a few tweaks would make this very doable.
• Have teachers meet weekly to discuss their resource needs. They may find that someone else has what they were going to ask you to buy the next day!

Consumable Resources

• Three times a year, make a wish list known of items needed for your nursery or resource room. Put this list in your bulletin or newsletter. Want to make it even more successful, have some adult Sunday school classes adopt a particular area of “resource needs” and do a two week drive toward the end of the summer to get ready for the new school year.
• Steal them. Just kidding…I wanted to see if you read this far!
• Cut out the amount you feed children at church and have a rotation of families provide that snack or breakfast.
• Buy wholesale. Get a Costco, BJ’s, or Sam’s membership. You really do save a ton on things like cookies, cups, napkins, and plates there.
• Lock the snacks up so the youth don’t eat them!

If you are like me, you want the kids in your ministry to realize that there is a big world out there filled with needy people. If there is one thing I want them to remember that I taught, it is that the middle class life they live is not all that’s out there. I want them to know that there are people around the world in need of Jesus and that it takes sacrifce to reach them.

One way we can encourage our kids to impact other children for Chirst is through Make a Child Smile. At this site, your children and their families can review the stories of very sick children and write notes to them. What a great way to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a caring and loving way! Kids could mail home made cards with tracts and Bible verses or care packages with Christian videos. I hope you’ll tell the families in your ministry about this opportunity.

I love music. Since I miss a great deal of worship services, I worship at many other times aside from Sunday mornings. One of the tools I use in the office each week is a site called Grooveshark. You can listen (not necessarily download) virtually any song you can think of. It is a free, internet-based music service. You can purchase a membership with them in order to listen to music in more versatile ways as well.