Often my pastor encourages us in the fact that “people are down on what they aren’t up on.” With that encouragement comes the reminder to be redundant in communication. For larger events like camps, VBS, or church wide festivals, you’ll want to hit all 10 of these. For smaller events, I would suggest tapping into the 5 that will most likely bring you the most fruit for that particular event.

1. Email: Email is still wildly popular, but is slowly being supplanted by other forms of social media as the communication method of choice. The effectiveness of this is very dependent upon the culture of communication of your people.
2. Newsletters: Church wide, volunteer, or parent. Get the word out in all of them.
3. Worship Guide/Bulletin: Make sure the average church attender who is prone to not be in the know has an avenue to see your events.
4. Facebook: Invite people to events, swamp them with info about your event through your feed, or write a post about it to share with your friends.
5. Posters: Put 11×17 or larger posters up on visible areas. Doors to kids ministry space, bathroom entrances, stairwells, prominent bulletin boards, plaster them with posters!
6. Word of Mouth: Call people. Ask them if they’ve heard about the event or are coming to it as you see them on Sunday mornings when you chat in the hallway. Recruit several noteworthy volunteers to personally invite 5 children or families to your event.
7. Blog: Does your church have a blog? Put it on there. Do you have your own Children’s Ministry blog? Put it on there!
8. Twitter: There aren’t many of my families plugged in to this yet, but if your church is in a more metropolitan area, this avenue will prove useful for you. Create a hashtag for your event or ask people to retweet your announcement.
9. Handouts: I’ve found that giving a postcard out to parents as they pick up can be a very effective “kick off” announcement leading up to an event.
10. Phone Tree: Yes, people still use phone trees. They are still useful b/c it puts a verbal message into the ears of most people in your ministry.

For this post, I’ll link to a website called I Love Free Software. Check out the 5 suggested sites for developing a logo online for free.

The church insurance company, Guide One, is offering a free 42 page PDF about church safety practices. All you need to do is give them your information and email address (yes…you will probably get some mailers from them) and they send you a link to download the file.

This guide is pretty helpful, covering topics such as facility and employee safety with large sections devoted to safe environments for children, background checking, and considerations during off site trips.

We all have needs that come up in our ministry. People experience death, crushing sickness arises, babies are born, and jobs are lost. When those dire events take place, it is imperative for the church to surround our brothers and sisters with love and care during this time. In a similar format to Sign Up Genius, CareCalendar allows you to bring together a community of people to meet the needs of others.

CareCalendar is a web based system to organize meals and other help for families during a time of illness or life changing event, such as the birth of a baby or death of a family member. CareCalendar can also be used for long term situations, including homebound and caregiver respite care needs.

Features include:

• Status updates and photos
• Real time updates on needs that remain un-met
• Customizable fields, schedule meals, errands, work, rides, visits, and more
• Email notifications
• Maps and driving directions

The following is a guest post by Jared Massey from Small Town Kidmin.

Love it or hate it, we all have to do a little budgeting now and then. From the largest church to the smallest church, we all have “limited resources.” Some are just more limited than others. In order to be good stewards of the resources God has given us (and hopefully to prove ourselves faithful of managing more), a budget in some form is necessary.

Budgets in some churches are a beautiful spreadsheet of various calculations stemming from years of giving and spending research plus forecasted growth minus increased expenses taking into account current economic inflation rates and various other factors. God bless those churches. I’m not in one of them. Our budget is much more simplistic and pragmatic, and I think that is healthier in a church our size (averaging about 55 people on a Sunday morning).

Anytime I need to make a large purchase, I need to get board approval. One of the board members always asks two questions. Do we need it? Can we afford it? Those two questions should be at the root of any budget of any church.

When budgeting for the year, or month, first ask “What do we need?” In order to effectively do ministry, there are certain staples that need to be had, curriculum for example. Budget those things first. Then dream, if I had more money, how could we be more effective? During a workshop I sat in about building large group environments on a small budget, the speaker said, “Fit your budget to your dream, don’t just dream to your budget.” I think this is good, albeit not always practical, advice. Based on your God-given dreams, what budget is necessary? That’s the budget you need to ask for. I have been told no, I have been told not now, and I have been told go for it. While I prefer a yes, a no or not now helps to sharpen the vision for my ministry. Sometimes, the best way to figure out what is important is by learning what isn’t.

Budgeting is tough and serious business. We are called to be good stewards of God’s money and that means using it wisely. Purchases that serve to inflate our egos or make me as the leader look better are never wise purchases. Spending money on things that show God’s love to the world around you is always wise.

About the author: Jared is the Associate Pastor of Warsaw Assembly of God, a church in a populous town of 1,700. Even though he narrowly beat me in the Blog Madness tournament earlier this year, I still count him a friend. He works full time at a bank and is a good dad too. I’m thankful he was nice enough to take some time out of his schedule to send a few words of advice to the Free CM Stuff community.

Recruiting volunteers is a true art form. Some of us are really good at it and some of us are really bad. This article is for my friends out there who will readily admit they are lousy recruiters. Your team is suffering because you just don’t know how to bring in excellent people by making an effective “ask.”

First of all, let me say that recruiting volunteers effectively has nothing to do with conniving people into something they are not interested in. It has everything to do with allowing people of varying gifts the opportunity to make those gifts come alive in the proper setting. This is Ephesians 4:12 kind of work.

If you want to make an effective ask, you need to shoot for the EMMY.

E–Explain: Explain who you are and what your role is within the church. Tell them what is going on in your ministry and the specific reason for your call. If they know who you are, just give them a short update of your ministry.

M–Motivate: Let your passion for the ministry come through in your voice. Take a moment to describe why what you are speaking to them about is important. Describe for them the reasons they came to your mind for this specific task or why someone else recommended that you call them. You should definitely be smiling during this part!

M–Map Out: Provide them the exact details regarding what you had in mind. Be sure to include start and end dates, commitment level, required trainings and other material that would be beneficial for them to know as they consider the position.

Y–Yo: This is the time where you wrap up the conversation by encouraging them to pray about the opportunity. The “Yo” is to remind you to arrange a time to get in touch with them. If you really want them to serve, don’t leave the ball in their court to get back with you. Many well meaning people who would really would serve in the ministry get very busy and forget to call you for weeks. You do the follow up. Put it on your calendar, make a sticky note for your computer, spray paint a reminder on your cat…whatever, just call them back! Sometimes, fortunately, you will ask someone who will jump at the opportunity right in the middle of your conversation. In that case, forget the “Yo” and just praise God that they felt immediately called!

If you hit these four tips spot on, you will see your recruitment take some giant leaps and most likely see a vast improvement the excellence factor in your ministry. People will be more bought in, more motivated and confident about their service because you helped them become a right fit.

What you see above is the Awana Gospel Wheel. When I found out about this about a year and a half ago, I became a big fan. I think that it appropriately communicates the gospel message along with, for the most part, a clear response. I appreciate how the Gospel Wheel utilizes I Corinthians 15:3-4 to accentuate not only Jesus’ death, but his resurrection–a portion of the Good News of Jesus that is often forgotten and relegated to a footnote. I found out now that they have an app available in Android, iPad and Iphone configurations. I just used it this week with my daughters to communicate the gospel to them and it served me well.

I think this is a great tool for those of us who work with children whether you are an Awana fan or not. You can go through the App with someone and never know it is an Awana tool except for the initial splash screen.

One critique I have, and it is a general critique for the gospel wheel, is that they do not include the concept of repentance in this presentation. Repentance, a change in mind and heart–away from sin and toward the Lord, is a critical component in a response to the gospel that goes hand in hand with faith/belief/trust. When presenting this to my daughters I had to insert the idea of repentance in it on my own.

Format wise, I do like how you have three options of presentation to choose from: kids, teens and adults. I believe the adult one could be more visually appealing perhaps utilizing symbols or “icons” to display the truth on screen. I really like how the teen portion allowed for some discussion questions, though a few of them seemed slightly surface level. Others, however, were quite poignant. You also get to choose from NIV, KJV or Spanish–another nice feature. Take a look at this video to find out more.

Do you have a staff team you work with or a volunteer team that works closely in ministry together? You may want to consider attending this free online conference to develop healthy church teams. If you are not familiar with Leadership Network, they are an organization that helps church leaders innovate in their context through publications, online content and events.

Register for this free online conference here.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how many things have to be processed by me as a leader on a Sunday morning. I’m sure you feel the same way. You mean to follow up with a child about something special you know happened to them that week. You wanted to recruit someone for something. There was a point of evaluation that needed to take place. But you forgot.

If you are like me, lists and reminders are huge helps for getting things accomplished. I’ve decided that I want to have a “cheat sheet” in my Bible each week that helps to remind me about particular points of ministry leadership each Sunday. I’d love your feedback about any points/questions you would add. Then I’ll design a nice Bible insert that I will make available for free here on Free CM Stuff. My questions would be:

• Who do I need to have specific conversations with today?
• What areas of ministry do I need to evaluate?
• Specific children I need to encourage?
• What do I need to follow up on this week?
• What prayer needs came up today?

What would you add? Look forward to hearing your thoughts and incorporating them into this little guide.

Freedcamp is an online project management service. It allows you to assign specific tasks to users, set time lines and goals, discuss decisions and project direction and share files. I’m not sure how well this would work in a church with a close office system, but I do see that it can have value in event planning with volunteers. I can see this online help being very beneficial for VBS and camp planning as you enter the summer. Let me know if you used it and how it worked out for you.