Brittany Nelson: Planning Your Ministry Calendar
Brittany Nelson from Deeper Kidmin joins us to talk about planning a kids ministry calendar.
We dive into how to start with clear goals, filter events through real value (not just tradition), and build a meaningful ministry calendar. Brittany shares practical insights on evaluating events, planning around family rhythms, collaborating with staff, and creating space for both structure and flexibility.
If you want a more intentional, sustainable approach to your ministry year, this episode will help you think differently about your calendar.
Quick Links:
KIDMIN U (next session starts February)
Transcript:
KIDMIN U Team (00:00)
Well, Brittany, welcome to the podcast.
Brittany Nelson (00:01)
Thanks so much, Jeremy. I'm excited to be here.
KIDMIN U Team (00:03)
Yeah, listen, I think a lot of people know you from all kinds of stuff you do. You run deeper Kidman. You have probably, I would say, maybe the largest library of kids Mr. Resources, it's available. Also the funnest Instagram feed with with reels and everything. We see Brittany Nelson now.
Brittany Nelson (00:14)
you
Thanks!
KIDMIN U Team (00:22)
you're doing all these fun, fancy things. But I think a really cool place to start this podcast is by zooming all the way into the beginning and talking about your origin story. How'd you get started in kids ministry?
Brittany Nelson (00:32)
Sure. Yeah.
So I actually wanted to be a high school language arts teacher. And so like everything I did all through high school, all through college was to help me become a high school language arts teacher. And my senior year of college, the children's pastor at my church that I grew up in, who had been doing it for almost 25 years, she was ready to step down and she said, Brittany, we want to bring on two part-time people with the goal that after a year, one of them will kind of fall off and the other one will take over. Would you come be one of those people?
And I was like, well, this will be perfect because I'm going to go to grad school to get my English education, like my master's, you know, and I can do that for the year. And I said, yes, I'll come, but I want to be the one that leaves. And she was like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I was like, OK. And so I got in, started, started as the nursery and preschool coordinator at our church. And so really kind of those younger families. And within a few months, I was like, I love this. Like, I love this. And I felt like God was giving me.
vision for the ministry and I was like, God, you should probably tell the other person because I'm done after this year. Like I won't be here to carry these things out. But he just kept giving me a heart for it and a passion for it. And then I went to the Children's Vastors Conference that happens every year in January with INCM, the International Network of Children's Ministry. I was there with my partner, my counterpart, you know, in ministry that he was going to be the one that was going to stay. And I was just praying that first night of worship and I was like, God, like.
what's going on? You know, like I thought I was supposed to be a high school language arts teacher and now all this stuff like is coming in for ministry and it seems like children's ministry. This isn't even the age group that I wanted to work with. And God very clearly just said, no, Brittany, I called you to be a teacher. I never said what kind. And my first response was arguing. I was like, are you sure? Are you sure God? Cause we had this whole plan and it was great. like grad schools already lined up and he was like, no, no.
I called you to be a teacher, I never said what kind. And so from that point, I was like, well, I guess I'm going into children's ministry now. And so I did children's ministry. was the full-time children's pastor at our church for about five years. My husband is a full-time youth pastor and he was a youth pastor at the same church. And so kind of my transition into deeper Kidman happened when we felt like both of us leading.
separate ministries at the level and the capacity that we wanted to lead at wasn't going to be sustainable long term for us. This was before we had kids. And so I started just exploring like, well, if I can't be a children's pastor, then I want to support children's pastors. And so that's really how Deeper Kidman got started. And so now I get to volunteer in children's ministry. I joke that I get to do all the fun parts of like working with kids and doing the fun stuff and like don't have to do all the hard parts anymore.
but I get to be the one that cheers leaders on and encourages them and supports them and equips them. And so, yeah, so I'm a second and third grade small group leader at our church and volunteering in my husband's youth ministry as well and running Deeper Kidman.
KIDMIN U Team (03:04)
Sure. ⁓
Okay, so one of the things I love about everything that you build and create and all that stuff, I feel like you've got this mind that's really amazing with systems and planning and processes and whatnot. Where did that come from? Have you always been wired that way?
Brittany Nelson (03:28)
Yes.
Yes, administration has always been one of my spiritual gifts. It's always, I was that kid that like, I like, was planning my birthday parties months in advance as a six year old. Okay. So that has just always been who I am. I love to plan things. Right. Like I love to plan things. I love to organize things like label makers and laminators. Like those things just make my heart happy. So that's just always how I've been wired. And it's been really fun to kind of explore what that looks like in ministry and building systems that make ministry more sustainable.
KIDMIN U Team (03:39)
Ha
spreadsheets and all.
Brittany Nelson (03:59)
helping people who that's not their spiritual gift and they would like rather poke their eye out than organize things like helping them understand how that structure and that those systems can really help their ministry grow and thrive and it's not just some tedious task that like we have to get done, but there's a purpose and a point behind it too.
KIDMIN U Team (04:17)
Yeah, 100%. Okay, so I think the two things people would recognize Brittany Nelson from Deeper Kidman for probably number one, really helpful resources. And number two, really relatable reels. So I've got to ask in your origin story, was there like theater somewhere? Was there acting, something like that?
Brittany Nelson (04:30)
I hope so. Yeah. ⁓
So I was in chorus, all through middle school, and then I was in ⁓ musical theater all through high school as well. And then, you know, I mean, as a children's pastor though, right? Like you're always coming up with random skits and putting on characters for walk-ons and things like that. So you just tap into that side.
KIDMIN U Team (04:43)
That tracks.
kind of reset.
Yeah,
it's so funny because like for me, I didn't plan on going into kids ministry if you would have asked me like, Jeremy, do you think you'd spend your entire career working with kids and like being goofy and sometimes filling in for worship and just doing all of the silly things? I would not have thought that at all. In fact, when I was a kid, I don't know why I'm sharing this.
Brittany Nelson (05:07)
Sure.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (05:14)
My dream job was not to be like a pro baseball player or like a firefighter or anything like that. My dream job was to be the general manager of the Los Angeles angels, like the baseball team. Like I always thought like putting my team together, you know, building a winning roster, all of that stuff. ⁓ I don't even know why I mentioned that maybe just to say, this was so unexpected. The things that you end up doing as a kid's pastor, you can never predict, but that's part, I think.
Brittany Nelson (05:15)
you
That's awesome. Yeah.
That's so funny.
Mm.
you
KIDMIN U Team (05:43)
Listen, the people who stick and the people who really love it are the people who rally around that type of environment because you never know what you're going to get in kids mystery.
Brittany Nelson (05:49)
For sure. Yep,
for sure. Which seems counterintuitive to somebody who likes to plan and who likes the organization and the structure and the routines. Because that's definitely me. I love a solid routine. But yeah, being flexible in that as well is so important, especially when you're working with kids.
KIDMIN U Team (06:05)
Yeah.
Okay, I know we're talking about this from like a fun angle, which is cool. I think we all get that. But I wonder maybe if we were to take it like a tick deeper, that idea of balancing planning and preparation with this idea of just being ready for whatever the Lord wants to do. How do you balance that? Because I think we're both fellow planners. I think we probably would both err on the side of like, I've got my game plan, and it's very comfortable to just stick to it.
Brittany Nelson (06:18)
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (06:32)
whether that's what's best or not. How do you handle that?
Brittany Nelson (06:32)
Hmm.
Yeah, that's a great question. And it's one that I wasn't always good at as a leader. Like I think, I think it's a muscle that we have to kind of work out and practice and can get stronger in. So that's encouraging. If you're like, I'm terrible at that. It's it's okay. You can't get better. but I think, I think one of the keys, like one of the things that I've always found is that when you have a plan in place, then it's easier to be flexible, if that makes sense. And because you have something to fall back on if you need to, and you have kind of a direction, but
it makes it easier to deviate from that plan once you have a solid kind of idea of where you're going and what you're doing. And so the biggest thing for me is kind of, and this sounds right, like the churchy answer, but like just being open to what the Holy Spirit may be prompting you. And so being as a leader, knowing his voice and knowing what his voice sounds like and what those promptings feel like. And so being
in relationship with Jesus in such a way that you can recognize him and can follow him so that when it happens in the middle of a lesson or in the middle of an event or in the middle of a conversation or a planning session, you feel that nudge and you can recognize it and then kind of pivot or change directions as it goes. So a big part of it, I think, comes down to our personal relationship with Christ and our personal faith and our faith journey and kind of what that looks like.
I think also having a super solid team around you makes a big difference too. Like if you are trying to do things all on your own, then it's going to be a lot harder to change directions because like maybe you can steer the ship, but you need somebody to hoist the sails and to do, you know, like all the other things, whatever. I don't know anything about a ship other than hoisting the sails, right? But like use your own analogy. You need other people, right? To help you make those changes happen. And so if you have a solid team in place that's with you, that's walking alongside you, that's serving with you.
then it's a lot easier to pivot and to make those changes.
KIDMIN U Team (08:17)
Yeah, I wonder, I know I'm putting you on the spot here because this wasn't planned like none of this. But is there a time that comes to mind where that happened for you where you had a plan and it was really clear like, hey, I'm supposed to go here. Whether you followed that prompting or not, I actually think we can learn from both of those types of stories.
Brittany Nelson (08:31)
Hmm. ⁓
Sure,
I think, okay, sure, yes. So there's one that I in mind. I actually was talking with someone about this earlier today, but I tried to do a family VBS one of the summers as a children's pastor. We were like, we would do an evening VBS, parents would attend with their children. I had just gotten back from, again, a conference where like family ministry was a big point of conversation through the whole time. So I was like,
Woohoo, like super excited about it. My church culture was not ready for this type of shift yet. And so I like did all the planning. did, did have conversations with some, key parents and leaders within the ministry. was like, Hey, I think I'm to do this. What do you think? And they're like, yeah, go ahead. We'll see what happens. But it got to like a month before the VBS was supposed to happen and the pastor's kid was signed up and my assistant, her child was signed up, but that was it.
out of like 80 possible kids. And so I was like, my goodness. And so God very clearly was like, Brittany, they're not ready. Even though I was like, yes, they're fine. Like we can make it work, like push through, we can make it. God was like, no, they're not ready. And so we had to pivot and change directions very quickly. It was also a season, we were a mobile church. And so it was also a season when the school that we met at told us,
KIDMIN U Team (09:28)
Yeah.
Brittany Nelson (09:49)
about a month before VBS that we would not be able to use the school for VBS like we had been planning. And so we really had to kind of like overhaul all of our plans. But the beauty of it was like, because obviously my goal in my heart in the family ministry or the family VBS was to get parents and kids in the same room having faith conversations together and parents being the leaders for their kids, right? And so what we ended up doing, ⁓ I think we called it like wacky week or something, something random like that. But each day we did a different
kind of like excursion or field trip with the kids and went to different places. But they also, made them these little books that talked through the Great Commission. And so every field trip day connected to some point of the Great Commission. And so kids like went to the field trip, whether it was a pottery day or we went to like a local chocolate factory one day, or we went to like just the splash pad at the local park, you know, like just different things. Then they'd go home and go through their like adventure books is what we called them.
⁓ and learned about the Great Commission with their parents. Parents were initiating those conversations. Kids were getting into their Bibles at home. So it still met the same goals, maybe even more so than if we had had a family VBS. And so it was really cool to see how God still accomplished the same intentions of getting parents and kids having conversations together, but just in a very different way than what I had planned originally.
KIDMIN U Team (11:11)
Yeah. Well, what I love about what you shared too is I think sometimes we like spiritualize all of it. And yes, it's spiritual. But I don't think it's always like that one moment where you hear this voice coming down from heaven that's booming that just says very clearly, sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks through the people around you, you know, and so even in those small moments like that, it's like you could easily just take that as him getting feedback or whatever.
Brittany Nelson (11:18)
Hmm.
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (11:37)
But sometimes that's the Lord trying to get your attention because clearly there was something way better. that's how I heard it. It sounded like how you had to adapt ended up being a surprise upgrade that you could never see coming. But I love that. I think that's super relatable. I think we've all been there, whether we realize that's what was happening or not. The Lord has a funny way of stepping in and kind of steering us in the right direction. OK, so.
Brittany Nelson (11:43)
Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
for sure.
KIDMIN U Team (12:00)
This podcast, I actually wanted to talk all about kind of planning your ministry year. I know you've talked about this before. So maybe we'll just start super big and broad, right? I've got some questions I'd love to dig into. But first, what's your approach like when it comes to planning your ministry year? Like from a high level, where do you start? What does that look like?
Brittany Nelson (12:17)
Sure.
Yeah, I think you have to start with your goals and your ministry vision. And so you have to start with that, like you just said, the big picture, right? So what is the vision, the mission of your ministry? And then specifically, what are your goals for the year? Because your goals are what should influence your calendar. Your goals are what should influence the things that you put on your schedule and the things that you give your time and your attention to. And so narrowing down those goals. And of course, like the mission of
pretty much any children's ministry, right, is gonna be along the same lines. Like we want kids to grow deeper in their faith, into a deeper, more vibrant relationship with Jesus, partnering with parents, right, like that kind of stuff. But you have to nail down some of the more specific goals within that big idea. And so do you want kids to learn more about prayer? Do you want kids to be more comfortable praying? Do you want kids to have more opportunities to serve? Do you want to help families create those conversations at home, right? Like whatever some of those specific goals are.
starting there is going to help influence, now how do we accomplish those goals? What do we need to put on our calendar? Whether it's an event, whether it's a resource that we give to our families, whether it's the curriculum that we use, like how do we map out our ministry year to then support those goals and bring those goals to life? So I think you have to start with your goals.
KIDMIN U Team (13:32)
Yeah, I think that's really good. I want to actually get really specific if you're okay with that. Now I know that these goals might be different for every church and every ministry, but could you share maybe like the most recent time you did this, what were some of the goals that were on your radar just to give us an idea what that actually looks like?
Brittany Nelson (13:48)
Sure, sure. yeah, so I think, let's see, so I'm trying, so remember I'm just, I don't have to say just a volunteer, because no one's just a volunteer, right? But I'm a volunteer in children's ministry now, not leading a ministry. But when I think back, even to just the goals that either we've had for our own family, I mean, some of the ones I just mentioned, like I want kids to be comfortable praying out loud. And even for my small group, okay, so I'll do this, because I do, again, plain and bold, I make goals for my small group in children's ministry for the year.
KIDMIN U Team (14:14)
Ha
Brittany Nelson (14:14)
And
so this past year, one of the goals that I wanted is I want kids to ask more questions about the Bible story. And so that was one of my goals. One of my other goals was I want every child to be comfortable praying out loud by the time they're done with a year of my small group. Like I want them to A, know that it's an expectation of what we do when we get together, but also them to feel comfortable praying out loud. And then I wanted all the kids to know each other's names.
So those are kind of three goals that I had. And so the way that kind of influenced the way we spend our time in small group or the way I even interact through events and things like that is my first one asking questions, creating space so that they can ask questions, right? Or like using language that lets them know I want them to ask questions. And so one of the things that we do after the large group lesson or after kind of the teaching time is the very first thing we do when we get back to small groups is we sit down on the carpet and I say, okay.
does anybody have any questions about today's Bible story? And it's just become a routine every Sunday. And so kids know that that's coming. There's always the one kid that's like, no, where are the Legos? And I'm like, calm down, we'll get to the Legos later. But there's always at least one child that has a question about the Bible story. I remember just a few of them from recent months. We were learning about Elijah and Mount Carmel. And we got back and one of the questions was, who is Baal?
KIDMIN U Team (15:18)
Ha ha ha ha.
Brittany Nelson (15:33)
They talked about Baal. Who is that? And I was like, that's a great question. We didn't mention that in the story, other than he was the other God that people prayed to. And so we've talked more about that and why God was opposed to Baal. And so that was a great question that a kid had. Even down to sometimes like, hey, was Elijah before Jesus or after Jesus? And he was before. And so then we could talk about the timeline and really how Jesus fits into, or how the story of Elijah fits into the gospel.
And so just giving kids that time and that space to ask those questions. Same thing with prayer, right? Like inviting kids to say, would anyone like to pray for us today? And being intentional with kind of the way we use our time. I think kind of big picture stuff in terms of your calendar and your events and things like that. I know one of my ⁓ goals as a children's pastor was to help families have faith conversations at home. And so I said each month, I want families to be talking about specific themes.
And so each month I mapped out, right, I want this month's theme to be love for February or service or gratitude or whatever, like the Holy Spirit, prayer, whatever it was. And then I would focus, I guess, my resources and even the special events that we did around those specific themes. And so that's, I guess, that's an example of how to kind of use your goals to influence your calendar and your time and the way that you map out your year. I don't know if that's gonna help. Okay.
KIDMIN U Team (16:54)
I love it. Yeah, I
think it's great that you're starting with like, obviously, what's the vision? What do want to accomplish? Because I think my pet peeve sort of hopefully this isn't too spicy. But my pet peeve is when we do events just to do events, or at church just doing anything just to do anything. You know, it's not just events, we do that.
Brittany Nelson (16:59)
Thank
gosh, yes.
Or it's because we've always
done it. Yeah, like, yeah. Yeah. ⁓
KIDMIN U Team (17:14)
Yeah, which man, yeah, it makes me want to pull my hair out, which I shouldn't. My dad went bald really fast. So I need to like take care of the hair that I have. But listen, like it's
just so hard for me because I think in my mind, I can't turn off like that idea of what's the return we're getting on what we're doing. Because everything that we do, I know this sounds radical, but everything that we do is funded by the people in our church.
Brittany Nelson (17:31)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (17:38)
It's their act of generosity that is fueling ministry. And so if we're being careless about how we're investing that, I don't know, there's part of that that like is hard for me. Like I want to make sure that I can like stand before the Lord one day and say, I believe I was faithful as much as I can possibly be with everything that you entrusted to me, whether that's people, resources, time, whatever my family. And I think sometimes we just do things because they're fun. And I don't
Brittany Nelson (17:47)
Yeah.
and
Ha ha ha ha.
KIDMIN U Team (18:02)
This is not to say that we can't do things just because they're fun, because there's a time for that. Like sometimes we just need to reset. You know, I think that's important. ⁓ How do you determine if something is actually necessary to do as it relates to an event? Like what's the filter to say, is this worth doing or not?
Brittany Nelson (18:08)
Sure. Sure.
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah. think there's a few kind of filters or layers that you have to think through. One, I think you have to look at your own personal capacity. Like, are you excited about the event? So as a children's pastor, I did not, we never did like a Christmas program or Christmas play or production or anything like that, because that did not sound fun to me. I was like, I don't want to lead it. Like if someone else wants to lead it, I will support it. I will promote it. But I don't.
I don't want, I'm just, I don't want to do that, you know? And so that's a simple, like, if you, if you're not excited about the event, the people that you bring on, that you invite are not going to be excited about it either. So that's a super easy filter of like, if it, if you roll your eyes at it, if you're like, here we go again. And like, maybe that's a sign that you should let something go or tweak it or change it somehow. yeah. So I think kind of if you're excited about it and then your capacity, right? Do you have.
the whether it's the time resources or the budget resources or the manpower. Um, cause there's some events that like, you know, we did one year, we kind of partnered with our community for a fall fest that they did and it was great, but it required a ton of volunteers. Like it required a ton of manpower to do. And so we're like, yeah, we're probably not going to do that again. Right? Like we just didn't, it was a stretch for our church to be able to do that. Um, and so thinking through kind of, you know, some of those things and
And then again, going back to your goals, like does it further your goals for the ministry? Andre Jones is a leader in Texas and he, I said this quote over a year ago now, I think on his Instagram, but I bring it up all the time because it's genius. But he said, as children's ministry leaders, it's not like our purpose is not to add events to families' calendars, but add value to their lives.
And so you have to think through every single event, what value is this giving to family's lives? Not just because we've always done it, not just because the families, not even just the families want it, right? But going on deeper and thinking what value is this adding to family's lives if they come and attend.
KIDMIN U Team (20:17)
I love that you said that it's not about filling our calendar with time. It's about filling it with value. That's what I heard. ⁓ And so that filter of are we just doing something to do something or
Brittany Nelson (20:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (20:27)
Is this actually something that parents want? Is it something that's going to help them? Or is it something that's going to advance our mission as a church? I heard one person say this idea that we want to have streets, not cul-de-sacs. And the whole idea was at an event, sometimes it's like,
Brittany Nelson (20:30)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (20:42)
come and gather like a cul-de-sac, you drive to the end of the street, you have a little block party, you hang out, but there's nowhere to go after that, you just had fun. Whereas if you have a street that actually goes somewhere, it doesn't end at the event, it actually continues. So for example, I think fall festivals, we're recording this in fall right now, fall festivals are something lots of churches love to do. And yet not all of them are super strategic.
Brittany Nelson (20:49)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (21:08)
Now it's not the idea of fall festival because some work and some don't. The idea is what are you doing to make it work? So are you collecting people's information? Are you following up with them? Is there at the event, is there some way that you're inviting them back to church?
Brittany Nelson (21:15)
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (21:22)
Like I heard somebody comment in a Facebook group recently. They're like, you know, it's kind of an act of goodwill in the community, right? Like even if you don't get anything out of it, at some point, hopefully when they're ready to come to church, when they're maybe even when their life is falling apart and they just, they've tried everything else and this is their last thing. And they're thinking, where should I go? They're going to remember that one church that had that event where they had a really great time, where people were kind, they're welcoming.
Brittany Nelson (21:29)
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (21:49)
they just seem normal, you know? ⁓ so it's like, I don't want to be like so strategic that we just don't do any event ever. I think there's part of it going overboard, but how do you make like just a regular event strategic? mean, I mentioned a couple of things, but I think you can run the same type of event and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't based on some small details in your mind. What are some of those things?
Brittany Nelson (21:51)
Sure.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, think the key that a lot of people forget about is what happens after the event. And so not only what happens after the event for those who come, but what happens after the event for you as a leader, even the evaluation aspect of it. And so just an easy way to make any event more effective is to evaluate it once it's over, is to compare it to those goals that you had at the beginning. You mentioned just a fun event.
Might feel wasteful or might feel like it could be more but if your goal was to have fun then it was a successful event You know, and so you've got to think through like yeah, know our goal for this is just to give to the community We don't want anything in return That's a very different type of event Then our goal is to draw people in and get people connected to our church, right? And so the way you run the same event with those two different goals is gonna look very different But I think no matter what the goal is the evaluation at the end has to come into play where you look back and say Okay, did we meet our goals?
Did we accomplish what we set out to do? What worked well? What didn't? What would we change for next year? And so even just jotting down a few notes or saving a document on your computer that says, know, Fall Fest notes for next year or Easter egg hunt notes for next year. And then as you go into the planning for the next year, you pull that up and be like, yeah, I forgot. Like we definitely want to make sure we change up the way that we stuff the Easter eggs or, whatever it was based on last year's feedback and last year's evaluation. so.
Yeah, I think a simple, simple way to kind of make any event more strategic is evaluate after the event is over.
KIDMIN U Team (23:42)
I think that's great because I think that might be something that we miss sometimes. I'm thinking of like one ministry environment I was in where we didn't do a great job of like assessing something as a staff after a big event. And I think part of it, it wasn't that we didn't want to grow because actually there were so many other parts of what we do, like our weekly services, we would, my gosh, we would evaluate the heck out of those like in detail, people would probably be shocked to think of how specific
Brittany Nelson (24:04)
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (24:09)
we would get when we're trying to improve like the weekly experience. But yet when we would have a really big event, it almost felt I don't know if you've experienced this before, but it almost felt like we didn't want to we didn't want to mess with the vibe. Like it was such a good time. We all loved it. The Lord showed up in powerful ways. Like why would we ruin that by evaluating potentially some things that may not have gone exactly how we want to go, which by the way, evaluating isn't just like looking at the bad things.
Brittany Nelson (24:22)
Hmm. Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (24:37)
It's also looking at good things. What worked? What do we want to keep? Because if you don't know those things, you might accidentally get rid of it the next year and lose your secret sauce. Like you, you forgot to include the thing that was awesome the last time. So it's not always just bad, but, yeah, I've been part of environments where evaluation wasn't a priority. And I think that has a long-term effect on what you do because it forces you to think whether you like it or not, forces you to think, was this worth it?
Brittany Nelson (24:45)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (25:04)
Did we hit our goals or not? It's almost like an organic way to build that muscle ⁓ a little bit. I'm curious, when you're going through that and you've got an evaluation process, I know you're an administrative person. So I know you've got to have like some framework for this. So take me into like, let's say you do an event or like you're teaching somebody how to do this, because I know like you're a coach as well.
Brittany Nelson (25:09)
No.
KIDMIN U Team (25:26)
What does that look like? You get your team together after an event. What does it look like to actually evaluate together? ⁓
Brittany Nelson (25:32)
So I think
what you just hit on, and it's not only the bad things, is the best place to start, is celebrating the wins. Like what worked well, how did God show up, what do we want to make sure we keep for next year? And then you go into kind of the critical side of things. Okay, what didn't work well? What was frustrating maybe about the event? What questions did people have coming into it? What were maybe some challenges that prevented people from coming? I'm kind of just looking at it with that critical eye.
And then I go into, if we do this again next year, what's going to kind of give me a head start on next year's planning, whether it's writing down all the details of, you know, here's how many pizzas we ordered and how many kids we had, you know, or here's where I bought the slime that we use for this game or like keeping really good notes of kind of the planning process helps you in that evaluation to be like, okay, like, yeah, it was really easy to pull the supplies together and now I'm going to package them in or like.
pack them back up in one bin and stick it in the supply closet so when we get to this event next year, I can just pull that bin out and it's ready to go. We're kind of thinking through making a note of, we only had five resources left of whatever, we only have five pumpkins left or whatever, like we need to order more for the next year and I'm gonna go ahead and jot down a note or schedule an email to send to myself three months before next year's event to look at this document again and replace that order. And so you kind of give yourself a head start.
next year's with whether it's the supplies or kind of the timeline of things. And so those are kind of the three things that I usually look at. And then I guess maybe a fourth one is what kind of feedback did you hear from other people? Not only the volunteers who helped put it on, but also the families or the kids in attendance, as well as kind of your leadership and your staff and just yeah, the feedback that you heard from them as well.
KIDMIN U Team (27:20)
Yeah, I think it's really good. And I know people listening probably have their own, things that they do, some people may take this and run with it. Other people probably swear by like the four helpful lists. There are those like the right, wrong, missing, confusing kind of thing. It's like everybody's got their thing. But the goal here is just get in the room and talk about it together. Write it down before you forget.
Brittany Nelson (27:30)
Sure. Yep. Yep. Yep.
KIDMIN U Team (27:41)
we talk about that I think that's like the meat on the sandwich but I think we forget what happens on either end. I actually think the very first thing you got to do when you get together like don't miss this you've got to celebrate like it's fresh it just ended like I'm thinking VBS is like a big thing that this might be helpful for like VBS just ends like celebrate
Brittany Nelson (27:53)
Mm-hmm.
for sure.
KIDMIN U Team (28:03)
celebrate the kids who came celebrate the kids who made decisions like celebrate the families in your community who like came to church for the first time like whatever those stories are like start that meeting just in celebration of what God did right that's important then in the middle however you like to review however you like to debrief like have time to just talk about some lessons learned and then at the end and I don't know if I've heard anybody really like talk about this before but I'm a big fan of actually
Brittany Nelson (28:18)
for sure.
KIDMIN U Team (28:30)
ending it by dreaming for next year. We always talk, what will we do differently? That's cool. But like, what if we actually said, hey, our prayers start right now. Like, while this is fresh from last year, we're actually already going to start praying for next year. ⁓ I think it's a great time to say, what do we want to see next year? Like, what are the goals? What's the vision that we have for this thing? Because
Brittany Nelson (28:33)
Mm-hmm.
Right, right.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (28:54)
I really feel like while it's fresh, you're going to hear like some really amazing things from the Lord, from your team. ⁓ I think that's a window that we often miss, right? We're, okay at celebrating. Sometimes I think we're pretty good at like jotting down lessons learned. think we totally don't even think to maybe start the planning process a year ahead of time, because it seems probably so far-fetched. But if you can dream and record it and then start building toward that throughout the year, it's going to be incredible.
Brittany Nelson (28:59)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
KIDMIN U Team (29:23)
Okay, so
one of my questions for you is balancing your calendar. So it's one thing to be like, okay, cool. All these things are, you know, strategic, they passed our filters, we love it. Everything on here is awesome. That doesn't mean we get to keep everything. ⁓ I think about it like, how do we know if our calendar is too full or too light? How do we look at our calendar and know if it's balanced?
Brittany Nelson (29:31)
Right.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So I think, um, I think it's tricky and I don't know if balanced maybe is the word I would use just because season like seasons, right? Like we're, as we're recording this, we're heading into a crazy season, right? It's November right now. I know this will come out later in January, but like Christmas and Easter, right? Are probably the two like Superbowl seasons of ministry. And so those seasons are going to be busier. They are going to have higher, um, kind of, I don't know, strain is the right word, but higher.
KIDMIN U Team (29:59)
you
Brittany Nelson (30:17)
requirements on your time. Summer for children's ministry leaders, right? With VBS or summer camps and things like that. Like people, some people joke like, yeah, things slow down in the summer and like not for kids in youth ministry. Like that's when like we're like super ramped up, you know? And so, so I think balance maybe kind of looking at instead of balancing your calendar, looking at like the rhythms of your calendar. So for those big seasons, do you have rest scheduled after them?
KIDMIN U Team (30:28)
Yeah, not for us.
Brittany Nelson (30:45)
So after VBS, can you take a day off after Christmas? Can you take a week off in between Christmas and New Year's or at least a couple of days? After the big Easter a conjure after Easter Sunday, like what how can you plan an intentional times of rest after those kind of peak seasons of your calendar year? And so I think that is a big one kind of that preemptive planning and okay I know VBS week in the two weeks before it are crazy
So I'm gonna plan a little bit of downtime a month before and I'm gonna plan a little bit of downtime the week after and being really intentional to protect those times and to protect all of that. I also think when it comes to kind of like balancing or making sure that it's not too full or too light is to get a 12 month calendar or like a 12, yeah, like a year calendar on one sheet. So like one piece of paper has January through December.
and you just block off the days that you have special events and then you can see it visually. man, February and March are super busy, you know, and like maybe I need to rearrange some things or move some things around or take something off. I'm giving you permission. Take something off of your calendar this year. I've met very few leaders who weren't doing enough. I think it's more common for leaders to have two full of the calendar than it is for leaders to have two light of the calendar.
KIDMIN U Team (31:56)
Ha
Brittany Nelson (32:01)
So I think just visually looking at your calendar that way can help and then for you if you're feeling burnt out Then that's a sign that your calendar is too full because if you're burnt out from your ministry calendar then I can guarantee that the families in your ministry are too because as Ministry leaders like this is our life. I like this is our thing This is what we do for families. It's one of the things that they do And so if we're burnt out from our calendar if we're exhausted from it
And so are they because they just there's no way that they can keep up with it along with all of the other life things that they have going on. Yeah, so I think I think that's what I'd say is kind of looking at it visually planning those times of rest and then if you're like any sign that you're exhausted or burnt out for long periods of time right now, obviously the week after VBS you're tired, right? But like if there's an extended period of time of feeling burnt out and that's a sign that you probably need to to unload offload some things.
KIDMIN U Team (32:55)
feel like kids ministry leaders have to be wired different than even just other church jobs. Like I think what we do is just different in that way. In that there are extended periods of time where we're grinding. I think this is kind of part of what we do. And if you've ever read, I think it's Frank Beeler, a book called The Myth of Balance. Did ever read that? It's a small book.
Brittany Nelson (32:58)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. I haven't read
it, but I've heard, yes, I've heard of it.
KIDMIN U Team (33:20)
I mean, the, the message is in the title, but the whole idea is that balance is a myth. I'm glad that you actually called that out because I don't even know why I use the word balance. It wasn't even in my notes. It just popped out, but I'm not even a huge fan of balance because it's not achievable. I mean, even at the time of recording this, you've got three kids. I've got a baby who's about to turn one and a second on the way about a month from now, like balance does not exist for me right now. It doesn't exist for you and as ministry leaders.
Brittany Nelson (33:29)
Hahaha
Yeah. No. There are changes every day.
KIDMIN U Team (33:49)
Yeah,
you're just trying to figure it out. And I think for kids mystery leaders in general, we have to figure out like, how can we carry the weight without getting crushed by it? And I think this is a silly example just popped in my mind. So don't laugh at me. But I'm like, I feel like we have to operate more like a camel than a horse. And that like, we've actually got to gear up for a journey. You know, we've actually got some reserves in there. And that's why I love that you said, Hey, I'm to carve out not just time to like unwind after
Brittany Nelson (33:57)
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (34:16)
I'm actually going to be proactive and think through, okay, I'm to need some time before things wind up too, to make sure like I'm full, I'm rested, I'm ready to go. And then at the end of that sprint, you're ready to rest and recover a little bit.
I hope that as people are listening to this, we can start thinking, okay, I can't control everything my church wants us to do, but I can control my own rest and my own rhythm. So how can I position myself well so I can lead for the long term that I don't get burned out. The other thing I love that you said is visualizing stuff. Like this is, this is a total hack. Like however you do it, just visualize stuff. So in KidmanU we teach a calendar planning process that's
highly visual, lots of sticky notes, lots of things like that. And part of the whole thing is like, I want to see the whole year all at once, just like you said. And then you start to see like where things get really, really busy. And the genius of the process, and I'm sure this is part of yours too, is you can't just look at what your kids mystery is doing. You've got to look at your whole church. You've got to think about the holidays throughout the year, all those things. So we have like a layered approach where like you start with what, what
Brittany Nelson (35:18)
Absolutely.
KIDMIN U Team (35:26)
big things are going on with your church, put those up first, because you can't do anything about that. It just is what it is. Like you don't get to go to your senior pastor and be like, you know, we're really busy. So can we reschedule Easter? No, like some of those things are just built in. So like we've got to know those are the big rocks we plan around. And then as you start layering in our events, you start to really see like, it's really obvious. March is going to be pretty crazy this year or August is going to be really wild.
Brittany Nelson (35:31)
Right.
Right, sure.
KIDMIN U Team (35:54)
I'm curious, how do you stretch things out? How do you make sure that your calendar is kind of spread out and you're evening out the load without like going crazy all at once.
Brittany Nelson (36:04)
Yeah, think one way to do that is to partner with other ministries in your church. Don't think that everything has to just be a children's ministry thing, right? How can you partner with the youth ministry or with the missions team or with the adult ministry and the church-wide events? What can you do to carry the load in that way with other ministry teams and ministry staff that you have connections with? so that collaboration can really be helpful. I think also,
Maybe thinking like, know, cause right, cause each goal or each event has a specific goal attached to it. Right. So we're doing this event to meet this goal. Thinking through, is there another way we can meet that goal? Right. So like for me with my family, VBS, right. The goal was to, for kids and families to have conversations at home. Um, there was another way that we can meet that goal. Right. And so I I didn't realize it until I was forced to kind of be creative and change, change things up. But, uh, if there's, know, some big event,
like around Easter, like, we want to help families create memories for Easter time, right? Like, is there something other than an Easter icon that you can do or that you can send home or that you can teach about, right, or that you can provide for families that accomplishes that same goal? And so it's a willingness to be creative and kind of change up what you have in your mind of the way something is supposed to look and being willing to say like, hey, what else might do the same thing just in a different way?
KIDMIN U Team (37:26)
You know, I was thinking, as you said that about a project we did a couple of years ago, was super fun. Our church was doing a 12 week series through the book of Luke and our pastor.
was basically taking like a year's worth of devotions that he had just written. He went through it really slowly in his own quiet time and he was taking a lot of those notes. We turned it into like a devotional that we were able to publish for our church. And as we did it as a kids pastor, I was like, okay, but what can we do for kids? You know, how can we extend this? So it's not just an adult thing. It's for kids too. And so I got permission to create like a some sort of book.
Brittany Nelson (37:39)
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (37:58)
And at first I was thinking like, ⁓ I love kids read truth. Like I love what they do. So I'm like, what if I create like a kids read truth style thing, which is usually geared for elementary kind of age. It's got like crosswords and fill in the blanks and like ways that kids can engage with scripture, but it is higher level for older kids. That was my initial vision. And I was like, I can do this. I've created stuff like this for VBS before. Like we got this.
Brittany Nelson (38:08)
sure.
KIDMIN U Team (38:24)
And we got through the planning process and like right before I booked an illustrator to help us with stuff, because I thought this person in our church would help me come up with the visuals on each page and whatever. But she asked a question. do you think that's really what's best for like the kids in our church? And at first I thought like, what are you talking about? ⁓ But then we, we looked at our demographic and you know, we're a really young church, lots of young families. And so our
Brittany Nelson (38:35)
Mm.
Of course.
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (38:51)
our age breakdowns are totally different than the average church. Like normally like 50 % of your ministry or more is elementary and then you work down. In our scenario though, it was like 70, maybe 75 % preschool age. So I was confronted with this idea that like, am I making something for the 25 % or would it be better if I was willing to change my original idea and do something that actually works for the majority of our families who...
Brittany Nelson (39:03)
wow. wow.
No.
KIDMIN U Team (39:17)
by the way, also have an older sibling. It's not like I'm leaving out those elementary school kids. Like we can do something together. And so instead of doing like a workbook style thing that would be great for elementary, we decided to create our own storybook that would be perfect for preschool, which was amazing because the illustrator like has written and illustrated her own thing. So we had like a pro in the room. All I had to do is write words that didn't stink and ruin it. And then it would be great. It turned out being awesome, but
Brittany Nelson (39:21)
Sure, sure.
That was cool. That's fun.
Thank
Yeah.
That's the call.
KIDMIN U Team (39:46)
I had to be
willing to sacrifice this. Honestly, it was a dream that I had for years. Like I've been looking for an excuse to create like a kids read truth style workbook. Cause I've always wanted to do that. And yet it was so much more powerful when I was willing to release it based on like what actually was necessary for where we're at. And I wonder as we're thinking about events, like what that can look like, you know, what things do we have that are events that maybe don't even need to be events? Like what if they could be.
Brittany Nelson (39:48)
Hmm. Hmm.
and study. Yeah.
Mm.
KIDMIN U Team (40:15)
something you do on a special Sunday or what if it's something you do at homes?
Okay. One question I had is you're looking at just the larger landscape of kids ministry and what's working, what's not whatever, even what you're hearing from people.
Brittany Nelson (40:25)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (40:29)
What are you seeing right now as it relates to events that are the highest impact? Like what are the types of events that you're seeing in the hearing that are really working well right now?
Brittany Nelson (40:35)
Mmm.
Yeah, that's a good question. think a couple of things. I think the seasonal events, so like the seasons of the year, like Easter, like Christmas, like back to school season, when families are wanting to create memories or do something special together. Those are the seasons when families are like, yes, sign us up for that extra special event because we're trying to look for something extra special anyway, you know, and like this fits right in. so.
leaning into kind of the family rhythms and the family's year and kind of what their life looks like in those seasons when they are wanting something extra, I think has been really, really valuable. And then I've heard of a lot of churches and a lot of leaders who are leaning into specific seasons of life, whether it's like our pre-teens and our pre-teen families or hosting a special playdate just for our preschool families. And so you're able to gather the people who are walking through the same season and connect them to each other.
and giving them that space and that opportunity, not only for the kids to connect with, but for the parents to connect to and build relationships. I've seen a lot of churches really leaning into that to build that community as well.
KIDMIN U Team (41:43)
funny. I hadn't really thought about it till you said that. as I think about it, my whole upbringing in ministry, I was trained to draw a crowd. Like that's kind that's the environment we grew up in. It was like, hey, if you're if you're doing ministry, well, a lot of people will show up, ⁓ which is not always the best way to measure a lot of people show up for all kinds of silly things.
Brittany Nelson (41:50)
Hmm.
Hahaha!
Right, Sure.
KIDMIN U Team (42:03)
But I think the most impactful things right now aren't always the most packed rooms. Sometimes it's like very small specific gatherings, you know, like in our area, we're in Orange County, California and like little small beach town. mom meetups are huge out here. Like if there's like story time at the park, if there's like a beach walk thing, like moms and strollers.
Brittany Nelson (42:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
KIDMIN U Team (42:26)
There's one time we decided to add an activity group and all it was was moms walking with their babies and strollers along the beach. And we had like 40 moms who showed up to this thing on the first day. It's like, okay, cool. The more specific you get, the more I think people want that because as soon as somebody falls into that category, they're like, wow, that's for me. And also you get to do community with people who are also in that boat too. I want to like unpack this a little bit more.
Brittany Nelson (42:38)
That's amazing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (42:54)
What are some areas where you've seen people doing that?
Brittany Nelson (42:57)
Yeah, I think moms, right? And like moms with littles is an easy, like low-hanging fruit place to start because it is such a unique season of life. is such, it can be such an isolating season of life as well. I mean, there are days like weeks when it's true through days before I have an adult conversation with anyone other than my husband, right? Where there are kids, three kids, five and under. And so I think that's an easy one. think too, remembering that
KIDMIN U Team (43:15)
Hahaha.
Brittany Nelson (43:22)
the quote nuclear family looks different now than it did. So I'm doing a lot of research around this topic of partnering with parents. I'm working on my next book about this topic. And so a lot of the research is showing that kind of the typical, you know, mom, dad that are married with kids is not the norm anymore. And that there are more and more single parent homes or unmarried parents in their homes. And so even reaching out to single moms.
or single parents and being intentional about connecting parents who are kind of in it alone or who are not married and figuring out ways to reach them and connect with them and provide spaces for them. I don't remember the quote off the top of my head, but Barna Today actually just released it, which by January it'll be, it'll have been out for a few months, but a like the state of today's family is I think the name of the research.
And some of the research that they're sharing is like, it's almost like 50 % of parents don't feel like church leaders understand their unique parenting situations. And so there's this research that's showing that parents don't feel understood by the church. And so I think a lot of that comes down to, we assume parenting means mom and dad married with kids, right? And that's not the case anymore. Even, even as grandparents are becoming more and more prevalent in raising their grandchildren. And so
kind of rethinking the way that we define what a family is and being able to reach some of those age groups or some of those groups of people that we wouldn't have thought of before.
KIDMIN U Team (44:54)
The
yeah, I feel like a lot of what we do in the church world isn't geared towards that. And, ⁓ I wonder how unwelcoming that might feel to a single mom, single dad, or, know, maybe they're remarried and maybe they feel awkward when they show up to church because that maybe is not the dynamic that is prescribed obviously, you know?
Brittany Nelson (44:59)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
KIDMIN U Team (45:14)
That's interesting. would love to see kind of where you land with the book and what comes of that. Cause I think that's, that's really important. Okay. Question on communicating with your staff.
Brittany Nelson (45:19)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (45:25)
most kids ministry leaders are probably pretty organized, I would think, you know, and so like, they can take this and I'm sure they can come up with a really great process and plan for building out their ministry year. That's part one. Part two is making sure the rest of your team actually knows and actually builds around that too. I've definitely had times where it's like people aren't accounting for what's on our kids calendar and that just leads to frustration.
Brittany Nelson (45:43)
for sure.
none.
KIDMIN U Team (45:49)
How do you go about making sure that everybody's got eyes on our calendar and we're all working together as a church staff? We're not just being siloed. Yeah, how do you handle that alignment part of it?
Brittany Nelson (45:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think two things. think the first is to have a shared digital calendar. So whether it's a Google calendar or a Microsoft calendar or whatever tool you want to use, when having a digital calendar, then everyone's dates go on. So whether you put them on your personal calendar too, or just a children's ministry calendar, but having those big dates, any special event type dates on a calendar that your entire staff can see and then making sure.
That's the easiest part, I think, but making sure that that calendar stays updated. And so as people are planning their year and adding dates or adding events, making sure that those dates get on the calendar. I think also having a calendar planning meeting, like a calendaring meeting with the entire staff at least twice a year is really helpful. My husband is not a planner and he like hates calendar planning meetings. ⁓ our staff does them at least twice a year. And he's like, ⁓ the calendar meeting today.
KIDMIN U Team (46:50)
Ha ha.
Brittany Nelson (46:54)
like, let me come, I want to join in. But I think getting everybody in the room, getting everyone together with their calendars to talk through some of those bigger dates. And then if there are things that come up like, hey, we want to host the youth retreat the same weekend as the kids event that would mean youth to be their volunteers, let's talk through that. Which one can be more flexible? Which one can we shift? How can we modify things if they can't be shifted? And thinking through kind of having those conversations as a staff together.
And so one is that shared calendar that's digital, that's updated like in real time as people are adding dates, making sure that stays updated, which can be the hard part, kind of training your staff, training your team to do that, but then having at least twice a year a meeting that's just devoted to let's look at the next six months at the very least, 12 months if we can, and being aware of the big events that are coming, things that are happening around the world even.
Anytime there's an Olympics year, right? Like how can we lean into if families are watching the Olympics, how can we lean into that and provide resources for them or host an Olympics event as a family event? You know, like being aware of some of the big things coming up kind of around the world. And then also talking through seasons of busyness for your families as well during that calendar meeting. I know when I was a children's pastor, my parents told me we don't want anything in May and we don't want anything in December unless it's something that I can drop my kids off to and come back in two hours.
And so in May, we didn't plan anything. They said it was busy enough. And then in December, the only extra thing we hosted was like a parent's night out where they could literally drop their kids off and then go do Christmas shopping or have a date night or whatever. And so being aware of those seasons of kind of high stress, high calendar times for your families so that you don't add to the stress, right? We're adding value, not just events on their calendar. And so...
Yeah, I think that's what I'd say when it comes to the staff, bigger picture, big sea church kind of planning beyond just your children's ministry.
KIDMIN U Team (48:51)
No, I love it. I think it's important to get the whole team together and to actually like collaborate on that. Cause I think a lot of people do it separately and, and maybe hopefully there's a shared calendar where you input all of it at some point. But, unless you're in the same room making decisions together, it's just not the same. And it's funny that you mentioned about your husband. Cause I think a lot of people
Brittany Nelson (48:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (49:12)
A lot of people really don't enjoy those meetings. Like there are people like you and me who probably like love it. But I think a lot of people are just like, do I really have to like, can I go do actual work now? but it's really important. And I think one of the reasons I think people really, just loathe those calendar planning meetings is because they're usually just really bad.
Brittany Nelson (49:16)
Right.
Right.
KIDMIN U Team (49:31)
I'm trying to be like kind, but like I think a lot of times we don't even know how to run some of those meetings. Like I'm thinking about about a year ago, church I was at at the time, we were doing one and you know, somebody was running the meeting and it was, you know, it's hard if you don't have a structure, it can easily get derailed. And so that's exactly what happened. You know, I think the first 30 minutes were awesome. We're all really excited. And then we started to get a few bottlenecks and whatever.
Brittany Nelson (49:32)
Sure.
KIDMIN U Team (49:57)
I kid you not, Brittany, we were sitting there for five hours just like sitting in our chairs around like our it our counter was visual that part we got right. But we were just debating the whole time. Like we've got a special series. When do we want to do it? Okay, we got to move events around. Like, how do we do it? And here's the thing, you can actually accomplish like all of that really fast and really well if you have the right process. The reason I know this is because I'm a trained facilitator. Like I literally got my certification.
Brittany Nelson (50:01)
my gosh.
Yeah.
Nah.
Mm.
KIDMIN U Team (50:25)
from the same people who do workshops with Google and Netflix and Spotify and whatever. And so part of what I do is like, there are different workshops I do with ministry teams. One of them is planning. So I go into different churches and in two hours, in two hours, we could plan your 12 month calendar. If you want to do six months, we could do 12. But the bottom line is, if you have the right process, you can accomplish a lot.
Brittany Nelson (50:30)
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (50:50)
And I'm not saying that
I'm the only one that has an answer on that. Definitely not. I know you've spoken a lot about this and it's like if you follow a framework, it makes everything way more simple because if we don't, we just get stuck in the weeds. We get frustrated and we're there for five hours and we're just like, can we go to lunch? Like how much longer do you push this out? I know ASAP. I need some high quality H2O, some snacks.
Brittany Nelson (51:04)
Yeah, that's too long. Give me some snacks.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (51:14)
But I also want to talk about frequency because you mentioned every six months. Now that's different. Two questions on this. Number one, actually hold on. I'm going to scratch my first one because it doesn't even make sense because you believe in six months. What I was about to ask is like, at what point in the year would you do it?
Brittany Nelson (51:16)
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (51:29)
Because some people would do it right before the school year or right before the new year. But if you're doing six months, that's a silly question. So we'll strike it from the record.
Brittany Nelson (51:38)
I think I would agree with you that preferably 12 months is what is the preferred, but I was thinking through what exactly what you mentioned that you get into it and you start having these conversations and things get derailed. And so sometimes you only get to six months because that's all that you have time for or it turns into a five hour meeting. But no, I would agree with you that at least at least 12 months at a time is ideal. If not, then at least six months in the van.
KIDMIN U Team (52:02)
Okay, then we'll go back to my silly question. assuming that you do 12 months at a time, when in your mind is the best time to do it? Like when does that 12 month cycle start and when you actually meet to plan it?
Brittany Nelson (52:13)
And maybe this is where my six month idea came in, is I would say, because you mentioned, right, like the two common ones are January, the beginning of the year, and then also kind of the beginning of the school year. I would say both, honestly. You start planning 12 months out in January, and then you also plan 12 months out in August, at the beginning of the school year. And then that way you're constantly at least, right, like at least 12 months out, a full year out. But you can kind of...
focus different aspects on the next six months versus the next 12 months and each one, it gives you kind of that touch point to reevaluate if we know. Cause a lot of times like things that you plan for in January, come August, you're like, that's not going to work anymore. You know, or like we're totally on the different direction or this staff member left or our church families look totally different than they did before because something happened, you know, like for better, for worse, like good and bad things. ⁓ or, this event that we had planned, that was when we had.
20 kids in the preschool, well now there's 50 kids in the preschool, so we can't do that anymore. so having ⁓ like planning, yes, planning for 12 months at a time, but planning at both January for 12 months and August for 12 months gives you that flexibility that we kind of talked about at the beginning of the podcast too, shifting gears and changing directions as needed. So it gives you that plan, gives you that oversight to look ahead at least 12 months, but then it also gives you that.
capability to be able to reevaluate and to say, okay, let's let's change this up. I think it can also be really helpful, like for families, right, because we're especially if they have elementary aged kids. So our daughter started kindergarten this year, which is like, I mean, I knew it would change kind of the lifestyle of our family, but I did not realize like how drastically it would. And so for a family with elementary aged kids, the year is the school year.
KIDMIN U Team (53:50)
You
Brittany Nelson (53:56)
Right, and so a lot of parents think through the school year, know, August to May, which is what it is in our area. I know some people are like September to June, right, but like a lot of families plan according to the school year versus the calendar year. And so having kind of both mentalities as a children's ministry leader can be helpful as you're connecting with the senior pastor who might be looking calendar year, but then will also help you connect with your families who are looking at school year as well. So.
Yeah, so to answer your question both January and August is when you have those calendar planning meetings to look ahead
KIDMIN U Team (54:29)
I love the idea that you're talking about breaking it up because I haven't heard too many people mention that a ton. But I think there's obvious benefits to that.
I also wonder too, if there could be, I've never experimented with this before, but I wonder if there's almost like two layers of the calendar, or maybe one is like the big stuff we're totally committed to. It's not changing, you know? And some of it might just be obvious stuff like Christmas, Easter, we do a fall festival
Brittany Nelson (54:45)
Hmm.
Sure.
KIDMIN U Team (54:56)
those things are like our pillars, they're not going anywhere. So maybe we could do that 12 months out and just at least plot point the dates. And I wonder what it would be like if there's like a second, maybe six month calendar with the smaller things that we know is going to fluctuate a little bit. I know for me in like doing ministry in California, people are going to hate me for saying this in other parts of the country, but like we only have three seasons, you know, and not even we basically have one season. we like to pretend we have three.
Brittany Nelson (55:18)
Mm, sure, sure.
KIDMIN U Team (55:22)
And so we've got fall, spring and summer. We don't have winter. So for us, it's like I've got two five month windows and then two months of summer. And so I think because I've done ministry in California almost exclusively, like that's how I think about a year. I'm like, okay, great. My first five month window. What does that look like? My second five month window? What does that look like? Summer is its own beast. So what goes in that like two month thing? So there's like a natural way of doing it, but
Brittany Nelson (55:26)
Yeah, that's so nice.
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (55:50)
Regardless of how you do it, if you're willing to go six months at a time, it doesn't matter if your church plans on an academic calendar or just a traditional calendar. Kind of works for both. That's what I love about like what you're sharing there. I think it gives a lot of freedom to ministry leaders as well.
Brittany Nelson (55:58)
Hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (56:07)
Well, the timing actually works out well because we're actually going to wrap up here. So if you are watching live and you're joining us, by the way, quick shout out. I know people won't.
hear this until a couple months from now when it's actually recorded. these episodes, we do open it up to the public if people want to actually like be part of the live recording and throw their questions in the chat so that somebody like Brittany or whoever our guest is can answer them. You have access to that. You can go to kidmenu.com slash podcast and you can sign up for all the links and whatever. But for now, for the people who are here, if you have a question, throw it in the chat.
I've got actually one from our community that I brought with me. asked him ahead of time. So I think I even put it like on our notes just to be safe. But do you have any favorite calendar planning tools, templates, resources, like your go-to things that you would recommend? You are the resource queen. So I'm sure that you've got, you've got a million.
Brittany Nelson (56:56)
Mmm.
I I mean probably like the Google calendar is what I use for my calendar. It seems so simple, but like color coordination on a calendar is a beautiful thing. And so being able to color coordinate the different calendars, whether it's a personal calendar or a ministry calendar or the youth ministry calendar or the whole church calendar, but being able to kind of organize your calendar in that way. I think also, and I mentioned this a little bit, but preemptive.
KIDMIN U Team (57:06)
Ha ha!
Brittany Nelson (57:27)
planning and so looking at your calendar year visually and being intentional about right knowing when my crazy busy seasons are coming up whether it's again personally or in ministry is like ⁓ my sister's getting married in April and so you know like knowing that there's gonna be some time in April or whatever that's gonna be extra requires some of your extra time and energy on the personal side of things and so thinking here how does that affect Easter in my ministry and that kind of stuff and I think
One tool that I learned from a friend of mine, Joy Canup, she is a leadership coach and she was in children's ministry for a long time, but it's called a VIP meeting. And so every month you block off time basically for a meeting with yourself. And it's a meeting at least two to four hours once a month where you, if you can, you get out of your office so that there are no interruptions. And so you either go somewhere and you go outside, you go to a coffee shop or something and you have...
Like she gives these like eight questions that you go through every time. But basically you go through and you kind of evaluate. You evaluate your calendar, your ministry, you think ahead to certain things. It's a big picture planning time allows you to set goals, set that vision, realign things if you need to. But really taking time each month to work on your ministry and not just in your ministry. Cause it's so easy to write Sunday. Sunday's always coming. And so there's always something you could do to get ready for Sunday.
⁓ But really being intentional with that monthly VIP meeting meeting with yourself. It's on your calendar It's blocked off so no one else can schedule, you know time with you and if someone asks I'm sorry I'm not available at that time. They don't have to know that it's a meeting with yourself, but Being intentional with that time to like give yourself that time to plan and to dream and to vision cast and to set goals and to Zoom out and look at the picture of your ministry. I think it's one of the best like
I don't if it's a tool, one of the best calendaring hacks that I have or that I use.
KIDMIN U Team (59:17)
That's so good.
Well, Brittany, thank you for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate you being one of our founding members of the Simple Kids Ministry podcast. For everybody who's tuned in and listening to this right now, thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.
