Corinne Noble: Making the Most of Your Space

Feb 10

In this episode, Corinne Noble shares her journey into kids ministry — feeling called at age 10, earning a degree in children’s ministry, and stepping into a full-time kids pastor role at just 21. She reflects on leading young, building confidence, and navigating the internal barriers many leaders face.

The conversation dives deep into kids ministry environments: whether churches should compete with Disneyland, how flexible design supports growth, and why environments may draw kids in. They also tackle capacity limits, safety, volunteer experience, and how to lead up effectively — coming to senior leadership with both clarity and solutions.

If you’re wrestling with space, growth, or how to advocate for your ministry, this episode offers practical insight and grounded leadership wisdom.

Key topics include:

Overcoming age and confidence barriers in leadership
Environments vs. engagement: what actually keeps kids
Designing flexible, growth-ready kids spaces
Capacity limits, safety, and when to add services
Leading up and getting buy-in from senior leadership
Creating welcoming, clutter-free environments that communicate care

Quick Links:

KIDMIN U (next session starts February)

Kidmin Corinne

Transcript:

KIDMIN U Team (00:00)

So Corinne, welcome to the podcast.

Corinne Noble (00:01)

Thanks for having me.

KIDMIN U Team (00:02)

Yeah, listen, we're so excited for you to be here. We kind of talked even before we hopped on, but man, I've been following a lot of what you do for a long time. I've been to your breakouts. I've seen the resources that you do for kids ministry leaders, for people who maybe don't know about all of what you do and kind of your stuff. How would you describe what you're up to these days?

Corinne Noble (00:24)

man, people ask me this and I'm like, I've got to get like the elevator speech down for this. I do so many different things. I do freelance kids ministry. So it's really fun. I honestly just do anything that the Holy Spirit drops on me to do at this point. That really is true. I do a little bit of curriculum still. I used to do curriculum a lot. Now it's like a little bit on the side. I do a lot of these like kits where I do event kits and like home discipleship kits, which are really fun.

I travel and speak. do some personal coaching. I create merch like my sweatshirts. Yeah, I just have a lot of fun. I do all kinds of stuff. Basically, it's just all Kidman all the time and anything that the Holy Spirit says, go do it. just go and do it.

KIDMIN U Team (01:06)

That's so fun. Yeah, one of the things I love that you do is you have like the most interesting like swag and merch and stickers and whatnot. I feel like I see them out in the wild all the time, which is super fun.

Corinne Noble (01:19)

Funny thing is I'm gonna make a new sticker sheet like right after this video is like after we get done with this podcast I'm gonna go make a new sticker sheet. So that's what's up next.

KIDMIN U Team (01:27)

Nice.

Yeah, I saw your post on one of the Facebook groups. think it might have just been yesterday and you're like, send me your ideas. I love that you're a crowd sourcing the inspiration.

Corinne Noble (01:31)

Yeah.

Yeah, mean,

hey, I mean, like, what do people say? I hope that the things I put on there are things people actually say.

KIDMIN U Team (01:43)

Yeah, gotta give the people what they want. All right, so here's where I like to start with guests, right? We see you, Kidman, Corinne, we see all the amazing things you do now, but we don't always get to see how you got started. And I love a good origin story. I mean, even like my favorite movies are often the ones that are origin stories. So maybe help us understand how you got started in kids mystery,

Corinne Noble (01:45)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, I've been in kids ministry a long time, so I hear different people's stories. And I feel like so many people just kind of like fall into kids ministry. they like volunteered and then like somebody left and all of sudden they ended up being like the kids director and they like had no clue what they were doing. That's like a really normal thing. I'm like one of those weird like unicorn people who actually felt called to kids ministry at a really young age. I felt called to be a kids pastor when I was 10 years old.

which is like, I was a fifth grader. I was still in kids ministry. And ever since then, it was just a really strong calling. I started serving in kids ministry as soon as they would let me in seventh grade when I graduated out, I was already doing like kids and leadership stuff before that. I stayed serving. I went off to college, actually got a four year degree in kids ministry, in children's ministries, which is crazy. Like nobody has a degree in children's ministries. I have a bachelor's degree in children's ministry. It's crazy.

KIDMIN U Team (03:01)

Where's

it from by the way? Cause I didn't know there were four year programs for that.

Corinne Noble (03:04)

there are not very many. It's, so it was Valley Forge Christian College when I first went there, but it's now University of Valley Forge. and it's like, it's an assemblies of God, ⁓ university. But yeah, I have a degree in children's ministry. And then I went off, got my first job when I was 21 and I was a full-time kids pastor for 10 years and then broke off and started doing freelance ministry. So I have been in kids ministry forever.

KIDMIN U Team (03:31)

Okay, there's so many parts of that that I love. think one trend I've noticed is, like you said, people end up in kids ministry for all kinds of reasons. You know, if you were to look at any other position, like a lead pastor or a youth pastor, you usually hear, yeah, like it was calculated, you knew there was a plan. And also, like there was a pretty clear next step, right? So I was surprised that there was even a four year degree. But there are plenty of things like that for youth. Or if you want to be a pastor, you just go to seminary.

Corinne Noble (03:40)

all kinds of reasons.

People don't fall into those things.

Mm-hmm.

There are.

KIDMIN U Team (03:59)

Like they've got their thing.

Corinne Noble (04:00)

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (04:01)

but I find that a lot of people just kind of end up in kids ministry. Like there's always like a fun plot twist of how we kind of got started here. But what I think is interesting and I didn't know until just now is that your first job, like as a kid's pastor, it sounds like was when you were 21. What was it like as a 21 year old, probably being the youngest person in many of those rooms. I know my story. I started at 19 on staff, but I wasn't a kid's pastor until I was 24.

Corinne Noble (04:05)

Yes.

21.

Yes.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (04:28)

is way different. What was that like?

Corinne Noble (04:31)

young. Yeah, it was challenging. I would say it was challenging for until I was about 25 easily. Just to get respect. I'm also really small and I looked really young when I was 21 like really young. Like people always mistake me because I'm really small. I'm five feet tall. People mistake me for being like a fifth grader all the time because I'm the size of a fifth grade girl.

KIDMIN U Team (04:43)

Ha ha.

Corinne Noble (04:54)

So back then people thought I was one of the children when they would walk in and I was the kids pastor. So yes, very challenging. A lot of people on my team were much older than me, 30s, 40s, even older. Lots of challenges with leadership getting started. But you know, that's a whole nother podcast. But yes, very challenging. But also I just knew I was gonna do it forever. So honestly, I personally did not feel.

young or under equipped because I had been working towards it for so long. Other people might have been looking at me going, what's that child doing leading this ministry? But for me, I felt ready and equipped and ready to go.

KIDMIN U Team (05:34)

Yeah, you know, I think you're right. This could probably be a whole other podcast and maybe one day it will be. But one thing I've noticed and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I actually feel like the age thing, I feel like it's more of an internal barrier than an external one. Like at least in my experience, it felt like as long as I can go get over the mental barrier, I feel like other people can too. ⁓ there are young leaders that I talk with and it seems like

Corinne Noble (05:39)

It would be.

Can be.

KIDMIN U Team (06:02)

they're in their head about it so much. And that's kind of the thing that ends up kind of, I don't want to say undoing them because they're not being undone, but just holding them back. ⁓ Do you see that in play at all?

Corinne Noble (06:04)

Yes.

Yes. And I remember,

I mean, yes, I remember, you know, as much as I felt ready, I could sense, you know, at least maybe it was inside of me, maybe it was external, who knows, I could sense that people didn't necessarily think I looked old enough. So I would like try to dress older and try to act older and got some glasses and wear glasses. And like, you know, I was just trying to like, look older and more mature.

And I don't know if that was all in my head or if it was external, to be honest, you know, looking back, I did think, man, I tried so hard and I really should have just been confident in my calling and just move forward with it. Which is what I do now.

KIDMIN U Team (06:50)

Yeah, I think that's great advice. Okay, at some point in the future. Yeah,

100%. I feel like we probably got to circle back to this at some point, you know, this is

Corinne Noble (06:56)

I just wear my t-shirts. I just wear my t-shirts

and my sweatshirts and my tennis shoes and I just wear whatever I want when I do ministry and I don't worry about it anymore.

KIDMIN U Team (07:05)

Yep.

Well, it reminds me a little bit of my wife because she has the same thing where she looks so young. And I think when you're like in your 20s or whatever, that's probably annoying. But when you're in your 30s, like we're at now, it's kind of great because now like you look like you're five to 10 years younger, but still an adult.

Corinne Noble (07:12)

Yeah.

It is. Yes.

Yeah, I

get so excited when someone thinks I'm in my 20s now. I'm like, yes, because I'm 35 now. So it's yeah, getting old.

KIDMIN U Team (07:28)

There we go.

All of a sudden the thing that my wife like used to hate now she's like, Oh, this is kind of nice. You know, I appreciate that. Okay. So one of things I want to talk to you about today is kind of spaces and places, basically kids ministry environments. And one thing I'm sure you've heard at some point in kids mystery is that this idea that your ministry should look like Disneyland. Agree or disagree.

Corinne Noble (07:36)

It is, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

I mean, there's a lot of books that have been written about it even like, honestly, I love Disneyland. I do. And I have done, I've actually created environments because I'm a huge fan of doing like, a blank environment that you can just make, you know, different for different series and different events. It's not going to clash with anything. So I'm a huge fan of doing like temporary set design. So I did one once that was like very Indiana Jones esque and it legit

it looked like Disneyland. I had people walk in and say, wow, this literally looks like Disneyland. And that was like such a like, yes moment for me. So I would say, yeah, it can be awesome for our environments to look like Disneyland. Sure, that's great. But do they need to? Do they have to? No. Like I love to do a big wow moment every once in a while with an environment like that. But

I think stressing over our environments competing with Disneyland all the time is probably just a losing battle that we're all facing. mean, those of you who have heard that, you probably feel that like, how are we ever gonna have enough budget? How are we ever gonna have enough resources to compete with that? And I think the reality is we don't, right? Most ministries do not have a Disneyland budget or anything even remotely near that. So I think we need to release ourselves from this like,

pressure and this stress to literally compete with Disneyland. That is kind of ridiculous. Let's draw inspiration from like Walt's vision. And like, if you know a lot of stuff about that, which I do, cause I love Disneyland, there's so much we can learn from places like Disneyland or, you know, amusement parks or, anywhere you go around, you can gain inspiration, but that doesn't mean we're stressing about competing with it. I think there's a difference.

KIDMIN U Team (09:43)

Yeah, I love the balanced approach that you had there because I think I think there's a both and to it. I don't know that it's an either or where I think for years I probably was like maybe more black and white and I actually pushed back a lot on the Disneyland thing because I found that it does more damage kind of to what you were saying where all of sudden now you feel like my competition is Disneyland and Disneyland has billions of dollars and they have imagineers

Corinne Noble (09:49)

Yes.

Mm-hmm. I get that.

Which is crazy.

KIDMIN U Team (10:13)

and the brightest people in the world making the most innovative things. I mean, that's Disneyland. Most churches, like that's not fair to try and like stack yourself up against there. And so I think from a practical perspective, I always thought, man, like, if that's my competition, I'm going to lose that bat. Like if I play that game, I'm going to lose that game every single time. I've always thought about it kind of like the moneyball thing, you know, like that, that movie with Brad Pitt. It's like, you know, he's this

Corinne Noble (10:17)

Yeah.

Uh-uh.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (10:38)

There's a small team in Oakland and he's competing against like the big clubs like Boston and New York and all that stuff now the Dodgers ⁓ and it's like listen if we play the same type of game we use the same type of strategy we're gonna lose every time and I've always felt like hey what makes the church unique? What makes us special? What is the thing that we can outdo everybody on and it's usually some version of community like something that's more relational and so but all that

Corinne Noble (10:47)

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

And I think there's been such

a shift, as you're talking about that, there's been such a shift, I think in the last five to 10 years, away from entertainment, which is in a sense, like, you know, environments play into that, right? We want our environments to look like Disneyland. We want our ministries to be so fun and so exciting and so engaging all the time. So it was very entertainment focused. And there's been a really good and healthy shift away from entertainment to more.

engagement, more empowerment, more including kids, more relationships. And I think that's a really good shift. But I think as you're saying, it doesn't have to be black and white. We can have nice environments and even sometimes gain inspiration from Disney and other places. But also, that's not our main focus, right? We're also focusing on engagement, on relationships, on empowering kids to own their faith, to experience God.

Those things are gonna be the most important things. And one more thing on that, I won't go too crazy on this, but I just wrote a breakout on this. So I'm like really excited about it. I think the biggest thing is experiences and environments, they draw kids in, they do, right? We know that anywhere, not just in the church, but they aren't going to keep kids in the faith and they're not gonna keep kids in the church. That's where engagement and empowerment comes into play.

KIDMIN U Team (12:10)

You're good, go for it.

Mm-hmm.

Corinne Noble (12:32)

They draw in, but they do not keep them. So that means it can't be our focus.

KIDMIN U Team (12:35)

Yeah,

I love that. That idea that it might get them there, but it won't keep them there. That's a really interesting notice where, yeah, I mean, it puts it in perspective, there is value in it, but it's also not the thing that you probably have to go overboard on. Because again, if that's not the thing that that's going to keep somebody, ⁓ then invest in those things. I'm really curious about some non church inspiration, right? So when you think about something, and let's say, let's take Disneyland off the table for this one, because that's the easy answer.

Corinne Noble (12:41)

Yes.

Yeah, it's like the surface. Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (13:04)

But when you look about like things around you, whether it's a place in your town or just, I don't know, something on your radar or on your Instagram feed or something where you're like, this is a great environment for kids. Like what is a place in your mind that just gets it right?

Corinne Noble (13:15)

Yeah.

Man, my eyes are open all the time. I love amusement parks and not just Disneyland. So I'm always in amusement parks looking at what they're doing. You know, they do like the shows and the big set designs and stuff. I mean, I based an entire entire environment redesign off of a Six Flags stage that I saw when I was at Six Flags one time when I lived in Texas. So, I mean, honestly, I think the most broad answer is really there's inspiration everywhere.

Like I'm walking around stores, I'm walking around Dollar Tree, I'm walking around, you know, I'm on the internet. I'm just always just eyes open. Like how would this relate to kids ministry? Like it's just how I'm always thinking again, because I've been in kids ministry for so long. It's like, I'm always thinking that way, whether I'm on, like I'm working or I'm not working. Like I'm just always like looking around online in person saying, how could this work in the ministry realm? How could this work in kids ministry? Because

I mean, relevance does matter. And like when we look around us, there's inspiration everywhere. Sometimes it's in God's nature. Sometimes it's in things people have made. But that's what I'm always thinking. I'm just always thinking, how could I do this? How could I take this and make this and work for ministry? So I don't know if other people don't think that way. They probably think I'm crazy, but that is how I think.

KIDMIN U Team (14:37)

No, I think this is how all of us think about various stuff, right? We're talking about environments, but we take inspiration from all kinds of stuff. I mean, even as I'm building up KidmanU and this whole thing for Kids Mystery Leaders, like I'm kind of drawing from the different places that have invested in me, you know, the conferences and kind of how they've done things, or if I've done coaching programs, like what was that like? I think it's very normal to say, okay, what from my experience can I take and then now

Corinne Noble (14:46)

Yeah.

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (15:05)

used to build something new right in front of me. And so I think it's a healthy thing to take the very best parts of kind what we see around us and learn from that. I think that's just wisdom, honestly. But

Corinne Noble (15:16)

We don't

need to reinvent the wheel entirely. There's so many out there already.

KIDMIN U Team (15:19)

No, of course not.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think in the kids mystery world too, there is pressure to like constantly create from scratch when I don't know that we need to. But while we're talking about that, that might be an interesting thing to explore. Cause one of the things I wanted to really talk to you about is if you are able to knowing what you know now about kids mystery environments and not just by the way, not just theming, but like how we're laying out our building, like how, you know,

Corinne Noble (15:44)

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (15:45)

everything is laid out where it's at, the flow of things, ⁓ even like the safety and functionality of classrooms and ministry spaces, all of that. Knowing what you know now, if you were to dream up a brand new kids building and design it exactly for what you think would be highest impact, versatile, it checks every box for you, what sort of things go into your thought process? What would it look like?

Corinne Noble (16:10)

Yeah, that's such a big question, right? ⁓ Also the dream, the dream to really get to do what you really want because I think for those who are out there, if anyone's out there listening who's done this before, you know that there's always like limitations. But I would say if we're just dreaming big, mean, definitely from a safety and like security perspective, I think I would be like thinking about how is check-in and check-out gonna work?

KIDMIN U Team (16:12)

Yeah.

Yep, unlimited budget.

Corinne Noble (16:35)

We're currently in a situation where when we check in and check out and we're in our large group space, there's just this massive line of parents that are cranky every single Sunday for 15 minutes. I would be thinking, how can I not do that? How can we set this up where check in and check out is going to be a breeze, but it's still going to be secure? I would be thinking, okay, we all do large group, small group now. That's just universal. It didn't used to be. So lot of our churches aren't set up that way.

but the best ones that I've seen are like the large group space has the small group space is just like right off of it. So that's just incredible. Like they're enclosed, but they're also kind of open. I don't know if you guys have been in that kind of an environment where it's like, they're kind of like little rooms off of the big room, but it's just, you know, they're enclosed, but they're easy to access. They're easy to get in and out of. I would totally do that. I've never had a space like that, but I've seen spaces like that. And I would love that.

KIDMIN U Team (17:12)

Mm-hmm.

Corinne Noble (17:34)

⁓ I would do what I've always done with like environments and I would actually choose to go pretty blank slate. That's what I like to call it. I don't like to overly seem. don't like a lot of crazy wild colors. I hate when an environment is just really. It's just, you can conflict with it. Like anytime you put anything in there, it just conflicts with what's already there. I don't want it to feel like a costing to people when they walk into my environments.

So I would be thinking like, how can we put flexible stuff in here? Like I like flexible staging, flexible seating. Like I love the EZ Rider type situation. If you guys know what EZ Riders are, you know, those benches that go in, they kind of like collapse into each other or whatever, you know? ⁓ Yeah, you can nest them inside of each other. So I love that flexibility. If you have a large group space, you can use those for seeing, you can nest them for like games and stuff like that.

KIDMIN U Team (18:07)

Hmm.

Yeah, they're like nesting, right? Yeah.

Corinne Noble (18:31)

I just love flexibility. I love to be able to change up things. So I like to have a stage that's movable. I like seating that's movable. I like technology that's going to flex with whatever I want to do. So that's the kind of thing I'm looking for is flexibility. And a lot of places we need flexibility in our spaces because whether we like it or not, somehow people end up using our spaces or we end up sharing them. So I would definitely be considering those things as well. Hopefully that.

KIDMIN U Team (18:58)

Yeah, I think it's

a great list. Yeah, no, I love where you went with it. Because it's like, I didn't want to get stuck in the weeds of like, choose this color. It's like, I actually wanted to be like, hey, if you ever do have the opportunity to design a kid's mystery space, I want you to know the principles in play. And I think that's where you went with it, which is great. And I agree. I think that model where I don't know if there's a name for it. But I've always called it kind like the hub and spoke model where you've got that big room in the middle. And like you said,

Corinne Noble (18:59)

is what you were looking for.

Yeah, it's too much.

Yeah.

⁓ Yes.

I love that.

KIDMIN U Team (19:26)

on the perimeter are the classrooms. So those kids

can just go right out and they're in the large space. I'm a huge fan of that. Whenever possible. I feel like that's the best way.

Corinne Noble (19:35)

Because then you can easily

do like, even like when kids come in, they could start in their small groups, come to large group and then go back to small groups. I love that model, but I've never been able to do it because every church I've been in was not set up for that. Like the small group rooms or spaces were just like a million miles away. So you're not going to want to like send them there, send them back. It's like, you don't want to do that. They are.

KIDMIN U Team (19:56)

Yeah, those transitions are hard. You're trying to get like preschoolers

and whatnot and trying to stay in the line and get them from point A to point B. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (20:02)

You lose like 10 minutes. You lose

like 10 minutes. Everyone's got to to the bathroom. And I would also think about bathrooms and water. Those are two things I've noticed in other churches. There's no dedicated bathrooms for the kids and everyone's trying to navigate what do we do about the kids sharing bathrooms with random adults who haven't been background checked. That's been an issue in many of the churches that I've been in.

silly things like bathrooms and water fountains and stuff. Like those are things you really need to think.

KIDMIN U Team (20:32)

Yeah, no, I mean, they're the boring details, but they're essential. And, you know, I don't know if I shared any of this with you, but part of my background at a previous church was we were a multi site church, part of our growth strategy was we would merge with churches that honestly, we're about to close their doors. And so they just needed some support. And so we'd partner together. And so we would inherit whatever building they had. And a lot of times it, it wasn't functional for what we needed to do.

Corinne Noble (20:35)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (21:00)

you know, because

Corinne Noble (21:01)

Right.

KIDMIN U Team (21:01)

sometimes it was like a neighborhood church and that's great. But if we want to go from 50 people to maybe 500 people at some point, what does the building need to look like? And so part of my job was going in there from a kid's mystery perspective and figuring out what do we need to do this space. you know, sometimes you get to dream a little bit, but we're very limited with our budget. It's not like I can tear all the walls down and start from scratch. But there are a lot of little things where I was like, okay, well,

Corinne Noble (21:10)

Yeah

Right.

KIDMIN U Team (21:26)

Can we at least have a closed building so it's secure? Like things like that. Can we at least have our own kids restroom where only kids are gonna be using this? Kind of boring details, but it makes a huge difference, not just in the experience, but in the safety. What I'd love to... Yeah.

Corinne Noble (21:34)

Right.

And I think something that you

mentioned that really stuck out to me, what you were saying is like taking a church from 50 to 500 just reminded me of something that I think we need to think about with our environments as well as everything else. Honestly, it's just something that you need to think about when it comes to like volunteers, everything you're doing is just having a growth mindset. We're not thinking, especially with your environments, but like I said, really everything, we can't think this is how many kids we have right now. This is how, you know, how many people are going to be in this space right now.

If what we have right now, I it's like when you're organizing your house and you're putting things in bins and all the bins are full, like the next time you buy something, there's nowhere to put it. So it's the same type of thing when we're looking at our environments or our volunteer teams, whatever it is. If we have like just enough space or just enough seats or just enough of enough classrooms or just enough leaders, we're never going to grow. Like people are like, why don't we grow? Well, probably because we're always in a maintenance.

or in like an urgency mindset. We're not in this growth mindset of, what would this look like if we had 50 more kids in this space? Would there be space? What would need to change? What systems would we need to put into place? So that's been something that I thought of when you said that we have to be thinking about growth when we're thinking about our environments as well.

KIDMIN U Team (22:56)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's huge. mean, I think being able to have a versatile space is important for so many reasons, right? mean, number one, how many times have we seen our ministry strategies change? You know, when I got started, it was a Sunday school classroom model. And now it's like large, small group is the trendy thing. And now what I'm hearing is like rotation based things like that's picking up steam. But the bottom line is you don't know 10 years from now what you're actually going to need with your kids mystery space. So

Corinne Noble (23:12)

Mm-hmm.

Which is fun.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (23:28)

If you can

have it versatile and then also ready, like anticipating growth, that's huge. Because I've always kind of thought about it like the fish tank example. I remember having a pet fish when I was younger and I asked the guy at the store, was like, how big is my fish going to grow to be? And he said, well, it depends on your tank. I'm sitting here thinking, what are you talking about? This is a fish. Why does it depend on my tank? And he said, if you have a bigger tank, it actually creates space for that fish to grow a little bit. Often what they'll do is they'll stop growing based on the limited space that they have.

Corinne Noble (23:46)

Mmm.

Wow.

KIDMIN U Team (23:58)

Now that's not a universal thing. That's not like gospel truth, but it's a principle. It's like a rule of thumb. And I've always thought about the same thing with our churches, right? So if we're like at capacity or even like once you get to 80 % capacity in whatever environment, you're basically full. And when you're full, you're almost, you don't realize this, but you're stunting growth. Like because there's no room for more, there's a ripple effect. And I, I don't know.

Corinne Noble (23:59)

Did not know that.

It is.

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (24:25)

why? Like, I don't know why that principle is true. Like, I wonder, is it that people know that they, it's so full, and maybe we're not going to invite our friends because we know there's not enough space or, or is it like more subtle than that? I have no idea. I've just seen the principle true because when you actually make more space, a funny thing happens, you start to fill it, which is a beautiful thing.

Corinne Noble (24:42)

Yes.

and start to fill.

But it's the same thing back to my house. Somehow I always fill all the drawers in the storage space, right? But I think it is true. I don't know why it's true. But I think also when people walk into a room, whether it's kids or adults, and there's not very many seats available, does that make you want to come back? For most people, that's going to make you uncomfortable, right? You think about a guest walking in and they can't find a seat. If they don't find a seat quickly, that's already an uncomfortable situation for them.

KIDMIN U Team (24:51)

You

Yeah.

Corinne Noble (25:16)

We've already basically given them a bad first impression. Like we're working against ourselves at this point. So I think that's very true. And I think when we open up that space, it just feels more comfortable. I know every church feels the tension of like, when do we move to an extra service or add another site? Because then you don't want it to feel empty either. But I will say, yes, when your rooms are packed in like sardines though,

KIDMIN U Team (25:37)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a give and take. Yeah, you don't want overbuild, you know.

Corinne Noble (25:44)

You know, I don't see growth happening, not very often.

KIDMIN U Team (25:47)

Yeah. Can I tell you the number one mistake I see people making as they're building kids ministries or at least the number one tension I've experienced in the process? Because every single time we'd open a new camp, which I did this nine times. And so every single time there's a campus pastor somewhere, there's somebody from network or central or global. And you usually have people who don't have a background in kids ministry who are telling you what your kids ministry space should look like.

Corinne Noble (25:54)

Yes, I would love to hear it.

Yes.

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (26:13)

And they're well intentioned, but they just don't understand

the different dynamics. And what they often do is they think that our spaces are going to function like theirs, where you can pack people in like sardines. You can just how many seats can we fill? Okay, great. That's the capacity. Our rooms are not determined by the number of seats I can fit in. We need space to play. We need space for activities. We need furniture, by the way.

Corinne Noble (26:33)

No, right. The kids aren't just gonna sit in that seat, you know, like

they're not just gonna sit in a seat like an adult would if they came into like a Bible study or a church service. We need to be able to do stuff. Absolutely. That's so true.

KIDMIN U Team (26:46)

Yeah. Yeah. The number one thing I saw, yeah,

to put a bow on it, like it's just, you have to be thinking not just what's the space I need to your point, what's a space that is going to be comfortable because that's the actual target. And so, you know, even in some of the stuff that we teach in Kidman, you've got like a few different principles and like some calculators and whatnot on square footage and things. Um, but I always kind of tell people err on the side of like more than you think, um, because those rooms fill up fast.

Corinne Noble (26:58)

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (27:14)

And there's nothing worse. There's nothing worse than being a volunteer in a room that you know is full and there's not space for kids to play or relax. like also I think, okay, I'm like on my soap box here, but I feel like when it's super packed like this, I feel like we're creating more opportunity for something bad to happen. Like that's when kids start trampling on each other. That's when behavior probably becomes an issue. How much of that

Corinne Noble (27:21)

yes. So true.

No, I get it.

It's good.

dangerous.

KIDMIN U Team (27:41)

is not due to your curriculum, or even your leaders, how much of it is due just to limited space? Like, what would it look like if we actually had enough space? So I know this conversation might be hard for some people, because you're like, Hey, my building is my building, I'm not going to get a new one tomorrow, I can't just go to my pastor and like, yeah, cool. We'll, you know, we'll rebuild everything, you know, but yeah, but I do think it's helpful maybe to talk about like,

Corinne Noble (27:47)

Yes.

bright.

and break some walls down. It was a new building.

KIDMIN U Team (28:06)

you can advocate with your team because maybe the conversation isn't a new building. Maybe the conversation is, hey, I know we think we're comfortable at two services, but maybe it's time for three. Because, yeah, okay. Yeah. ⁓

Corinne Noble (28:16)

more services. Absolutely.

Like not to, okay, not

to throw my current church under the bus. I'm not on staff there. So I say this all the time. I love being in freelance kids ministry because I can say whatever I want and no one's going to fire me. So what I mean by this is, you know, the church I go to, I choose to go there. I'm not on staff, but our current church, we are bursting at the seams in our kids ministry and our main service, you know, we have a very large auditorium.

And it's not really completely full, but I would say it's over 80 % most Sundays. So we're really at that point where we need to move to two services. And in the kids ministry, I mean, we put all the seats out. We are crammed in there in that main elementary space. And like, we're running out of space up in there, like, and the sound is loud and yeah, it's crazy. And we honestly do, we just need to move to two services. And I will say that's what I would be advocating for is moving.

to two services because I think we're there and it's just like, you know, we're in that tension of do we pull the trigger on moving to two services? And sometimes that's really all that's needed is to add another service.

KIDMIN U Team (29:23)

Yeah, yeah, I find myself even in this conversation, like trying to filter a little bit, because I do feel like I've got maybe some strong opinions, because I hear so many people being like, hey, we filled up two services, it's time to get another campus, or it's time to like rebuild. And I actually think, yeah, and I just don't know if it's great stewardship, honestly, like that's a that's a big risk, I think, to go from two to a new campus, I actually think like, there's so much more that we could do with more

Corinne Noble (29:39)

Lots of churches have three services though.

Yeah, it is.

And I've seen a lot of campuses

KIDMIN U Team (29:53)

times. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (29:54)

fail, to be honest. Like, you know, I worked at a church that kept trying to launch campuses and they just kept failing. And that does not feel good as a church to constantly launch out and then have like a church split happen or just it have to close because we didn't really know what we were doing. Like that is definitely a risky situation. I wouldn't just jump into. I would rather add a third service. I would agree.

KIDMIN U Team (30:18)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think to like, to everything you're saying, when something like that happens, like we've got to take into account. mean, these are people's lives that we have in our hands, like there's a responsibility, I think. And so if we're not launching well, and we're kind of positioning ourselves to fail, and that campus does go under, what are you doing to those kids and families and the people at that church? I mean, I just think like, if we care about people, we need to be thoughtful about how

Corinne Noble (30:43)

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (30:47)

We're stewarding them. You know, if we're making a big decision like that, have we been very thoughtful, very prayerful? Do like, are we confident that this is the most responsible move that we can make? Because if you start doing things like that and making hasty leadership decisions, and then things don't work and you're just pulling people back and forth, you lose trust. And I think people get burned. Listen, I don't know anybody. I don't know if I want to say anybody, but like when people talk about their church hurt,

Corinne Noble (31:04)

Yeah.

You do.

KIDMIN U Team (31:15)

or their issues with religion. I find it's rarely to do with God. I don't think God did anything that they're angry about. It's usually people in the church who were acting maybe outside of how God would prescribe because we all make mistakes. But it's usually the people. It's not the God we serve. So it's like how much of that can we, as much as possible, how much of that can we just be responsible about and thoughtful about and prayerful about to make sure it's not like

Corinne Noble (31:22)

Yes.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (31:44)

leadership whiplash with our congregation. That's hard. ⁓ Anyway, this went a totally different direction than I thought. But to bring it all kind of sort of back. ⁓ One thing I noticed too, for churches, this isn't like on our notes, so sorry for this. But I've noticed like sometimes it's a ⁓ trap when you don't match the capacity in your main auditorium with your kids mystery space. And I think about this with the church I grew up in. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (31:49)

Yes, it is. ⁓

you're okay.

Bye.

Yes, that is a huge trap.

KIDMIN U Team (32:14)

where we were, I'm trying to think of the numbers at the time. So I just like grew up in a large church that just kind of became normal to me, but we would have like 3000 plus whatever. And like, I think we'd have somewhere in the neighborhood of like 800 kids, something like that. And for the most part, we had enough space except for our 10 45 service. That was the biggest one. And I think we were maybe like 80 % full in the adult auditorium.

Corinne Noble (32:37)

Of course.

KIDMIN U Team (32:43)

but we were like 95 % full on a regular basis, sometimes 100 in the kids.

Corinne Noble (32:45)

yeah, because that's when all the people

with the kids showed up. Yeah, you're just like...

KIDMIN U Team (32:50)

Yeah. Well, and that was

a lesson for me because I'm like, listen, I think you actually, and there are ways to do this, by the way, I have my own calculator for how to like navigate like X amount of adults in here, X amount of kids like in space you need. But you do need to have those things in sync. Because if one of those things feels full and the other doesn't, now you have attention like at what point do we make a move, whether it's to another service, whether it's to remodel or renovate or whatever. Because what we ran into is

Corinne Noble (33:02)

Yes.

out.

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (33:19)

Because it was the kids ministry who is full, we had a really hard time advocating for more or change or anything. Now, since then, they've made some incredible moves. They've repurposed some other spaces that are now part kids, which is awesome. I think that was a great call, but it was really hard for us at the time because a lot of these people don't understand why it's such a pain point because they've never been in kids ministry before. You're trying to communicate to an executive pastor, you know.

Corinne Noble (33:24)

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, it affects everything.

I know you were mentioning this earlier, but it's so true. isn't just your environment that it affects. It affects the kids, which in turn affects the families, but it also affects your volunteers. And we all know that volunteers are like one of the top three things that kids ministry people struggle with. Getting enough of them, retaining them, know, reproducing them, all of that. Like, that's one of the biggest pain points for people.

KIDMIN U Team (33:51)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Corinne Noble (34:11)

And yes, as a volunteer currently, when you're in a room that is overstuffed with way too many kids, there's not enough space for kids to do the things that they need to do in kids ministry. It's uncomfortable and it isn't as fun to volunteer in there at the very least. the, that's a nice way of putting it. And I think it hurts our ability to get people to come into a space that feels very loud, full, uncomfortable. And that's something that could be alleviated.

KIDMIN U Team (34:39)

Yeah. While we're on the topic of capacity, what are your thoughts on cutting off a classroom once you hit like your max?

Corinne Noble (34:48)

Man, that is such a thing for me because our church does that sometimes. And as a parent, like, man, that, like I now see both sides of it. And I don't know which one I think is okay. I think that we do at times have to cut a room off at a capacity. But I think what I would say is yes, for safety purposes, especially in like our younger kids classrooms, we're talking nursery, know, preschool, like anything under five.

especially in those areas, we need to have a certain amount of kids we can have in a space, you know, and ratioed with volunteers. Those need to be in place for safety purposes. And yes, we do have to close rooms when we meet those. But what I would also say is if that's happening on a regular basis, something needs to change. We cannot be constantly closing rooms and turning families away. What is that gonna do? We're turning families away from our ministries.

So yes, it needs to be done from a safety perspective, but that means we need more volunteers, we need more spaces, we need more classrooms. Like we have to make some changes. Otherwise, yes, we are completely capping our growth and we're turning families away from the nursery, whatever room it is, but that means we're turning them away from the church because I have two children, my kids are three and six. And I can tell you if I went to a church and I repeatedly...

was turned away from one of my kids' because they were at capacity, I probably would find a different church to go to. Not because that's the only thing that's important, but because what am I supposed to do if I come to a church and I don't know if I'm going to consistently be able to drop my kids off or not? And especially when they're under three, that's a deal breaker.

KIDMIN U Team (36:21)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally. listen, if you don't have a place to drop them off, even from your own experience, what are you going to do during church? You're not going to be listening to anything. Your three year old is going to be going wild.

Corinne Noble (36:34)

Yes. Pray. And how

am I supposed to volunteer in the church if I don't know if my three year old is going to have a place to go? So I mean, those are just things. Yes, from a safety perspective, there are times when we have to do it. man, if that's a consistent thing, like we have to make some changes fast. That needs to go into like the urgent, important, this is what we are focusing on fixing right now category.

KIDMIN U Team (36:59)

Yeah,

you mentioned some things, some really good things that you would start trying to do to fix that like right away. And a lot of that I think is within our control as kids pastors, like we can, we can go after that right away. But there's some things that you're probably going to have to lead up and you're going to have to advocate with whoever your boss is, your pastor, etc. I don't know if you've been in a situation like that and have experience, but regardless,

What advice would you give to somebody who's like, Hey, I am having to close my rooms. I'm sort of doing what I can, but I do need some support. How do I go about getting the support that I need from those above me?

Corinne Noble (37:37)

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is just meeting with your leadership regularly and being honest about, you know, what are the struggles? What are the, you know, what are the wins and what are the losses? And, and I know from being a kid's pastor, I know that sometimes we have leadership that are very good about meeting with us and talking those things through and then others, maybe not so much. but

I think that is where it starts. It's just, I mean, for me, I would sit around going, my lead pastor never wants to meet with me. He never asked to meet with me. He only calls me in if I'm in trouble. Like this was my like, you know, internal conversation I had with myself. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to actually take matters into my own hands and say, hey, pastor, I want to have a meeting with you every month. I want to be on your calendar. And I want us just to be getting together so that we're on the same page so that we can talk about the wins. We can talk about the struggles.

We can just be on the same page with each other no matter what. And when I reached out and did that, I was able to get that meeting in place. And then it wasn't like I was only hearing from my lead pastor when something was wrong or I was in trouble, we were meeting on a regular basis. So I don't know if that completely understand is like what you were looking for, but I would just say, if you have a pastor, if you're out there you're like, my pastor never meets with me, go and take the matter into your own hands and say, I want to meet with you.

KIDMIN U Team (38:52)

Yeah.

Corinne Noble (39:01)

regularly, not just when there's a problem. Because we do the same thing, right? We only go to our lead pastors or our executive pastors when we need money or we need something or something's wrong. Let's stop that and actually start meeting on a regular basis and have a good balance of positive and negative so that we're not just only bringing our problems. And also, we're already bringing some solutions, which is very important when we come to our

Whoever your lead person is, we don't want to just come in with problems. We want to bring some solutions already as well.

KIDMIN U Team (39:34)

Yeah, I love everything you shared. think, listen, if there's like one thing that people take away from this podcast, I hope it's that. Because I think all of us at some point, whether it's because of this specific issue or not, there's something we need some kind of support that we need from our leaders. And we've all experienced that feeling of like, okay, I'm definitely not getting the support that I need. I don't know if they are listening. I don't know if they care. Like we start building some narratives in our mind of like,

man, how come, how come they never walk over to the kids space or how come they never ask about what's going on or how come every time I asked for this thing, I'm not getting it. I think if there's an encouragement I would have for some people is number one, I think it's so important to honor just every direction honoring up is important. And I think in this case, honor means assuming the best and just maybe taking a step back and being like, okay, what else could be in play right now? Why aren't they giving the support that I need? Why aren't they?

Corinne Noble (40:07)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

KIDMIN U Team (40:32)

doing this or that, because I've found the higher they up, they are at your church, the more they've got on their plate. And their perspective is so different. You're not the only ministry that they're trying to support. know, they're trying to juggle their time in the same way we're trying to get to every classroom and support all that. They're doing the same thing with departments at the church. And so there's a lot to juggle. And it's not that they don't care. It's that they've got a lot on their plate. And then the other thing, too, and this is even bigger than that.

Corinne Noble (40:39)

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (41:02)

is they just don't know. They don't understand. You know, if you look at, I talked about this the other day with a friend of mine, if you look at the track of like an executive pastor or a senior pastor and how they end up there, there's a pretty defined path, kind like what we talked about before, right? You do this, you do that, whatever. And what is the normal track of a senior leader? If you're a lead pastor, we always joke about this.

Corinne Noble (41:04)

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (41:27)

You probably were a youth pastor at some point, you know, your background is in youth ministry, whatever. And so when a youth pastor comes to you and asks for something, you understand why they're asking it. You also know what to look for when you walk in the room to know if it's working or not. Like you just have background and context on something. And I can count on one hand, how many lead pastors I know who used to be kids directors or kids pastors. So it, yeah.

Corinne Noble (41:28)

Yeah, probably. Yup.

Yes.

Yes, it's very unusual, but it does happen

occasionally.

KIDMIN U Team (41:54)

Yeah, and they make great pastors, by the way, but it's not the normal trajectory. And so when you're trying to talk to these senior leaders, they often have no frame of reference for why you need what you need. When you're trying to say, Hey, my building isn't big enough. They might think in the back of their mind, why can't you just be grateful? You have 40 % of the square footage at our church. Is that not enough? Sometimes it still isn't, you know,

Corinne Noble (41:57)

It's a great point.

No perspective. Yeah.

Yeah,

exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (42:19)

But it's hard

for them to understand unless they have the background. So all that to say, assume the best, right? So I always assume anytime I'm communicating, I assume they don't know and they don't care. Not like in a bad way, but I'm like, yeah, cool. How can I make them aware? And how can I help them care? That's always my mindset. Yeah, and not to be manipulative or any any of that. But this is part of leading up like help them understand why you need what you need. And I love what you said to have

Corinne Noble (42:26)

Exactly.

Yeah.

How can I help them carry us?

Uh-uh.

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (42:48)

You gotta have solutions too. If you're just constantly nagging and bringing your problems and whatever, first of all, like that's annoying. Like think about if your spouse constantly was like just talking about all the things you're doing wrong or the thing you forgot to get at the grocery store or just all the bad stuff. And they never talked about, Hey, I really appreciated the way that like you parented our child. I love that tender moment there. Or I love the way that you're just so kind to me. Like,

Corinne Noble (42:53)

Complaining? Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

KIDMIN U Team (43:16)

What if it's only one of those things and so is the negative thing? That stinks, you know? So I wonder like, what are we giving off to senior leaders when we're just full of complaints?

Corinne Noble (43:21)

Yes.

Right.

Like when we come into those meetings with them, we have to have a list of, these are the great things that are happening in our ministry. And even like a list of things to encourage them in. Like I think that's something that kids ministry people really miss because again, they get in their heads and I'm just going to call everybody out on this. I see a lot of victim mentality in kids ministry. Like, ⁓ poor us.

We don't get enough, nobody cares, nobody respects us, nobody notices us. There's a lot of that going on. I'm not saying it's completely unfounded, but it's definitely a bad mentality to be sitting in. It is not helpful or beneficial to anyone. So why not instead say, ⁓ and so saying, why has my lead pastor not asked me about this or encouraged me? Well, why don't you ask him about something and encourage him about something?

let's flip it on its nose. It may not be untrue that people are not asking you about your ministry or caring about it or encouraging you, but are you doing anything like that for your leadership? And most of the time I would say most people aren't. Are you praying for your leadership? Are you encouraging them? Are you asking them how you can support them? Those are three places to start with becoming more grateful and having a better attitude towards our leadership. I know that wasn't what this is about, but

KIDMIN U Team (44:39)

Yeah.

Corinne Noble (44:43)

Hey, you know got to talk about it when it comes up.

KIDMIN U Team (44:44)

⁓ I love

it. I think this is actually a topic. It's funny because there's there's a course that I think by the time this episode airs, it will be live. But there's a course on how to get buy in from your pastor. Because this is the number one thing I hear from leaders, I'm sure you do too, of like, they don't understand, they're not listening, I'm not getting the support I need. And to your point, I do think there are more things in our control than we realize. And there's a separate training that

Corinne Noble (44:54)

Great.

KIDMIN U Team (45:11)

Normally I teach in like 60 minutes. I'm do it in 60 seconds, but it's called the drama triangle It's a psychology term. I think it was a guy in the 60s named dr Steven Cartman but the idea is on the drama triangle you have the hero at the top and then you have the villain and the victim those are the three and he said in relationships we often are one of those things and then we look at other people like those things right I'm the victim which means there's got to be a villain and then I need a hero to come save me whatever like

Corinne Noble (45:40)

Okay.

KIDMIN U Team (45:40)

You could unpack all those dynamics, but I think the real takeaway for me in that whole training and his concept was if you want to be a healthy person, where should you be on the triangle? At first I would have said, I want to be the hero. want to help people. Cause I think if you're a ministry person, that's probably where your mind goes because you care. You've got a big heart. But he said, actually healthy people aren't on this triangle. He said, that's the goal.

Corinne Noble (45:54)

Mm.

Yeah.

They're not there at all.

KIDMIN U Team (46:04)

Yeah, he said the

Corinne Noble (46:04)

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (46:05)

goal when you're like ministering to people when you're actually in some sort of unofficial counseling conversation He's like your goal is to get them off the triangle, right? What is it that they can control? They're not a victim like complete now there I want this to be clear. There are real victims, right? So we're not talking about that when there's an actual crime or something heinous That's a real villain and victim. We're talking about like relational things, you know, we're talking about like attitude on things

Corinne Noble (46:09)

Makes sense.

Mm, that's good.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (46:33)

and

posture. Yeah, rarely are you completely out of control. There's always something you can do. And by the way, it's not helpful to wait for a savior. Our only savior is Jesus. But in our church, like you are the person who's responsible for being the solution there. You can't wait for somebody to finally notice your ministry or finally, you know, like, whatever it's like, what can you do to lead up? That's what I love about what you're saying is, hey, I'm not just gonna share the negatives, I'm gonna share the positives.

Corinne Noble (46:39)

Uh-uh.

Is it

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (47:01)

By the way, people want to invest in a winning team. So if you can show them the scoreboard, you can show them the wins. And even as you frame, like your room being full, that doesn't have to be a problem. You can be like, Hey, how exciting that we're growing so much that we don't have space. I want this to continue, but we're going to have to rethink things. What can we do? That's a very different conversation. You didn't fail there. That's actually a huge win. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (47:07)

Yes.

No, that's a win.

Yes.

Yes. It's a reframe.

Absolutely. It's good.

KIDMIN U Team (47:29)

Yeah. Anyway,

again, probably a whole episode we could probably kind of go through there. One question I wanted to ask you, because I've seen this over the last week, I've actually seen a bunch of posts about this on Facebook, where people are trying to figure out like how closed to make your building, you know, like who do you let in and when and how that works. As you're thinking about your kids ministry space and laying it out and even just how you operate and who you let in the doors.

Corinne Noble (47:46)

Hmm. Okay.

KIDMIN U Team (47:56)

How do you go about that? What are your best practices there?

Corinne Noble (47:59)

I feel like that is a little subjective depending on your area and how big your church is, the culture of your church. mean, really that is going to be subjective. Like, for example, our current church is in not the best area of town. So we have to be a lot more locked down with our buildings and we have security out there at all times. Like we are much more secure than I think another church might have to be.

But I think in general, you know, having good practices in place that are well communicated is like a general practice. Like whenever you want to open your doors, whether that's 20 minutes before the service, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever you want to do that works for you and your leadership, make it consistent, communicate it out, make sure that your volunteer teams are actually able to be in place at least 15 minutes before said time. That's a big one.

that I have seen, that's a whole volunteer issue, but it's true. Like if you're gonna open your environments 30 minutes before, you need to make sure your volunteers are in place, not showing up 15 minutes, like in place and ready to receive 15 minutes before, whatever that time is. So I think setting those expectations in place, if you want to have the doors locked, be consistent. Like don't have the doors locked sometimes, but not other times. So.

Consistency and communication are just like really key when it comes to it. think saying that there's specific time or specific way of doing it is tough with the way that different churches are. But I think across the board, communicate it out very, very heavily all the time, have signage, have fear and obvious signage for anyone who could be a guest or even just people who keep forgetting. And yeah.

Just be consistent in whatever you do. Don't open 15 minutes before, sometimes 30 minutes before other times. Sometimes it's locked, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's volunteered there, sometimes there's not. Like we need to be consistent. Again, that's a growth mindset thing. We're not gonna grow if we are so inconsistent on these things.

KIDMIN U Team (50:02)

Yeah, I think it's great advice. And I would even say, I think you mentioned like one of the doors open. That's an easy thing you can put in play that actually helps a lot is to actually have your doors closed and locked until a certain time and have a sign outside the door that says, Hey, doors will open 10 minutes before service, which by the way, it used to be when I started in kids mystery, closer to 20, there's 15. And now we're like at 10. Because we realize we have data like we have the check in data, I know what time people are checking in.

Corinne Noble (50:12)

Yes.

what we do.

Yes.

People are showing up like 15 to 20 minutes late is what's happening.

KIDMIN U Team (50:32)

And it's never, yeah, it's never

early. It's so late. Yeah, anyway, it's funny because like we have debt, we got receipts. Like we know when you're showing up. ⁓ But bottom line is, yeah.

Corinne Noble (50:40)

Yeah. And we also,

you also might want to have a different rule for like volunteer kids. Like we have a, like if you are a volunteer, you can bring your kids at a certain time. But if you are not a volunteer, the doors don't open for you until 20 minutes before. And yes, we have clear signage. We have security out there who are reiterating that and the doors are locked. So.

KIDMIN U Team (51:02)

Yeah. Plus I would say one thing you can do, and this probably works better for like an event, maybe like a VBS or something like that, but you can make doors open a thing. Like if you wanted to, you could actually create energy around it, you know? So like, Hey, music starts, you got your people hyped, whatever, you know, even it's kind of fun too. If you can get it where there's a little bit of a swell outside of the doors. So it feels like, we're finally getting access. Now you're probably not going to have a swell.

Corinne Noble (51:12)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Thanks.

KIDMIN U Team (51:29)

Sunday morning because people don't come that early. But if you're doing an event, this is just pro tip like making the doors open experience when you let people in. That's a fun thing. Like I love them. People do that at conferences and things like that. So that's an easy, easy little thing. Yeah. Okay. This is a different topic maybe. But as you're thinking about multi site, I think there's maybe some some different arguments on like how similar things should look and feel from one campus to another. What are your thoughts on that?

Corinne Noble (51:37)

Yeah.

That's fun. Yes. So why not?

Mm-hmm.

It's definitely a little subjective. I have some experience with it. My opinion is, especially if you're multi-site, and a lot of times it is true, the different churches are going to be in different cities, maybe different cultures, maybe different demographics. Maybe one of your churches is in an area with a lot of upper middle class people. Another one's going to be in an area that's more rural and maybe a little lower class.

You know, those are things you have to keep in mind. So I would not say we want like cookie cutter. A cookie cutter approach is just not going to be very effective. Like these are different churches in different areas. So those things need to be kept in mind. But things that I like to stay consistent would be like branding. It's important to have good branding. Let's keep our branding consistent. Let's have it be obvious that this is like from a kid's ministry perspective, most of us have brands, right?

Let's keep the branding consistent across the board. That's going to make it easy, honestly, from a perspective of if there's like a head kids faster or director or family, whatever, who's over all these sites. If everybody's got like different branding, different curriculums, different this, different that, it is going to be a nightmare to oversee that. So for honestly those purposes, and even if you want it to be where people can come to your church at different sites and it still feel like the same thing, branding.

same curriculum, those are things that I would do, maybe same age breakouts, just those big things would be things I would keep consistent.

KIDMIN U Team (53:28)

Yeah, this was a big debate for us in multiple churches. In one of them, there's a word we'd use, we'd call it standardization. And that was the goal, standardize what we do from one location to another. And I think in a lot of ways, it was great because our systems should be that way. Our vision should be that way. ⁓ even, yeah, like even parts of our building,

Corinne Noble (53:32)

yeah.

Yes, but the whole thing cannot be that way.

KIDMIN U Team (53:52)

could kind of be that way. Like our branding was right. Our color scheme was always the same. Our general aesthetic, I think it was kind of like a backyard treehouse kind of vibe is what we ran with. And so that was easy to replicate, but it didn't look identical at each campus. And so I think to your point, consistency is huge. There should be familiarity.

Corinne Noble (53:56)

Yes.

You know,

and I think a really good thing to look at would be, this just came to my mind, like think about like Starbucks. Okay. Whether you like Starbucks or not, Starbucks is everywhere. Right. But have you ever like, you go into different Starbucks in different cities and it does look different, right? The seating is different. The, mean, the buildings look different. Like there's a lot of differences, but then there's the branding. That's the same. The drinks are the same. The food's the same. So there's things that are consistent.

But really everyone has its different like vibe and feel. I mean, anyone who likes Starbucks knows like, there's a Starbucks over there that I will go to, but I won't go to the Starbucks over there because I really liked the vibe over here for like working or whatever, but I don't really love the one over there. So I think that's something that we can take as a church as well. Starbucks is doing that for a reason, right? They are looking at the culture. They're spending a lot of money to decide.

how they're going to make that Starbucks look for that community. So we should be doing the same thing.

KIDMIN U Team (55:13)

Yeah, I think it's good because I think that's a great balance because I've often compared it. ⁓ I have like two ends of the spectrum. One is like McDonald's where it's like, hey, there's no innovation here. It's basically the same everywhere. And then on the other end, have you ever heard of the graduate hotels like this new kind of chain of hotels? Super exciting. So what they do is they create a hotel in college towns with that theme of that college. So they'll have memorabilia, the same color, the same feel.

Corinne Noble (55:29)

No.

That's cool. Love

it.

KIDMIN U Team (55:40)

it is entirely different from one city to another. You wouldn't even know it's a chain except for the name of it. But it's completely different for every single one because they're telling a different story. And I think on a scale of like McDonald's to the graduate be Starbucks. I think that's our takeaway here. Like find a place somewhere in there where there is consistency but there's also room to contextualize what it actually looks like for your space. I think that's great advice. OK. So

Corinne Noble (55:56)

Yeah, in the middle.

Exactly.

KIDMIN U Team (56:09)

When you are going, because now in your work, I'm sure you visit other churches now and you get to kind of see how they do kids ministry and see how they lay out their space and how they operate. When you're walking into a new space and you're kind of like low key evaluating some things, because you can't turn it off, right? It's in your head. Yeah, not like in a critical way, but like you're always noticing stuff. So what are the things that you notice about a kids ministry environment?

Corinne Noble (56:22)

Mm.

Low key, low key, totally low key.

So, I am.

Yeah, it's funny. ⁓ So my husband is like a techie guy and he's always done ministry with me. So he notices like all the technology stuff. He'll be like, that light over there, they bought that there or whatever, or that lights not working. Like he notices all those little things. And then I'll notice like all of like the physical things, you know, like something that I noticed when I'm going to go ahead and just call out a church that I worked at when I walked in for the first time, I walked into the elementary space and there's just like

a bunch of random stuff just in the room that no one's using looks kind of broken, old, like, like, I'm definitely going to notice stuff like that, like broken down old stuff that really just needs to like go to Goodwill or the trash bin. I'm going to notice stuff like that. I mean, honestly, I'm not going to judge them for having a little bit of like paint, you know, marks on the wall or whatever kids are in there. But, you know, I think just I'm noticing like old stuff that needs to be removed.

I'm noticing broken things. mean, those things do speak a lot to families that are walking in. Like if we have a bunch of like broken down old stuff that just and clutter, like some ministries you walk in and they're just clutter everywhere. Like how long has that couch been sitting there and no one's using it? It's disgusting. No one will even sit in it. Like, I mean, we've all been there, right? So if there's stuff like that, it does speak volumes to our families who walk in. They're like, wow, this church really does not care.

that much about their kids ministry because like everything's broken down and old and gross. Like anything like that, I'm definitely going to notice that. Not a little bit of a paint mess up or whatever, but stuff like that. That's like, just hasn't been evaluated. Like I'm going to notice stuff like that. And then, I mean, I would notice things like when I walk in, like not even just from an environment's perspective, but like how, how are kids being greeted?

what's happening at the beginning of service? Are the kids just like running amok or is there like some kind of structured thing happening? Those are all things that I would be paying attention to. And I would be like, judging that a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, I think we have to think about that. Like we have to think about what our environments speak. If everything looks nice, it looks neat. It looks like a space that kids would be excited to be in.

KIDMIN U Team (58:43)

Sure. Well, it says something, right? Yeah.

Corinne Noble (58:56)

that they would be comfortable in? Again, it's not just about being entertained, it's about being comfortable. Does this space feel like a place where I would want to hang out if I was a fifth grade girl right now? Those are the things that I'm thinking about when I walk into spaces. Is this a place I would want to hang out if I was a kid? Not just a place I would want to be entertained, but a place I would just want to be in. So those are things that I'm thinking about.

KIDMIN U Team (59:18)

And to your point, I think people look at random things and draw conclusions, you know, like even, you know, the toys that we had. So, at the most recent church I was at, was working with a church plant and we were set up, tear down, met in a local high school. it wasn't until I transitioned off staff, we got a building, but I'm not bitter about that at all. Anyway, we were, we were in this like wilderness period of being set up tear down for a few years and we were constantly like, well, when are we going to get a building? And so.

Corinne Noble (59:23)

yeah.

Yeah.

Bye!

Mm-hmm.

KIDMIN U Team (59:45)

I think

because of that, I think we kept waiting on like refreshing toys and whatnot, thinking, we'll just get a brand new set, you know, when we get in the building, which we did. But there was a little bit of time there where like, hey, this stuff is starting to get weathered. And in the back of my mind, I'm like, what am I telling people when they look into our space and they see stuff that's starting to get ratty? You know, I think people can look at that and be like, hey, if you're not like invested in nice things for our kids, like

Corinne Noble (59:54)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (1:00:12)

Are you going to invest strategically even spiritually? Like in a weird, know those aren't related, but in our minds, sometimes we connect things like if you're not thoughtful here, I don't think you're thoughtful anywhere kind of thing. So

Corinne Noble (1:00:17)

Yes.

Look,

I think the reality is it is a surface level thing and people are surface level. When people walk into your ministry for the first time, what are they looking at? They're looking at the surface. Like we haven't had a chance to go deeper with those people yet. We haven't had a chance to build a relationship with them or to build trust or to, you know, build relationships with their kids. So, yes, the surface is what they're seeing and we may never actually get past the surface to those deeper things if our surface looks

ratty and old and like we don't care. Let's be honest.

KIDMIN U Team (1:00:57)

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's about making a good impression and giving people no reason to say no. Right. So like if we're stepping on our own foot that way, you know, like before we even get the chance to talk about the gospel before you even get the chance to help them experience community. If we're doing things that are turning people off, we should pay attention to that. Like even how your building smells like that. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes you walk in, it's like very stuffy.

Corinne Noble (1:01:03)

Exactly.

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (1:01:24)

or there actually is an odor. If you're in the nursery, there's gonna be an odor. ⁓

Corinne Noble (1:01:25)

yeah. It smells old. Well,

and this is, this is a little encouragement from that. For those who are like, we don't have a big budget, whatever, like, because environments, often think, we need money to change our environments. But it isn't always the case. When I walked into the church that I, that I worked at this last church, half the room was like a storage facility for old junk that nobody was using. They had those old school dividers, rolling dividers, like

KIDMIN U Team (1:01:53)

Classic.

Corinne Noble (1:01:53)

trying to

like kind of cover up all this random old junk that no one was using in the main elementary room. So one thing I did pretty much right off the bat was I just cleared out all the clutter and the junk. And I mean, I also tore out their ugly old corner stage that was carpeted with old brown disgusting carpet. Like those were two things I did right away that cost no money at all that made a huge, huge difference.

in that ministry. I say that to say sometimes making our environment better does not cost any money. It just takes some time and energy to just clean the place up and get rid of some junk. Honestly.

KIDMIN U Team (1:02:35)

Yeah, I think it's really good. OK, I've got one last kind of question for you. And then we're going to kind of move into some listener questions. We've got some people who are tuning into the live stream of this. So if you're on right now, you can throw those in the chat. We'll get to as many as we can. So this is kind of your cue. ⁓ So here's my question. What is like as you're mapping out a space, let's say you're planting a church and you're probably not going to have 12 rooms right away for kids. You're going to start small.

Corinne Noble (1:02:52)

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (1:03:03)

but you have to divide the age groups somehow. Where do you draw those lines? Like what are the minimum like age group breakdowns you need to have and like what ages go in each one?

Corinne Noble (1:03:14)

Are you talking like birth through elementary?

KIDMIN U Team (1:03:17)

Yeah, I know it's a funny way to say it, but I've heard lots of like theories on either way, but I'd be curious to be like, Hey, do I go to 18 months? And then I have this group from here to here in another room. How would you go about that?

Corinne Noble (1:03:30)

Definitely depends on space. First of all, I mean, sometimes we just don't have enough spaces for enough breakouts. Ideally, from what I've seen, I really like like birth to walking. It's not like an actual age, which most times I think an age is helpful. But in that situation, I think it's birth to walking is really helpful when they start walking well. Putting them in the next class up is a great option because I mean, a baby who isn't walking compared to a baby who is is a completely different situation.

⁓ so that that's one thing I would do a cutoff if you have the space, birth to walking, walking to twos. And then if you can have a two year old classroom separate, that's great. If not, you could put the walking through two together until they get potty trained. that's younger kids. do it more by like these, you know, these milestones because it just makes more sense than it does when you get older, you know, birth to walking, walking to twos.

And then once they are potty trained, then they can move up to like the threes class. And again, depending on how many rooms you have, how many volunteers, all of that, it's great to be able to separate threes out completely. If you have to, I would put three and four together before I would put four and five together. Man, it's all over the place. I've done a lot of different things with this too. I would definitely have three separate if I could. Threes are like their own, you know, monster.

KIDMIN U Team (1:04:47)

Yeah

Corinne Noble (1:04:53)

I have a three-year-old right now. But I would like to do like threes by themselves and then like four to five-year-olds who aren't in kindergarten, ideally. I mean, again, if you have a really big church, you could have a three-year-old room, a four-year-old room and a five-year-old room. That's ideal, but not a lot of situations like that. So, and then I would probably do kindergarten separate if you can. If you cannot, then put them in with the kindergarten and first and second grade if you have to.

That's what I've done. I've put kindergarten through second grade together a lot and it works out pretty well. Some of those kindergartners are still pretty young and it's a little bit challenging when they first move up, but having some older kids in with them actually does help a lot, I think, for them to adjust. And we've had all the way to sixth grade in our ministries. So we usually do third and fourth grade together and then fifth and sixth grade. But if you didn't have sixth grade, I would say second and third, fourth and fifth.

KIDMIN U Team (1:05:47)

Yeah, that's really good. Okay.

Corinne Noble (1:05:47)

If that helped. I'm like, it's

a little scattered because there's so many different ways to do it, depending on how many rooms and spaces you have really.

KIDMIN U Team (1:05:53)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's more on the variables, right? Like how many people do you have? What space do you have? That influences a ton and yeah.

Corinne Noble (1:06:00)

Yes, and sometimes you have to change. Like, I've had times

when I didn't have the kindergartners with us at all, and then I had to move them in because we just didn't have enough volunteers. So sometimes you just have to adapt, honestly.

KIDMIN U Team (1:06:13)

Yeah,

100 % Yeah, it takes it takes the judgment of you know, the the wisdom of the kids mystery leader. That's why they pay us the big bucks. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so to maybe wrap it up. So I've got a church plant, plant or friend who is launching in January, I guess by the time this is going to air. They're probably expecting maybe 20 to 25 kids. And so they're probably going to need three rooms, they'll probably realistically only be able to do three rooms.

Corinne Noble (1:06:21)

Flexibility, lots of wisdom.

KIDMIN U Team (1:06:41)

How would you break it down if it's like that type of scale?

Corinne Noble (1:06:42)

That makes sense.

Three rooms, fifth.

Yeah.

That's challenging, but I would probably do, I'd do zero to two, three to five before kindergarten and kindergarten through fifth. That's what I would do. It's not ideal. Three to five year olds in the same room is not ideal once you get more than 10 kids. That's what I would say. But for starting, that's what I would do. Zero to two until they're potty trained. And then they would move up to the three to five year olds classroom and then kindergarten through fifth. And then ideally breaking into small groups within that kindergarten.

KIDMIN U Team (1:06:48)

Yeah.

Corinne Noble (1:07:15)

through fifth grade age group. Even if the small groups are just on like rugs or whatever it is, even if it's in the same room, I would be doing some small group breaking out within that space. And even seating by grade is helpful.

KIDMIN U Team (1:07:17)

Yeah, I like how you laid it out too.

Yeah, I think so too. And those act as like really good, like age groups or zones, if you will, where it's like, as you grow, it's like, okay, cool. Like within zero to two, now we're going to split that, you know, now that we have more space, now that we have more kids, whatever that can be kind of like your nursery zone. And then that three to five same, same deal. You could split that and that's preschool. And when you do that, like you realize the theming for each of those can be,

Corinne Noble (1:07:47)

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (1:07:55)

pretty consistent. like what we would do when we were rebuilding some of these places is those would be our three different things. We'd have three types of classrooms that we would make. They'd be nursery rooms, preschool rooms, or elementary rooms. And so more or less, we had the same stuff on the walls in each one. Like those were our three templates, if you will. And usually the only thing that really changes is like your toys, you know, like there are some minor things you can switch out that are going to be more age appropriate. But if you can think through like

Corinne Noble (1:08:07)

Yes.

KIDMIN U Team (1:08:24)

What are my three templates? What do those rooms need to look like? And then as you expand, cool. Like now it's an easy matter of duplicating what you've already figured out. Great advice. Okay, so let's end with a couple questions. Again, if you're on the chat, throw those questions in there. I'm gonna throw one your way. Let's say you've got $500. Somebody writes you a check. They're like, hey, this is for the kids ministry building. My kid goes here, my grand kid goes here.

and I want nothing but the best for little Jimmy. What do you do with that $500? Well, yeah.

Corinne Noble (1:08:54)

Nothing but the best. They gave you $500.

Give us a thousand if you want nothing but the best. No, I'm kidding. $500. Yeah, I told you this before we got on. It's been like five years since I've bought like

KIDMIN U Team (1:09:00)

Ha ha ha.

Corinne Noble (1:09:08)

permanent stuff for a kids ministry. So I'm like, what's a $500 get you now? But one of the things that I would like recommend before, and I think you would still be able to do it in $500 is like putting in a really big like screen. I know this is like crazy. Now some churches already have this, but if you don't like just getting a really big, awesome projection screen, they're actually not that expensive. There's some companies that sell them where you like build it yourself. It's not hard to build yourself like

KIDMIN U Team (1:09:12)

Yep.

Corinne Noble (1:09:36)

even I could do it and I'm not a person. But just a really awesome big projector screen. you can even get like, I mean, there's so many like used projectors you can get that really do a great job. If you don't already have that, that can be just such a big wow factor, honestly, for kids and for adults. They walk in, they see this big giant screen. Like honestly, that's a big wow factor for 500 bucks. If not, I would do something

Again, it's something flexible that's going to be usable for a lot of things. A big screen, some new lighting, just something that's going to be noticeable and usable for a long time.

KIDMIN U Team (1:10:13)

Yeah, I think that's super fun. I didn't even think about like a projector, but it's actually kind of trendy right now to project straight on walls. I don't know if you've been seeing some of that, but that can be kind of vibey.

Corinne Noble (1:10:18)

yeah.

⁓ yes. I've done tons of

environmental projection stuff on the super cheap, like so much like really well factored level stuff that was like almost no money at all.

KIDMIN U Team (1:10:34)

Well, and even if you're trying to be really resourceful here, because I think if you're a kids mystery leader, you've got to figure out how to make a lot with not a lot. Even like the screen could be optional. Like what if like you created your own like little frame of two by fours on the wall? Maybe you painted it like one of your brand colors is blue and that's like the perimeter of your screen, you know, but it's on the wall.

Corinne Noble (1:10:41)

Yes.

Yeah.

Use some, you know those

like the four by eight foot ⁓ foam board, insulation foam board, we've made screens out of those. we've made like, we've cut them in half and made four by four ones. We've used multiple ones and made screens. It is, you can just cover it in paper or you can paint it either one. And we've hung like two of them on the sides and done like side screens. People thought they were real screens and they were legitimately.

KIDMIN U Team (1:10:59)

That's probably a great surface too, right? Like it probably is great quality. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (1:11:21)

just two pieces of foam board that we hung on ceiling. So, you know, there's ways to fake those screens too.

KIDMIN U Team (1:11:25)

I love that this is turning into like DIY

kids ministry. This is so good. It's funny because like I'm a dude in kids ministry, which is like a funny thing. You know, I always well not always but I feel out of my element sometimes because this can be like primarily women in this space.

Corinne Noble (1:11:39)

It is

a more women dominated ministry for sure.

KIDMIN U Team (1:11:43)

It is, but there are certain things that I've totally adopted. Like I'm on Pinterest all the time. I'm probably one of the few men. No, not at all. My wife like teases me because I'm on Pinterest more than my wife is. Except for like when we were planning our wedding. Yeah.

Corinne Noble (1:11:48)

Yep, which is not a man thing ever. But kids ministry, yes.

And I have a Pinterest board.

And on that note, I have a Pinterest board for like every series that I ever do, every event that I ever do. I have a whole Pinterest board for it. So if anyone wants to go follow me, you can just go see all my ridiculous Pinterest boards that I've had for like 15 years. So.

KIDMIN U Team (1:12:11)

Yeah,

so fun. Okay. Last question ⁓ from our audience. As you're thinking about the welcome experience, like somebody walks in, check in all that stuff, what matters most in there from an environment perspective?

Corinne Noble (1:12:23)

Mm.

From an environment perspective, I think from an environment perspective, it's just back to what I was saying before. It's that first impression. What do they see? Like what's that focal wall that they're going to see when they walk in? Like that's, that's always where I put like the biggest wow factor of an, of an environment is the focal wall. So when they walk through the door, what wall are they staring at if they come into your environment? So I'm sure you don't even let the

the parents come into the environment, but where are the parents going to be? Think about where your parents are going to be first and what are they looking at? Is there any clutter? Does the paint need to be repainted? Do you need to just add some new branding, some good signage, just clear, concise signage, clean, neat, welcoming? Whatever they're going to see first is what I'm going to be focusing on the most, is what I would say.

KIDMIN U Team (1:13:20)

I love it. Yeah, a little pop can go a long way. Well, yeah, I think the whole idea here, like maybe the theme that we're both kind of sharing on this podcast, it's a good takeaway is it doesn't take a lot to do a lot. I think sometimes we think about man, and that's why I had this question about Disneyland, right? If we have this pressure to like every inch of every wall has something popping out of it, like, we can't do that. But I don't think the goal is extravagance.

Corinne Noble (1:13:23)

Yeah, I mean, doesn't have to be a lot of money.

Uh-uh.

KIDMIN U Team (1:13:48)

I think you can achieve excellence without having to be extravagant. And that just takes intentionality.

Corinne Noble (1:13:50)

Yes. And it's not all or nothing.

I think a lot of people get the mentality of, if I had this much money, I would do this. And since they don't, they just do nothing. And it's not all or nothing. Like that budget would be awesome. But if I have no budget at all, or I have a hundred dollars or I have $500, what can I do with what I already have? So we're just being good stewards of the resources we already have, even if it's no money at all. And it's just the stuff we already have.

How can we get creative and resourceful with what we already have?

KIDMIN U Team (1:14:22)

Yeah, great advice. Well, Corinne, thank you for coming on. This has been a really cool conversation for people who want to learn more about you and what you're up to. Where can they find out more?

Corinne Noble (1:14:32)

Well, my website is KidminCorinne.com. So my name is really hard to spell, but it's Kidmin, K-I-D-M-I-N-C-O-R-I-N-N-E.com. And that's where all of my like curriculum, Kidmin kits, coaching, I do a lot of freebies as well, lots of stuff on there. And then yeah, go find me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, I'm KidminCorinne on all of those. And I would love to connect with

with anyone and just keep the conversation going too.

KIDMIN U Team (1:15:02)

That's awesome. Fun fact, my very first Instagram handle or username was Kidman Jeremy. And then I just jumped off the bandwagon at some point. Maybe I should bring it back. But that's awesome.

Corinne Noble (1:15:07)

That's great.

first one was Kidman Corinne on Twitter and it stuck all the way through.

KIDMIN U Team (1:15:18)

There go. That's the branding that's carried you all the way through. Well, listen, thank you for coming on the podcast. been a really cool conversation, and I'm sure people are loving it and they're benefiting from all that you shared. So thank you for coming on. For everybody who's listening, thank you for joining us. For our listeners who are here on the live stream, we're so glad you joined. We'll see you next time.

Kids Ministry Insider

Corinne Noble: Making the Most of Your Space

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Kim Botto: Building an Inclusive Kids Ministry

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