About a month or so ago, I started to accept ads on this site to recover some of the cost of hosting, software, etc.  My hope has been, and continues to be, to find sponsors which the users of this site will find valuable.  I think I have been able to accomplish this, and I like our sponsors so much that I have decided to feature them from time to time on this site beginning with today.

We begin Spotlight on our Sponsors with Christianity Cove.  Rather than wax eloquently on my own (right!), I decided to ask Mary-Kate Warner some questions about the site to give us a better idea what they are all about.  Here is the transcript of that interview:

Earlier this summer on Dad in the Middle, I reviewed a series of CDs from God’s Kids Worship and gave away a set of the CDs to one lucky reader (GOD’S KIDS WORSHIP MODERN CD 3-PACK (A Dad in the Middle Review).  Since that time, I have had a chance to meet Bob Singleton (founder and president of God’s Kids Worship® at the CM Expo, and I am grateful that God’s Kids Worship® became the very first sponsor of Dad in the Middle.  In order to celebrate, I am giving away a set of DVDs from God’s Kids Worship this week – but more on that later.  First I want to tell you a little bit about the DVDs.  These DVDs contain 14 songs each and feature the music of God’s Kids Worship.  I wrote extensively about the music itself in my last review of the modern worship CDs, so I won’t reiterate all that here, but as I explained in my last review:

The songs are engaging and fun to listen to and make for a great worship experience.  They are also perfect for parents to listen to with their kids in the car or at home as both are sure to enjoy the music.

What I do want to tell you about is some of the awesome features included on the DVDs themselves.  For this review, I watch the 3 DVDs which are part of the June/July/August Modern Worship Summer DVD set.  Down to the packaging, which is pretty cool, the attention to detail on these DVDs is amazing.  Everything is designed to help you use the DVD’s in your children’s worship services as easily and effectively as possible.  Each DVD loads quickly as there are no FBI Warnings or company logos to wait through in order to get to the music you need.  This might not seem like a big deal until you are standing in front of 30 5 & 6 year olds waiting for you to get the DVD player working.  The songs can be selected individually, or you can choose from one of four ready-to-go worship sets (containing four songs each) on each DVD.

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I’m heading off to the CM Expo this week, so it seemed like a good time to get caught up on telling you about some articles I’ve written over the last several weeks which were published on  Ministry-to-Children.com. The article titled Why Not Have Fun with Your Kids Church Offering? was published on May 25, 2010.

Brief Synopsis: In this article, I share a tool which we’ve started using in our children’s ministry to make offering a little more fun.  It’s been a couple of months since I wrote the original article, and I am glad to say the kids are having as much fun as ever with their offering time at church!

Click here to read the entire article!

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It’s been a while since I did an installment from the book What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry, and this one is long overdue.  In the book Sam Luce chose the Word “Redemption” as What Matters Now.

Sam starts with a great summary of the importance of redemption:

One of the greatest messages we can give to every family we come in contact with is the message of redemption. In kids’ ministry, today, we deal with more broken hearts and broken families than ever before. I believe every family needs to experience the power of redemption.

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Why did I review this book?

When Larry Shallenberger announced several months ago that he was planning on doing a book blog tour to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his book, I eagerly signed up.  I don’t know Larry personally, but I do follow his comments on Twitter and read his blog, so I kind of feel like I know him even if he doesn’t follow me on Twitter.   Based on that presumption of relationship, and the generally laid back nature of people in children’s ministry, I will refer to him as Larry throughout this review.

Anyhow, I knew that regardless of what the book was about, Larry’ has a great sense of humor and an easy to read writing style, so I knew reading his book wouldn’t be a complete waste of time.  That said, when I found out the topic of the book was leadership, I got just a little bit leery.  It’s not that I don’t like reading about leadership or being a leader.  I actually do, but the world has plenty of books on leadership, and I have read a bunch of them.  It seems the everybody who has ever been a boss or started a ministry or had people report to them has taken it upon themselves to write a book on leadership.  After a while, they all just seem to say the same thing – do it my way and you’ll be OK, and it ultimately all runs together into a fuzzy blurry haze in my head.  Besides that, I already have a group of people whose writings, podcasts, etc. on topic of leadership I devour.  They include people like Andy Stanley, Jim Wideman, and others who I have grown to trust in this area and have learned a lot from.  With all due respect to Larry, I wasn’t sure what he could offer that hadn’t either already heard or wasn’t getting from some of the other resources I was reviewing.

There’s an old, slightly cliché, saying that “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”  I agree in principal, and Larry’s book turned out to be a prime example of this for me and another reason I try not to let pre-conceived notions totally guide what I choose to read.  Now, I’ve never recommended that someone not read this book, but if it hadn’t been for this blog tour, I’m not sure I ever would have read it either.  Had that happened, I would have missed out.

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I was recently given the opportunity to review some modern worship CDs put out by God’s Kids Worship®.

God’s Kids Worship® was created by Bob Singleton, a musical award-winning Christian dad as well as Grammy® nominated, and 4 time Dove nominated producer of music for kids. He wanted to make it easy for kids to worship God, and for grown-ups to lead them.

God’s Kids Worship® songs are produced for kids to enjoy singing, and adults to enjoy leading. The songs are sung by kids for kids, match the attention spans of kids, don’t have long introductions or guitar solos, and contain only the best, most singable parts of songs. The award-winning arrangements are all kid-friendly, with an emphasis on energy and fun.

The three CD’s are part of the set of Modern Worship Worship CDs.  The three CDs are: (more…)

The Village Church is a great church in the Dallas, Texas area where Matt Chandler is the lead pastor.  I have listened to the podcast of his sermons for the last couple of years and have a great deal of respect for him and his work for God’s Kingdom.  They also have some solid blogs related to their Children’s Ministries at their different campuses.  Recently, I discovered that they have made a worship album for kids called “Jesus Came to Save Sinners.”  The entire CD is available for download at: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/music.

The album features five songs including:

1. Jesus Came to Save Sinners
2. God is Good
3. God is in Charge of Everything
4. God Wants to Talk to Us
5. God Made Everything

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