Category: KidsTown

  • We need a heat wave!

    This weekend is Romeo’s annual community Easter Egg hunt. (see video of last years event) This is put on by Romeo Parks & Rec department and has become a favorite of my kids. They only thing that they like doing as much is the first high school football game when they have a big party with face painting, inflatables, and games.

    Going into this year the staff at church was looking for an event like that to either put on ourselves or somehow compliment to make better. So I contacted the community center to see if we could help. (Why reinvent the wheel?) To my delight they said yes.

    On Saturday morning we are doing a couple of simple things to make the event just a tad more fun. We’re providing live music (Jimmy’s band) and a warming station with coffee/hot chocolate/apple cider. This is part of our new “God of this City” emphasis.

    The problem: Let’s state the obvious. It is still winter in Romeo. My backyard currently has 6 inches of snow. We need a few days of 40-50 degree weather to have a shot at the field being clear of snow. More importantly, if it is 15 degrees I think that will dramatically lessen the attendance at this event. And we’re looking to warm up and meet as many parents as possible!

    The solution: Right now we’re just watching the weather and hoping it all comes true! We have 3 days forecasted to be in the 40s and Saturday is currently forecasted to be about 35.

    Wanna come? It’s at Barnabo Field at 1:00 PM.

  • MainStreet is back tonight!

    It seems like a huge layoff for the MainStreet gang. (Since Christmas Eve) But we are back at it tonight with a great event.

    During the layoff we’ve gotten an opportunity to do a few things that will help us in the Spring run.

    • Rest!
    • Reorganize!
    • Re-prioritize!
    • Renewed enthusiasm!

    Rest. We needed it. Pulling MainStreet off every month takes about a month of preparation. The result is that each month our team gets just 3-4 days of not thinking about or acting on MainStreet per month. We need this layoff just to have some time to not think about “Oh my gosh, it’s 2 weeks away!”

    Reorganize. If you come to MainStreet you may get the idea that we’ve got a play book. You are wrong, we have created MainStreet from scratch. Things that we thought would work didn’t. And when we divided up jobs we didn’t know what would be big jobs or small jobs… so during the layoff we were able to reorganize a little bit to divide things more reasonably. It’s a big project, but when the team works together its pretty manageable.

    Re-prioritize. Sometimes you are so busy working on a project that you can’t think enough about the strategic goal. Stepping back gave us the chance to change some things and focus this more specifically as a foyer environment. (An invitable event) Tonight, you’ll see this play out in a couple of ways as we specifically point new people to the next step… our living room environment of UpTown. Watch for this in the greeting and goodbye especially. Another thing we’re doing better than ever is teaching the virtue. As we point attendees to the next step, UpTown, we want to introduce this month’s virtue… watch for kindness to be taught all over the place… from the greeting, to a special song, to the skits, to Bob’s talk, and other places.

    Renewed enthusiasm. Stepping back and evaluating MainStreet helped us recognize just how far we’ve come and just how effective MainStreet has been. This charged us up. This helped our team look at our body of work and say, “It is a ton of work, but it is helping us draw people into the Kingdom… so let’s do it even better!”

    We’ve got a long way to go until our next break. (July… maybe!) I’m looking forward to the next 6 months of MainStreet. We’ve got some goals to accomplish along the way and I can’t wait to reveal them as we go. Let’s just say we plan on doing MainStreet bigger and better as we finish season 2.

    UPDATE: Man, the snow is so bad… and getting worse… that’s we’ve called off MainStreet for tonight. I am so bummed out! So, the layoff continues until March 5th.

  • K Games Promo

  • A brand new RomeoKids.com

    It took several month to say this, but RomeoKids.com has a brand new look. This was the first project that the church has ever sent out to a web designer and I think it turned out awesome. Matt Adams, that guy is great to work with. If you ever need a WordPress theme totally custom designed from head to toe… he’s your man.

    I think the new look is very bright, cheery, inviting, and screams “Kids!” as soon as you load it. What do you think?

  • KidsTown Sign

    So, check this out.

    This is side B of our exterior sign at the church. (Other side is “big church”) This is a revision… so feel free to give me feedback on it.

    KidsTown sign, revision 2

    p.s. If you haven’t checked out the KidsTown site lately, it’s got a fresh new look. www.romeokids.com
    p.p.s. So does the church site, www.romeochurch.com

  • Paul’s Thougts of Christmas

    PaulPaul is 4. He is mostly into Power Rangers and otherwise lives in his own pretend world of karate chops, animals, adventures, and other play things. And while Paul rarely looks like he is paying attention in KidsTown he really learns a lot.

    Here are some things we talked about this morning:

    • When the advent calendar is over, it’s Christmas.
    • Christmas is about someone’s birthday, but not Santa’s.
    • Santa is just pretend, but Jesus is “for real.”
    • Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.
    • Why do we get presents on Jesus’ birthday? “I don’t know.” (He’s right, it makes no sense!)

  • December MainStreet Promo

    This is a whole lot different than I typically do for MainStreet. Thoughts?

  • MainStreet Love

    Construction_webLast night’s MainStreet rocked. I’ll say it again… "The process is scary but the product is great." Going into the night I was convinced that it was going to be a disaster, but I was horribly wrong. It may have been our best yet.

    The thing I like most about it was that the game after the production was perfect for the night and the snack… divine! (Chocolate covered pretzels shaped like tools) I felt like Hannibal on the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together." Minus the cigar, please.

    There are so many good things happening at Romeo right now, it’s really hard to accurately describe them all. MainStreet is definitely head of that class.

  • 30 days for 90 minutes

    That’s what it takes to pull of a MainStreet. It takes about 30 days of resting, creating, evaluating, tweaking, practicing, imagining, motivating, managing, designing, dreaming, and promoting the next MainStreet.

    Tonight was MainStreet. It was a good one. But here’s the thing… the next one is already just around the corner.

    The question isn’t, "How do you keep creating new and fresh stuff every 30 days?" That’s too obvious. The real question is "How do you implement a process that sustains creativity every 30 days 11 times per year, year after year?" That’s the trick.

    So, what is the answer? A good team. A willing team. A team who has fun. A team who feeds one another with enthusiasm. And a team who is feeding themselves from God’s Word.

    Ultimately, our creativity point back to a creative Creator, doesn’t it?

  • MainStreet: October Promo Video

    Hard to believe that MainStreet is only a couple days away. Tonight I finalized a very odd little commercial. If you don’t find it funny, just relax knowing that it’s funny to me.

    p.s. I fixed the type-o… it won’t appear in church but I don’t want to resubmit it to YouTube.