It's so difficult to write this blog in only 2 parts so I have decided to write it in 4 parts. There is just so much to write God has done so much in the 17 years this ministry operated at Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle. I am humbled that God gave me this amazing concept and know it not only touched the kids who were a part of it but also the children and families we ministered to. As I mentioned in the previous blog our classes began on January 14, 1996. I used my college textbook as my guide to teach the kids. Classes went well as we did a lesson and then I had the kids practice clown and puppet skits. Although the pastors and mission board were thrilled with this new concept others were not big fans. I am referring to our Sunday School department. They were not happy that I emptied out there classes and claimed I had "no control" of the kids. The bottom line was that they were not big fans of change. I challenged them and said that these kids were hungry to serve God and learn about missions. They still believed that Sunday School should be taught the same way it has been since 1976. The seven words exclaimed in every church is...WE NEVER DID IT THAT WAY BEFORE! I believe we need to give kids what they want and need and change things up. Others disagreed with me so we agreed to disagree. There was one individual who held this against me for years but I didn't care. I wanted to do what God told me to do.
We did our first ever outreach at a Nursing Home in Smithtown a month later during the February school break. The kids did their clown skits and puppet skits and it was a hit. A month later we had an open door to go to a Welfare Motel in Brentwood, NY and that was also a huge hit. God started opening doors for us at many area churches. My biggest challenge was trying to find clown skits and puppet skits. With the kids being young and their arms being short and weak, many of the puppet shows looked like the puppet characters were in quicksand. It was a learning experience trying to come up with new ideas but God always provided! We purchased white Kids Mission Bridge T shirts for the kids and our leaders wore black polo shirts. Black was not a good choice for 90 degree heat in July! One issue I had during the first year was when to end our classes. The Kids wanted to keep going year round! We did end our classes that year and held a graduation. I got so much positive feedback about our first year. It was a "work in progress." Year two began January 1997 but before that I knew I had to write a curriculum so I wrote the lessons each week as we went along again using my college textbook. A gentleman from my church, Ron Simmons had a binding company and donated to our ministry loose leaf binders. These kids held onto those binders like it was a treasure. I was excited to be able to continue doing this program. I was invited by the International Network of Children's Ministries to share the concept of Kids Mission Bridge at a Children's Pastors Conference in San Diego, CA at a workshop. It was an honor and I got a lot of great feedback from fellow children's pastors. The second year went well and our highlights were ministering at Bethlehem Assembly of God in Valley Stream at a bandshell and later that summer at our first ever outreach at the Ocean Grove, NJ Beach pavilion. A tradition that would last on and off until 2012. We also began doing outreaches at Smithtown Day and King's Park Day. Getting into the community was always my goal. The folks who ran these 2 festivals were not thrilled we were there and made life rough for us for many years. We still continued going even though we did not exactly get greeted with "open arms."
In 1998 I wanted desperately to publish my new curriculum and was hoping to keep the name "Kids Mission Bridge". I wrote to the author of "Mission Bridge" in hopes he would allow me to use the name and just put "Kids" in front of "Mission Bridge" but he declined stating it would "confuse" people. So I was back to square one and needed to give my program and curriculum a name. One of my workers suggested "Kids in Missions" and the rest is history. I tried to find a publisher but had no interest so I did what is known as the "poor man's copyright" where you mail your manuscript to yourself certified mail in a manilla envelope you never open. I did just that in the summer of 1998 and still have that envelope to this day. Changing the name of your ministry meant changing the logo, getting new t- shirts and coming up with new ideas. My brother in law Allan designed an amazing logo that is pictured above. He used my two older kids Jordan and Kaylee as "models" in the logo as to kids in the logo look like them as young kids. We had the kids wear red or navy blue shirts as the leaders had the same colors. We also got away from doing clown ministry. Truthfully, as the kids wore their clown make up, they all began to look like something from a horror movie after their makeup smeared on their faces. We made up some "kid friendly" dramas using songs from "The Donut Man" as well as some bible story songs like Noah from the band David and the Giants. In 1999, we launched a website www.kidsinmissions.org (that no longer exists) in hopes of selling the Kids in Missions curriculum along with my puppet scripts and a gospel tract I wrote. Sales went okay and I discovered many churches were starving for help in establishing a Sunday School program. Many had no room or did not have enough help. We also put pictures of our students on our website after each outreach they did. One first we had in 1999 was a foreign missions trip to Belize. 13 of us went and the trip was for one week. One mistake I made was I did include one person who was not a part of our ministry. I interviewed each team member as well as the adults asking them if they were in shape to do A LOT of walking. This person was not in shape at all and it made for a challenging week. It was the one and only foreign trip I did with this ministry. It did go well but my heart was always to do more ministry at home. Long Islanders are a tough breed who need Jesus!
As we entered a new millennium we continued moving forward and I tried some new ideas to reach children and families. One was building a set that we would take on he road. I created a character I named Dr. Heartmender and we did a theme centered on a hospital theme that included tongue puppets. It only lasted a year as it was so hard to put the set up and down at each event and we also couldn't fit the set at many churches we visited because their platform was too small. In the year 2000, I asked my summer assistant Christine to create a program we called "Servant Thursdays." She organized for the entire summer service projects our kids could do each Thursday during the summer. We did implement service projects as part of our ministry from our inception but I wanted to use the time our kids were off from school to have them serve at either other churches or local ministries. The kids absolutely loved it and this continued up to 2012! One year later in 2001 I began doing ventriloquism as part of our programs and it truthfully added a nice touch to our ministry and outreaches. Grandpa Lou was a hit along with Sonkist, Shelton the Shark amongst many others that were added through the years,
Stay tuned next week as I share about what our Kids in Missions ministry accomplished in the 2000's!
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