* Disclaimer: The people at Integrity music provided me a copy of SPK Curriculum: My Savior Lives. I appreciate their generosity also they sponsor my blog if you can please click on one of the links in my sponsor section and check out the great music and resources they provide.

How it’s different: What Integrity does with their SPK curriculum is they take the worship songs that you and I sing and use those songs to teach the lessons. There is a preset worship set that each week they take a worship song and that song is the bottom line for the day. It is a very unique approach to say the least. I don’t know if I have ever seen a curriculum company so closely connect the worship music with the lesson being taught. The only people who would come close to doing this is Hillsong and even then the connection is not as strong between the two.

What they include with their 13 week curriculum

It’s hard to believe that The Orange Conference is just around the corner. I can’t wait. I don’t know what my favorite part of Orange is from the amazing line up for the General sessions, practical how to’s from the breakouts or connecting with like minded kids people.

This year there is going to be a group of the most prolific #kidmin bloggers hanging out in the orange leaders lounge at the Orange conference. Make sure you get registered and come by and say hi!

Purchase a new registration to Orange 2010 by April 8, and you can attend the preconference for only $45!  That’s 50% off the regular price!  You won’t want to miss the opportunity to select from an additional 30 workshop topics offered only during the preconference! Details at www.TheOrangeConference.com.

Here is another video I found interesting. I love Regina’s voice her lyrics are always interesting. Enjoy.

Our church is still very new to the whole milestone concept. We are planning on adding some milestone traditions in the future in the areas of dedications and baptisms. Right now one of the ways we best partner with parents is by being very intentional during school transitions.

What I love about the milestone model is it seeks to connect parents/kids/church during times when parents are most open to advice, direction and guidance. One of the those windows for a family is when their kids enter Kindergarten and when they enter Jr. High.

When kids are heading into Kindergarten and Jr. High they are going though lots of transitions so we try to work with the parents on transitioning them at church. We talk with the parents of the kids affected and give them our recommendation but ultimately let them know that they are the parents and know their kids better than us. Most kids transition fine but for those kids who are struggling at school and may not be as mature as their classmates it really helps them stay connected. Before we stared doing this we had a huge drop off rate of kids entering and lots of kids leaving kids ministry and not going to Youth group. After moving to this policy we saw our retention rate reach 70%-80%.

The fact that we are thinking about and express concern for their kids during a very difficult time helps parents know that when we say we want to partner with them we mean business.