Planning Your Parent Resource Station

Part of a kidmin leader's job is to equip parents to disciple. Are you using a resource station to help you do so? 

In this episode, you'll walk through the why of a resource station and how to set it up from location to look to the frequency of restocking. Amber will also walk you through how she stocked a first-time resource center. 

Make sure to check out these products mentioned in the episode:

Episode 122 of The Kidmin Huddle - Training parents. 

The Family Cookbook Devotional

Kidmin Planner

amberpike.org

church.renewanation.org

#intentionalchildrensministry #amberpike #familydiscipleship #renewanation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to the Kidman Huddle with Amber Pike, where children as ministry leaders get equipped, encouraged, and empowered to disciple with intentionality, growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. I am at a new church, as you know if you've been listening to me. And one of the things that I hadn't done yet was to make a resource station. So, that's what I've been working on. Doing Kidman and doing it well is important, but it's not enough. This is a mistake that I think I made in the last, especially the last like 10 years of my ministry life is that I was doing children's ministry while I was doing all the things. The lessons were awesome. I was grounding kids in their faith, but the part that I didn't do well enough was resourcing mom and dad. Children's ministry is important, but just doing children's ministry well is not enough. It's also not biblical. Nowhere in the Bible is God commanding children's ministry to be the primary disciple-maker of children. It's not mentioned in the Bible. It wasn't a thing. But we do see the biblical command for moms and dads to disciple their children. We see this, you guys know the Shema, Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, impress upon your children. There are so many passages in the Bible talking about generational discipleship, where parents are commanded, where grandparents are commanded to disciple their kids. You guys have heard the statistics of how many hours the kids are in church versus how many hours they are at home. You know this, you've heard this. This is why it is so important that we are doing the things to make sure we are equipping parents to be the disciple maker that God has called them to be. Now, twofold. So this is training them, which check back last week's episode, episode 122, when I'm talking about training parents, the importance of training them. They need to know how to do it. They need to know why that they are supposed to, and then they need to know how to do it. But then kind of the second half of equipping parents is resourcing them. Now, if you go back through episodes of the podcast, I have some great episodes that I would love for you to listen to on how to resource because there is a right way to resource and a wrong way to resource. There are things that we need to be watching out for, making sure of. I've even... have examples. Follow me on social media. I give you examples of some good stuff. And then I shared recently in my stories, I have a box of shame in my office, my downstairs unfinished basement office that you'll never see because it's not aesthetically pleasing. I've got, you know, open rafters and insulation. But I have a box of shame. And that is the box that things that are unscriptural, things that are just bad, go into. There was one recently, I just added one. And I read it with my kids. I figure with my kids, I can read something out loud, and if it's bad, we can talk about it because we're there. And so I wanted to keep reading. I figured out halfway through reading this book that was sent to me that, ooh, this is not okay. But I wanted to keep reading it so that we could have a conversation about it. My son, 14, he picked up on it. My daughter's like, I don't know what's going on. It's a training tool for them, but it went in the box of shame. So many things I could say about resourcing. Go check out those podcasts. Send me a message if you have a question. I love to talk resourcing. We're going to have a great podcast coming up soon and bringing on a guest talking about some favorite resources. But today we're talking about a resource station. This is a great way so many churches utilize getting resources to the home. So resource station is exactly what it sounds like. It is a... station in which you have resources. It's very self-explanatory. I don't know how to describe it even better, but it is a place that is usually permanent. It could be mobile that you have the things that you want to go home. So we're going to talk through a couple of different things, and then I'm going to share with you guys how I set up from scratch a resource station at my own church. So what could this look like? I've seen a lot of different examples online. I actually saved the pictures when they're really, really cool, just so I can have some cool references. I've seen some that take an existing wall in their children's area, and they add shelves onto the wall. So maybe they've got some cool lettering, maybe it's vinyl, maybe they've got like a big sign, but they have shelves built into the wall. I've seen churches that are just using just a bulletin board. So they're not putting physical things into the wall. But they're using a bulletin board in their kids' area. I see a lot of standalone shelves. This is what I have gone with for this one. My last church used crates. I did not have a good area to do it. We busted out a wall. So imagine two classrooms with doors right beside each other. We busted out that wall to make a big classroom, but we couldn't do the doorframe wall properly. because that was kind of load bearing and important. So we had these two doors to our classroom. One we did not use, one we did. I used that little strip of wall in between and that was my tiny little resource area. So I had crates and I made it look all cute, but that was the resource area. So what could your resource area look like? Well, you need to figure out your where first before you figure out what kind of shelving do I need? How am I going to set this up? Where are parents at? Where are they coming at weekly? High traffic, high visibility, that this would make a good place. So currently, our children's area is a separate building. It is our fellowship hall building. It is, you know, a tiny little hop, skip and a jump across the parking lot. But it's not high traffic unless we're having a meal there, potluck. So I did not want the resource area to be in the kids section. Because I also want this to be something that maybe visiting families could see, wow, they care about their kids. Something that a visiting family could come and grab something that even if we never see them again, they might use to disciple at home. So I have made our resource station in one of our main welcome areas, the entrance. It's a little foyer. So that is where I wanted to put it because that's where most of our families are coming in through. Where's your high traffic area? That would make sense too. And it might not be in the kids section and that's okay. Mine's not, but I've got it where I'm gonna hit the most amount of parents. Whether they are my parents, visiting parents, whatever. Where's that spot for you? And then think, what's it gonna look like? Is it shelves mounted on a wall? Is it a portable unit? Is it a rolly cart? You know, you've got to think about your space. How is it not going to be a tripping hazard? We have a lot of older members at our church, so I can't have something that's sticking out too much or walkers might get caught on it. Where's that space for you and what does it look like? How much space do you have? So you're figuring out where's my space and how much space you have. Then that determines what's this going to look like. Is it shelves in the wall? Is it a single shelf that maybe you have a little window nook? We had a window nook, but I wanted more space. Is it a freestanding shelving unit? Look online. There are some great pictures. Go in all the Facebook groups and look up some pictures of resource station to get ideas. I've seen mobile carts that get used. There's a major church near us in Louisville. It's that one of the branches of Southeast, if you're familiar with that, that's a big church. And I love the simplicity of the resource station. It was like a Costco shelf. And I'm like, this is what they're using. That's awesome. You would think they would, they've got the money, you know, big major church to have some big, huge, elaborate custom design. No, it's like a hundred dollar Costco shelf. It doesn't have to be crazy custom. Wow. Simple can really work well. Because it's not about what the shelf looks like, what the station looks like, but what we're putting in there. Also, make sure you guys are following me on social media, Amber Pike. I think on Instagram, I'm AmberPike0292 because my name is so short. I can't get my name on stuff because I have so few letters in first name and last name. So it's a thing. But look me up. I'm going to post some pictures of some stuff this week, talking resource stations to give you guys some ideas. So you figured out where you're going to put it. Now you need to think about how is this going to work? There are a lot of options and really this comes down to your budget and just what you want to do. If you have budget money, I highly encourage using the, these are free resources, take one model. That is my favorite. You might not be able to do that though when it The family cookbook devotional is a great thing that should absolutely go home to families, but you have to plan on about$20 a family. I mean, you might not have the budget. If you have 10 families, it's$200 out of your budget. Do you have that? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you can only afford one really good substantial book item a year, and then the rest is going to be some DIY stuff we're going to talk about. But This is a big factor in how you are setting up your resource station. Can it be the, this is free, take one? If not, some churches will do, they will take that item and maybe they've got it displayed on the shelf with maybe a framed paper that has a QR code on where you should buy it and a little blurb about why it's great. So it's letting families know, here's a great key resource. I can't afford to give them to you, but you should go buy it. Now, realistically, you will have less parents take you up on that, but the ones who do are probably really going to want it. Some churches will do kind of a, here's a cool resource. You can purchase it from us at a discount. That could be an option. So maybe you buy the$20 book and you're able to cut it in half. And so, hey, you guys can get this for only 10. It's a blessing to families who want it. It's much less cost than them buying it outright. That could be an option as well. And then some churches will do a checkout library style. So, all right, here's the cool resource that would be great. You guys want to borrow it? Return it at this time. I think that one would be a lot harder. A lot of resources are kind of write-in style. So you don't want to write in them. You know, a cooking thing. I don't know about you guys, but my loved cookbooks get a little greaser and they get something splattered on it. You can't get grease off. You write a grease stain on the pages. Then how are you making sure that they've had enough time to do it? If you're looking at a lot of things, they're like 50. 50, you're not doing it every day. So this is like a year. Are they checking it out for a year? Will they remember to bring it back before they move or move churches? Or will it get lost? Or does little Billy love it so much he can't bear to part with it? And then he's crying. I don't really think the checkout option is the best. But if that's what you can do, that's what you can do. I like the, here are the resources, take one. That's my favorite. But what's going to work for you? That what works for you? makes a big difference in how you're setting up your resource station. So if I was doing the here's a cool idea QR code thing, I don't need a physical shelf. So I could probably mount on a bulletin board, on a wall, some small shelves, kind of like the one you see on my wall here in my video if you're watching it live on YouTube. A small shelf like this, that would have the book. I don't need something on the floor. Maybe I even want it off the floor so that little hands don't touch it. You can get floating shelves really inexpensively, or maybe you're not going to put the resource there and you're just going to take a picture of it from your camera or you get the stock photo from the internet. I will remind you, never, ever, ever, Put a resource on your resource station that you have not looked through from cover to cover. I saw in a Facebook group today someone saying how much they hate the girl, like the teen and tween devotions out there, because they're often introducing topics and thoughts that don't need to be introduced to that age group, and I wholeheartedly agree. Do not put anything on that resource station that you have not looked through. Which comes to the next part of making a resource station. What are you putting on there? How are you stocking it? So think about the frequency in which you are sending things home. Are you going to put a new resource out every month? Every quarter? I don't recommend weekly because you're going to overwhelm parents. So what is the frequency in which you are putting new items? This also goes back to budget. How much money do I have over the course of the year? This is planning needs to happen. You need to do some yearly planning. My intentional Kidman planner will help you with this. I like to try to send home something every month for families. Now, I'm small church budget, and some of that is personal budget when I'm resourcing families. So I really can't afford to do a$20 book every month. But there are some DIY versions of things that can go home and still be a wonderful resource. It doesn't all have to cost a bunch of money. But you need to factor it in. Maybe you need to make a bigger budget ask for the next calendar year. We're coming up on budget season in Kidman. It feels like it's always like right after the camp and VBS season that you get to make your budget request for next year. Can you put in an extra request for some money to where you can resource? Maybe you plan out, I want to send home these two resources to families. I have X number of families. Add a couple extra, assuming there might be some growth. And so I need$650, I just picked a random number, to resource families with XYZ resources in 2025, 2026, whatever. And here's why I want to send these resources home. Quote back to, it's mom and dad's job to be the primary disciple makers. They are commanded. We want to give them good quality resources to do so at home. Maybe you need to do that. So think through, when are you sending things home? At what frequency? And then the budget asks for that. Now, I'm sure all of you all are wondering, okay, now what's the stuff? You said we're talking about stocking. What's the stuff? I'm going to tell you this stuff right now. And then we got like one more, one more part, the importance of doing your resource station. So I am coming from a spot with kind of, you know, new, the church is new to resourcing parents. They put out a magazine that I don't think anybody takes home and I don't think it's awesome. I don't take it home. And I'm a parent and I love Jesus and teaching my kids. So I wanted to have some foundational pieces in my resource station to kick us off. So what did I put on there? Now, I bought a little shelf. Again, follow my social media because tomorrow I'm going to have a cool video that's going to show all of my things that I did and what it looks like. It's almost done. I need to make some more signs, but it's almost done. So I bought a small little shelf. I didn't want it super big, but I wanted it to be... at a good height. So it's about a five foot tall little shelf. And I wanted a couple of key things. So the first one is the book, Little Habits, Big Faith by Christy Thomas. This book, I think is a wonderful book for parents and it's encouraging them to just start, just start, start reading your Bible, start praying together, do that little habit. It's a good, easy read. It's something that I feel like parents could pick up and take on their own. and then read it. It's kind of that vision casting. Here's what you're supposed to do. So I wanted that to be a key resource. Of course, and you guys saw this coming. I was going to have the family cookbook devotional on there because I think it's awesome. It's always kind of weird though, to resource with your own things. It just kind of feels weird sometimes when it's like a book that like you purchase instead of just like something you're sending home, because I don't want them to be like, oh, well, Amber wrote it. So of course she's doing You don't know what's going on through people's heads, but I still stand by. This is the best thing out there to get families doing an experience together. It's not a to-do. It's super duper fun. So the family cookbook devotional, I think should be on everyone's resource station. Then I found a new resource kind of coming from the mindset that a lot of my kids are kind of new. I have, my daughter's the only one who's a Christian of the kids group. She's the oldest. I have a lot of younger. So they're really, they're getting their foundation of God. Some of my parents are also in that same spot. So I found this book by Katie Morgan. Katie is K-A-T-Y. It's called A Short Guide to the Bible. And it is really, really cool. It is that, A Short Guide to the Bible. And it's talking about how the Bible is laid out in Old Testament, New Testament. Who is the key characters? What is the main biblical theme? I mean, this is like a maybe 20, 30 page thing, very interactive, like visually, just graphically. It's fun. It's engaging. It draws you in. But it's kind of that. Let's figure out how we navigate the Bible. So very inexpensive resource, too, which was exciting. It's a small little paperback. You'll see a picture on my socials. Really liked that. I was very pleased. My only, I wish it gave the gospel better. And I get that that wasn't the purpose of this resource. It definitely says, you know, Romans 10, 9, you believe in your heart, you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. It doesn't give a strong talk about sin, but it wasn't really the point, right? if that makes sense. Like that wasn't the purpose of this. This is a, you know, here's who wrote the Bible and here's an overview of the main characters in the Bible and the biblical narrative, the story that's running from the Old Testament and the New Testament. It was that kind of stuff and not a, here's Jesus's story, what you need to know about sin and salvation. That wasn't the purpose of it, but I do wish it had been in there a little stronger. It is in there. It's not avoiding it. It definitely does not give the vibe that it is anti-Jesus is the only way. It's very clear on that, but I wish it would have given more. But otherwise, really like it. And then the fourth purchased thing, I only purchased four items for this, was an album from Seeds Family Worship. We are in a series called, I'm writing called Prayers, Praises, and Promises. So we've done a lot of prayer resources that we've sent home, kind of the DIY families making it, honestly. And I wanted to send home a praise thing. Seeds is amazing. They have bulk discounts for churches and how they do it because I polled my parents before. Do you guys want a physical CD or do you want a digital download? And I was actually surprised. Every one of them is like, we need digital. We don't have a CD player. So the way that Seeds does it is you get the physical CD with the download code in each one. Pretty cool. So we have a Seeds album. So I have those four physical things. And then I'm making a couple of other things that are going to go on there. Seeds, again, they're awesome. They put out a playlist very frequently. So I'm making a postcard with the QR code to their Spotify playlist. Yes, I just gave them an album. But the summer one has some people that aren't seeds. And I know my daughter enjoyed the Easter one. We played the Easter one at homeschool while she was blowing bubbles in the yard. So I think that's a key thing. You know, I send home... different postcards for different things, different QR codes. I make videos for my families on YouTube, a family devotion. So I'm going to make a postcard just kind of linking to that channel as a reminder that this is coming out. My plan for the resource station is to have these four for a while, you know, with some of the little like DIY things that I add. I've got a sign with Psalm 145, 4, which we just did in a family... event, the Sticky Faith event. That was a theme of that. So that's kind of like my focal viewpoint of the resource station. Then I'm going to have a little sign that's like, these are free to take to help you disciple. I want to do some resourcing for grandparents on there. I'm thinking like a grandparent prayer calendar. I've got coming out on July, the first Sunday in July, I'm going to put our VBS prayer calendar on that resource station and making sure it's getting home to not just family. So in the future, probably some marriage resources, some for grandparents, some for just, you know, couples, kids, teens, all sorts of stuff. I'll do holiday stuff. And my plan is kind of when I give it home in the classroom, then it will go, the extras will go in the resource station because we want to make sure that we are getting it home. This is my last point on resource stations is I can have really awesome resources that I have carefully selected, designated those, you know, precious few budget dollars to go towards. But if I don't make sure that they get home, what's the point? So here is how I have, and then I'll give you some points. Here's how I have made sure resources have gotten home. You don't leave my classroom unless you take the resource. So I'm at the door on the day that resources go home and I put it into the hands of moms and dads or the child, if the child is older, like you don't leave until you grab this and then you take it to your grownup. Honestly, that is the best way I have seen to make sure that things go home. Whether you are small church like me or big church, someone is at the door making sure that the right child goes with the right person. So have your table of whatever resource it is, make sure it goes home and then you put it on the resource station. afterwards for anyone who might have missed. Now there are some other things that you should be doing with these resources too. Cast the why. I've already made my newsletter for next Sunday and it's telling parents, hey, here's this resource station. There's gonna be a video that's gonna go home and an email. Here is why this is here. And then every time here is why this resource is going home. What's it for? You need to let people know that this stuff is there. So you have a new album going home from Seeds Family Worship. Awesome. If they don't know about it, they can't grab it. They can't listen to it. So I let parents know, hey, in my newsletter, this is coming out on this date. In the email, this is coming out. On social media, this is coming out. Then do some trainings on it. My husband, wonderful sounding board for me because he is not kidman. He is not kid geared, though he is an amazing father. So he gave me one of my aha moments years ago that, well, you know how to do all this because you work with kids. Not every parent does. So we need to be training parents on how to use stuff. And I don't mean like, here's how you put a CD player in. No, we need to train them how to use a devotion. Do they know? Like, do they really? Because there are parents who don't know how to navigate their own Bible. So how can they find something with their kids? Or, you know, just looking at like the family cookbook devotional. Do they know how to lead in prayer? This one has prayer stuff, if I could turn the pages. Do they know how to use like the Prayer points and pray together. Do they need some training? Do you have those training pieces, those key training pieces to maybe, here is how you use this devotion? They need to be there. Those training pieces are important. Utilize newsletters, emails, social media to inform parents that it's there, that it's coming. Inform them that it's there and then remind them that it's there too. That was another lesson that I'm thankful I learned all these lessons by failing. I sent home this really cool memory verse thing. It was a whole year of memory verses and like about March, I remembered to change mine and I posted a picture and put it up on social media and I had a mom go, oh, completely forgot to use it. I'm so glad you reminded me. I wanted to use it, forgot about it. So post those reminders, remind families through all of your channels. Hey, have you been using the super cool resource that we sent out? You can also ask the kids. They are very honest. Be like, did you guys listen to your new Seeds Power Praise album? Did you love it? What's your favorite song? That can be a reminder that they're missing out on something. I've also, if you've heard my family cookbook devotional story, I incentivize it with a prize. Send Miss Amber a picture of you making a devotion from this new thing that came out and you get this prize next week. They will do a lot for a dollar splat ball. I'm just saying. And then put it in their hands. Again, you don't leave. You don't get your kid until I give you this. You got to talk quick, especially if you have a lot of kids and parents that pick up. But you have to quickly, hey, this is going home. This is why. If you have done all these other things, you have told them it's coming in advance. If you're following up, if you've got videos, they will then understand everything. So it's kind of that quick pass off. Here's your kid. And here's the cool devotion that's coming home. We want to see. parents discipling their kids. We want to see families just living in the word together. We want to give them some good, amazing resources because maybe not every family knows where to find these. Maybe they want something fun to grow their faith. We want to equip parents with great quality Bible-centered stuff that they can use at home. And a resource station is a wonderful way to do that. You can display it. You can have kind of standard things for visiting families or new families. You can have featured things, holiday things. There are so many options when you're doing a resource station. So plan carefully. Where are you putting it? How are you setting it up? What frequency are you sending home things? What are you going to put on there for the first time? And how are you going to make sure that families are using it? Now, keep in mind, you could have the most amazing shelf station full of the best stuff. Budget is no issue. You could have done all of the things right and letting them know that it's there, reminding them, encouraging them, equipping them to do so, and they still might not use it. It is not up to you. That is a hard pill to swallow. Trust me. Been there, done that, and there. Not every parent is going to want to lead like you think they should be. It is not up to you. Your job, however, is to be faithful to equip parents. Encourage them, provide the things, train them, remind them, all of those things, but you can't make them do it. So be faithful to what God has called you to do. Start thinking through. If you don't have a resource station, What should yours look like? And if you do have a resource station, are there any changes that need to make? Do you need to do better at communicating? Do you need to stock it better? Do you need a different system because maybe it's just not working? Does it need to be in a different location? There's so many questions. If you have more questions, kind of specific, I would love to have a chat with you. I'd love to talk resourcing. Send me a message. Um, shoot me an email, apike at renewanation.org, apike0292 at gmail.com. You can go to amberpike.org and get some cool free. Um, there are a couple of free, but then there are a couple of purchase resources that you can print out. My Mother's Day and Father's Day resources are ones that could easily go in a prayer station. My family's sticky faith had a resource that could then later go in a prayer station. I've got some of those. Renewanation.org has got some stuff as well. Um, Just we've got all the things. Like I said, follow me on social media. I'm going to be putting up some pictures this week, a little video talking more about resource stations. And I would love to see yours. I would love to see how yours is set up. If it's a win, what resource have you found that maybe I don't know about yet that I want to know about? I have list after list of resources. I love talking it because it matters. right? We are equipping families who are discipling their kids, and we are growing the kingdom. And that's important. So, I'll talk to you guys soon, but remember, what you do matters.