Big News!!

Yesterday, I announced (via social media) a big secret I’ve been keeping…

I am officially under contract for my second book!! *cue all the confetti*

It’s been in the works for a while now but the deal was finalized last week. This is an incredible opportunity, especially since my publisher (RoseKidz) has recently merged with Tyndale House, so I’m a Tyndale House author now!

This new project is really special to me and I can’t wait to share more details later. The book will be released summer 2022. Like my first book, it will be a resource for Children’s Ministry leaders, homeschool groups, and Christian educators.

Thanks to my editor, Karen McGraw, who helped navigate all of the details!

Now, it’s time to write!!

P.S. If you’d like to check out my first book, you can find out more here.

P.S.S I will have one more special secret to fill you in on next week…stay tuned!

Let’s Catch Up!

Hey friends! It’s been a long, long time since I’ve posted here. So much has happened over the past few months and I have not shared in this space as much as I would’ve liked. I’ve missed you!

I wanted to bring you up to speed on what’s going on in my world and share about some new things I’m working on.

Ministry/Staff Changes

My church has done some staff restructuring over the past few months, affecting many departments, including Children’s Ministry. Because of these significant changes, I have restructured and streamlined Children’s Ministry as a whole.  This has meant realigning ministry areas, rewriting job descriptions, making our curriculum more cohesive, and raising up new team leaders.  In some areas, it has meant adopting new ways of doing ministry.  This has been a ton of work and continues to be, but my goal is sustainable, healthy ministry practices.  I’ll keep you posted.

New Ministry Programming

Typically, during times of transition, new programs aren’t added.  However, in the midst of restructuring our Children’s Ministry and working toward more sustainable, healthy practices, I have tuned in to some felt needs that we, as a ministry, needed to focus on.  Here are a few things we heard and how we are working on them.

Preschool parents are looking to connect with other preschool families.  Our church is blessed with an awesome weekday preschool and many of our families are connected through that.  However, there was a lack of connection for other preschool families.  One solution for this is to offer four (4) Preschool Family Experiences this ministry year.  The goal for these events is simply to provide an on-ramp for families to have faith conversations as well as connect with other preschool families. Our preschool curriculum is ah-mazing and provides these experiences to us with our curriculum subscription.  All I had to do was invite a group of gifted ladies to hear my vision about what I desired. They then took the material, ran with it and knocked it out of the park.  We hosted our first Preschool FX last month and welcomed 41 families (60+ preschoolers) – it was phenomenal.  I can’t wait for our next one, which will take place in January.

Elementary parents want resources to have faith conversations with their kids. A good number of our parents did not grow up in Christian homes and many are new believers themselves and don’t know how to have faith conversations with their children.  So, we plan to resource parents by offering START HERE, a resource provided by Orange.  We will customize the content to fit into a 30-minute parent meeting (on a Sunday morning, between services), to put materials in their hands and answer questions.  I am excited to teach this class next Sunday!

Outside Projects

Over the past few months, I’ve also had the privilege of doing some freelance writing for various groups as well as teach a workshop based on my book at KidMin Mega Con in Nashville last week. (If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve seen the pics!)  I also recorded a podcast with Stuff You Can Use: A Children’s Ministry Community.

So, lots has been keeping me busy, but most of it is fun busy!  On that note, that’s a great intro for me to share two new projects I have been working on.

The Expert Interviews: All About Family Ministry

Earlier this year, a new ministry friend (Keith Ferrin), invited me to be part of a family ministry resource project that he was working on.  Well, I’m thrilled to announce The Expert Interviews: All About Family Ministry, a collaborative project with 20 leading voices in family ministry.  I am honored to have shared ways for new family ministry leaders to lay a solid foundation.  This newly-released book can be found here.

Get Certified in Children’s Ministry! 

The other project that I’m excited to share with you is that I – I can’t believe it! – will be an online instructor for beadisciple.com. The Children’s Ministry certification track has been redeveloped and relaunched and I look forward to participating as an online instructor!  This is one of those ‘never in a million years would I ever do THAT’ opportunities – it certainly wasn’t on my radar of bucket list items – but God had other plans.  This rookie instructor will be developing my course content from scratch.  Wow.  I’ll be teaching a six-week class next spring on teaching theology topics to children in age-appropriate, engaging ways.  Registration opens next week.  Come learn with me! You can find out more here.

Well folks, that’s a peek into what I’ve been up to lately!  I’ll keep you posted along the way.  In the meantime, drop me a line in the comments, on social media or via email and let me know what you’re up to – I’d love to connect with you!

Blessings!

10 Things I’ve Learned As a First-Time Author

10 Things I've Learned As a First-Time Author

A few months ago, I shared here about my latest project (my first book – you can read that post here.)  Now that the manuscript has been submitted (AMEN and HALLELUJAH!), I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned along the way as a first-time author.  Here they are in no particular order:

1. A patient editor is a God-send.  As a first-time author, I had a lot of questions.  A LOT.  Brenda, my editor, answered every question and did so graciously and with no judgment.

2. Some things will go undone around the house, such as laundry, meal prep, dusting, grocery shopping, opening mail, etc.  There are only 24 hours in a day and you just can’t get it all done.  You have to give yourself a little grace…which leads me to point #3.

3. You’ll lean on your family more, especially as deadlines loom.  Everyone in my house pitches in on a regular basis but I delegated tasks a lot more as my workload increased.  I’m so thankful for them!

4. You’ll say ‘no’ to things more than ever, even if those things are good things.  I said ‘no’ to family events, outings with friends, and a few outside projects.  It was tough but thankfully, reading Lysa TerKeurst’s book, The Best Yes, a few years ago prepared me for this season of my life.

5. You will doubt yourself and cry…a few times.  I cannot recall how many times I cried on my husband’s shoulder and asked him, “What did I say yes to?”; “What was I thinking?”; and”Why did you encourage me to do this?”  This project challenged me like no other and made me question my sanity, my skill set, my everything!

6. You will experience supernatural strength.  As each deadline neared, I felt excited energy and a sense of being overwhelmed all at the same time.  When the clock showed an ungodly early hour, God gave me the strength to finish.  I was like the little engine that could – with His strength, not mine.

7. Work within your own rhythms.  Find what works for you.  I researched the writing habits of some of my favorite authors early on in this process.  Some of them wrote early in the morning before their families began their day.  Some had a particular writing space where they put their words on paper.  I am not a morning person, so that was definitely not going to be my story.  In addition, I varied the places where I wrote.  Later this week, I hope to post about my writing process in a little more detail.  Stay tuned…

8. Being surrounded by a few of your favorite things helps make the writing process more enjoyable.  My favorite candle, my favorite coffee, a bowl of peanut M & M’s and my Spotify playlist provided the ambiance for my writing.  Perfect.

9.  You’ll feel a great sense of relief (and accomplishment) when you click ‘send’ for the final piece of the manuscript.  You might even do a happy dance.  No explanation needed. 🙂

10.  You will develop a greater appreciation for people who write for a living.  Really, people who write for a living are my new heroes.  It takes a great amount of discipline, creativity and perseverance to push through the book writing process.  And for those of you who work a full-time job and write in your spare time, bravo to you!

I’ve learned so much more but these 10 things stand out to me the most.  I would also like to share one thing that I was reminded of:  I love creating things and infusing my own ideas into a project.  One of the challenges that I welcomed for this project was the fact that I’d be creating something from scratch.  The ideas shared in the book are some of my best ideas and show my creative side.  I can’t wait for you to see the finished book when it’s released in September 2017!

If you’d like to pre-order the book, you can find more details here.  Order one for yourself and for anyone you know who wants to share God’s truths in a fun, creative, hands-on way.

Keep the conversation going!  What have you learned as an author (either blogs, articles or books)?