Welcome back to #TheBaconLegacy! Today’s post is near and dear to my heart, it’s all about Missions, specifically BGMC (Boys & Girls Missionary Challenge!) I’ve given to BGMC since I was a cute little kiddo running through the halls of First Assembly of God in Warren, Ohio. I proudly gave to BGMC in college, every Missions Convention, as best as my poor college self could. And now I am honored to be a Kids Pastor leading BGMC in my local church.

“BGMC is the missions education program for all kids in the Assemblies of God. BGMC equips kids to know, care, pray, give, and reach the lost. We have a two-fold purpose: to reach the children of the world with the love of Jesus and to create a heart of compassion in kids.”

So how does one unleash generosity in their church, rallying the entire church for a BGMC Adventure? Let me give you a few steps on how I’ve led successful BGMC challenges for the entire church!

1. Set the Stage

Decorate your church for missions! From the time someone walks through your front doors, in the church lobby, and to the main stage make sure the people see and feel something Missions are the focus. Decorate every Kids & Youth environment. Set up colorful banners, and hang up international flags from your ceilings and walls to communicate the global reach your church will have. Scream missions with your decor!

2. Mobilize the Next Generation

4 weeks before our BGMC challenge we pass out Buddy Barrels to our every single person in our church. From adults to youth and down to kids, everyone gets a BGMC Barrel to fill up. We empower our elementary children to pass our barrels to the adults as they exit the adult service. Adults are happy to see the children and the children are so excited and passionate about passing out the Barrels, it works so well!

3. The Adventure Unfolds

Barrels are being filled up! Kids, teens & adults are sharing stories of how they sacrificed to fill up their barrel for BGMC. In all our environments (Preschool, Elementary, Youth, Young Adults & Adults at every campus) we are all preaching a Missions Focused series. The missions series is twofold: teaching the congregation about the needs of the world and inspiring a heart of compassion in every congregant. Simply, the world needs to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we give financially so others may hear.

Two weeks before the big coin offering, the special day the entire church brings their filled-up Buddy Barrel back to church, we ask all the church to wear cultural attire to Sunday morning services. This helps us embrace every culture represented in our congregation, helps everyone remain focused on learning about new cultures, and continues to build momentum for the Big Give Sunday!

4. Unite Hearts Through Worship

Finally, the day has arrived and your church is ready for The Big Give! We have all of our missionaries line the front of the stage with their families, standing in front of large bright-colored buckets. And the entire church begins to worship, this is usually led by a high-energy worship song. During the worship song, our Senior Pastor invites the church to forward and empty their Buddy Barrel into one of the big buckets as we worship together. The children are invited to give the offering first, followed by the youth, and then finally all the adults. The energy in the room with everyone worshipping together as we give our offering unto the Lord is so special.

5. Count Your Blessings & Count Your Coins

After the people have left the work of counting all those coins begins. Counting an offering this large will take a few days of volunteers counting and rolling coins. An atmosphere of excitement, passion, and generosity will exceed all expectations! This will reinforce to your congregation the belief that when we all come together the impact is boundless!

I pray that BGMC & Missions will resonate in your church walls! I pray that your BGMC Adventure will be more than just a fundraising campaign but one of unity, compassion, and love! As you look back on the Adventure, stand united, knowing that together, you made a significant impact on the world.

I pray that all will join us in celebrating the joy of giving, the power of unity, and the beauty of a church family coming together for a mission that truly was possible — a BGMC adventure that will forever be etched in your hearts.

Have questions? Hit me up in the comments! I’d love for you to share this with another Pastor or leader in ministry. I pray this helps you as you minister to the Next Generation of Jesus Christ! #BeBacon

I love you! Jesus loves you! Go out and #BeBacon!

Are you looking for a fun and easy way to create custom t-shirts for your children’s ministry volunteers? One option is to use a heat press and transfer paper from a company like Transfer Express.

First, start by selecting a design for your t-shirts. This can be a logo or graphic that represents your ministry, or a fun and catchy phrase that relates to your mission. You can create your design using graphic design software like Adobe Illustrator or Canva, or you can purchase pre-made designs from sites like Etsy.

Next, print your design onto the transfer paper by ordering your custom design from Transfer Express. Once your design is printed on the transfer paper, you’ll need to cut it out so it is the same size as your t-shirt. You can use scissors or a cutting machine to make this pressing process easier.

After you have cut out your design, you’ll need to preheat your heat press to the appropriate temperature for the type of shirt you are using.

Once the press is heated, place the shirt on the press and align the transfer paper with the shirt so the design is where you want it. Use the heat press to transfer the design onto the shirt by following the manufacturer’s instructions for time and temperature. Here is the link to the t-shirt press we use!

Finally, let the shirt cool for a bit before removing the transfer paper. That’s it! You now have custom t-shirts for your volunteers that they’ll be proud to wear. (Peep our t-shirt press & boxes of transfers in background of this picture, below)

You can also use a regular Iron to do the job, but the heat press is faster and gives a more professional look. This process is a great way to create custom t-shirts for your children’s ministry volunteers that are both fun and functional.

Another great benefit of using a heat press and transfer paper to create custom t-shirts for your children’s ministry volunteers that it is a cost-effective solution. Buying pre-made shirts or using a professional printing service can be expensive, especially if you need to create a large number of shirts. By using a heat press, you can create custom shirts for a fraction of the cost.

By using transfer paper, you don’t need to worry about screen printing costs or minimum order quantities. You can order just the amount of transfer paper you need, and print as many or as few shirts as you’d like. This can be especially useful if you have a small group of volunteers, or if you need to create shirts for special events or short-term projects.

Overall, using a heat press and transfer paper is a cost-effective and versatile solution for creating custom t-shirts for your children’s ministry volunteers. So, give it a try and see how much money you can save while creating shirts that your volunteers will love!

Water Baptism is such an important step for every Christian! But if you’re like my church, you don’t have a usable indoor water baptism tub. And if you’re like us, you’re looking to purchase a horse trough or even a few horse troughs to baptize all your new disciples of Jesus Christ! Or maybe your inner hipster is wanting more galvanized metal in your church’s aesthetic. Either way, I’m about that life.

#ShamelessBlogPromotion If your church doesn’t have a discipleship process to walk students through their next steps after salvation, you’re missing out. We all need a systematic process that leads students through important faith milestones like studying the Bible, learning how to pray, and making the decision to get water baptized… click here, I’d love to share my process with you.

Why did we buy Horse Troughs? We bought 6 horse troughs primarily to have water baptism on-site at all of our campuses! Our church is located in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And most of our water baptisms take place at the beach. The beach is awesome and I think it really emphasizes the public declaration of getting water baptized. However, we wanted a portable option to host water baptisms on-site at all of our campuses!

Our horse troughs are 8ft long, 2ft tall & 3ft wide. (Click here to purchase your own tubs.) I think it’s the perfect size for adults & students but they come in all shapes and dimensions. We wanted to have the flexibility of baptizing lots of people quickly or just bringing out 1 tub for small groups. The largest group of people we baptized at once was 142 people and it felt pretty quick with all 6 tanks going. But we’ve also enjoyed the flexibility of 1 tank and as few as 8 people getting baptized.

How long do they take to fill up & drain out? This is what makes horse troughs so great, set up & tear down is a breeze! It only takes 20 minutes to fill up with a water hose! After the pools are filled up we pour in 2 cups of above-ground swimming pool chlorine to keep things sanitary. And draining out is so simple too! When you unscrew the bottom drain plug, it takes about 10 minutes for the tanks to drain out. This was a huge time saver compared to lots of other options we had looked into. For one big event our church was hosting, we used 2 above-ground swimming pools! It was awesome but the pools took 8–10 hours to fill up and setting up the pool took a couple hours too. It was possible, but the effort and time it took to just get the pools ready were just too much. We knew there had to be a better option.

“Do not confuse things that are hard with things that are valuable. Many things in life are hard. Just because you are giving a great effort does not mean you are working toward a great result. Make sure that mountain is worth climbing.”

— James Clear

How do we dress up the horse trough to make it look less horse trough-looking? I personally love the galvanized raw metal look, but it doesn’t fit into every setting well. My church leans more traditional so we decided to get creative. We measured the circumference of each horse trough with a flexible tape measure and we designed & printed custom banners to wrap around each tank. We added velcro to the top & bottom of each banner and to the top & bottom of the circumference of the horse troughs to hold the banner securely. This turned out great and really gives the horse troughs a finished look!

Build quality & durability. The galvanized metal of the horse trough is extremely durable! The troughs are designed to be heavy duty, left outside amidst all the elements, and built to last! I was initially worried about the top edge of the trough getting sharp edges but these tanks have held up so well! These tanks have been loaded in & out of pickup trucks, slid across church hallways, and stored deeply in our storage facility but they have taken almost no damage. We feel confident in our investment in these tubs knowing they will last a very long time!

Indoor & Outdoor Use. We have used our horse troughs outside for big events and indoors during our worship services. One of our campuses had a water baptism service during their Sunday morning worship service and they put the tub right in the middle of the sanctuary stage! It was so cool! The tank didn't leak at all, and it worked perfectly! Primarily, we have used our tanks outdoors. Fort Lauderdale has warm weather all year so that helps a ton but the flexibility of using the tubs in different locations is huge!

Perfect for adults, students & kids. Horse troughs are the perfect size for all! We specifically bought tanks that were 7ft long so we wouldn’t have any issues with adults. Even if Shaquille O’Neal wanted to get water baptized in our horse trough, I think we could make it work. But the horse troughs are wide enough for all, we’ve even fit 2 siblings next to each other so they could be water baptized together and it was still plenty wide enough. Initially, I was concerned the height of the tanks would be an issue but we’ve actually had plenty of room to fully submerge each person under the water.

Fear of drowning is minimized. One of the largest issues we’ve encountered when we have Water Baptisms on the beach or even when we used the swimming pools is the fear of drowning. We have seen many children, teens, and even adults who are afraid to get into the ocean or a big swimming pool. However, the horse troughs take all of this fear away. The tank is only 2ft deep. Kids, teens & adults can all easily keep their heads above the water line simply by sitting in the tank. This really removes a big concern for lots of our congregation & community!

Wrapping Up. Horse Trough water baptisms are amazing! If you’re looking for a portable water baptism setup or looking to mix things up and put a water baptism tank in the center of your sanctuary stage, horse troughs have you covered!

Have questions? Hit me up in the comments! I’d love for you to share this with another Pastor or leader in ministry. I pray this helps you as you minister to the Next Generation of Jesus Christ! #BeBacon

I love you! Jesus loves you! Go out and #BeBacon!

I love Linktree! I use it every week to keep all our important files & links in one place, so our volunteers can easily find and interact with them! (Check out our Surge Kids Volunteer Linktree here!) I love that Linktree is free and customizable, even with the free option! The best feature of Linktree is that you can easily subscribe to the page so you can be updated when new information is updated. These updates can be sent to you by Email, Text, or WhatsApp.

I utilize Linktree in a few main ways:

Current Curriculum for Elementary & Preschool. This is an easy no-brainer. Every church uses some sort of curriculum each week and it must be easily accessible for all your volunteers. I remember the Sunday so clearly, I had a key volunteer scheduled to teach the Bible story but she struggled to find the attached PDF on the scheduling request. She planned to come in early and study the printed lesson we have ready for all our teachers. I went onto the app we use for scheduling and I have to admit it was difficult to find the attached pdf, especially on your phone.

“I wish the curriculum was easier to find.” — Committed Bible Story Teacher

The following Monday we started using Linktree to send the curriculum to volunteers. Now everyone can easily access the curriculum. We update this link every Monday. For the curriculum links, we use Google Drive.

Current Worship Set. Our church has 4 campuses & only the central campus has staffing. The other 3 campuses are led by Leaders & Volunteers. A few months back, I asked our campus Kids Directors what the weakest segment of their services was and they all agreed it was worship. I was floored. Our central campus Kids Worship was always amazing, even with a rotating group of worship leaders. As I began to ask why the worship segment was so weak the resounding answer was the songs were overplayed. Each campus had the same 30 songs I uploaded to their ProPresenter computer when their campus launched, and each campus had about 10–15 they liked the most. Where the central campus found new songs & videos regularly. So we made an easy change, all the campuses would sing the same songs. The songs would be uploaded to Google Drive weekly and shared on Linktree so the campuses could easily download them to their computer for Sunday!

Volunteer Training Videos. This is an important button on our Linktree. Right now our goal is to release a new training video, each month, to our Surge Kids Volunteers. It’s a big undertaking but the results are worth it.

“You don’t find great leaders, you build great leaders.” — Craig Groeschel

I want the best volunteers possible, and that starts with me. During Covid, I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that in-person training meetings are good but I could only train the people in the room. When my team grew and the new volunteers needed that same training I taught a few months back, I had to teach it again. As I was editing one of my online Surge Kids Services I thought to myself, “What if I did this for our volunteers?” The idea had so many benefits, I could send the video link to all our campuses, I could send it around the world, and I could send it to anyone! It was a Eureka-type moment.

For most of our Surge Kids Training Videos, we have used the Accelerate Curriculum from Brian Dollar & High Voltage Kids. All our Surge Kids Training Videos are stored on YouTube, I’d love it if you checked them out. I’d love it even more if you shared them with your team.

Reading With Our Team. Each quarter I ask all of our volunteers to read 1 book. Currently, we are reading, “If Disney Ran Your Children’s Ministry: 10 Keys from Disney’s Sucess” by Bruce Barry, Dale Hudson, and Justyn Smith. I encourage you to support these incredible authors but believe it or not, this book is free to read on Hoopla! What’s Hoopla? Hoopla is a free online website where you can read 8 books per month for free! Hoopla has ebooks & audiobooks completely free, all you need is a local library card.

“Leaders are readers… probably.” — E.W. Christofis (My fancy author name)

New Volunteer Application. I want all our volunteers to share in the responsibility of growing our volunteer team! Having our new volunteer application easily accessible is key! I talk to a lot of Ministry Leaders who don’t have a volunteer application and you know what else they don’t have? Volunteers. Do you want to grow your volunteer team? Make an application now. Print them out! Make your application easily accessible online! (Here are examples of our Kids & Youth Ministry Applications.)

Policies & Procedures. Think of Policies & Procedures like the guard rails for your ministry. This PDF gives general guidelines for all volunteers & leaders to adhere to while serving in our Kids Ministry. This PDF has very important topics like First Time Guest Check-in & Check-out, First Aid, Proper Classroom Discipline, Restroom Policy, Dress Code, and many more!

“Put jobs in writing, now, before people show up.” — Jim Wideman

Overall, I use Linktree in a few more ways but I’ll probably get into some of those deeper in another post. Does your church use Linktree? Are you interested enough to try out Linktree for your ministry?

Have questions? Hit me up in the comments! I’d love for you to share this with another Pastor or leader in ministry. I pray this helps you as you minister to the Next Generation of Jesus Christ!

I love you! Jesus loves you! Go out and #BeBacon!

Before I jump into this post, thanks for reading, thanks for your feedback, and a reminder the underlined portions are hyperlinks that are clickable and usually important but sometimes just funny, clicker beware. Alright, let’s jump into another post #BeBacon

The school year is fast approaching! You know what I’m talking about, Walmart has their back-to-school supplies at every entrance blocking main isles, so everyone is forced to awe in amazement at their incredible sales. Notebooks are thirty-five cents, gel pens have never been cheaper, and the massive internal struggle of every parent is taking place between saving money on Cray-Z-Art supplies or buying brand name Crayola runs rampant along every aisle.

First off, why would your church even consider hosting a back-to-school or end-of-summer event? Easy, every church would love to grow by reaching to young families who don’t currently attend your church. The goal of your church is to reach people who don’t currently know Jesus. Two, there are families in your local community who need help purchasing school supplies for their children, I promise you they are there. Three, and maybe the most important, there are families near your church that may never attend one of your Sunday morning services. However, I bet these families are so much more willing to attend a free family event where their children & students receive a free backpack or school supplies or BOTH!

Today, let me explain how I have led & hosted back-to-school events at my church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For the past 5 years, we have hosted an end-of-summer event where we have given out about 1,500 backpacks per year to our community. In this article: I will explain how we get the backpacks & school supplies donated, how to promote the event to the community, and how the actual event takes place.

How do we get 1,500 backpacks? This number is large because we’re a large church, but also because this is a God-sized task. Reaching your community & ministering to new families will be hard work but it’s possible. Every July we print 2,500 supply list flyers, that look like this. Four weeks before the event we line our main worship center stage with brightly colored paper bags with 1 double-sided supply list flyer in each bag. (You can buy the same bags on Amazon) We get volunteers to come out and help this setup process fly by. This is also a great time to have your team pray over the bags & flyers before the congregation takes them.

“Remember, the battle is first won in the spiritual before it’s ever won in the physical!” — E.W. Christofis (My fancy author name…short for Erakles William)

At about the middle of our Sunday morning worship service, our Lead Pastor casts the vision for these bags and why they are important. (Here’s the script, to give you an idea of what was said.) Usually, all the bags are taken within the first couple of weeks by families committing to go out and purchase a backpack and fill it up with the supplies we’ve requested. We ask that the bags are brought back into the church 1 week before the event so we can go through them. We have to make sure the bags are safe and uniform for each child. My favorite part of this portion of the event is hearing testimonies of families in our church who bought a backpack filled it with all the school supplies and then prayed over it before they brought it back to the church.

“Raise your children with a heart of compassion for the lost!” — E.W. Christofis

How do we promote this event? If you’re gonna have 1,500 backpacks full of school supplies you better make sure people know about the event. The best way IMO to promote any event is word of mouth. Getting children, students, and families to personally invite their friends and family who don’t know Jesus is key! Our church prints 10,000 double-sided flyers and bundles them in stacks of 10. Every child, student, and adult is challenged to leave with a bundle and to invite 10 people to the event. Two, we print a road banner and hang it outside near our main entrance, we see thousands of cars who pass it every day. Three, we promote online! We have an event on Facebook, Eventbrite & our church website. These 3 ways work the best for us. Do you promote events differently at your church? Tell me how in the comments.

How does the actual event take place? Our goal for every big family event, our church hosts, is to tell people about the love of Jesus Christ. So we host a short 30–40minute family service. The service is high energy and everything is geared toward kids & students. We have each family who attends our event check-in by providing us their name, cell phone number & email. Once each family is registered every child & student receives a golden ticket ensuring they will receive a backpack full of school supplies. (This ensures we don’t have more students than backpacks. For example, if we have 1,513 backpacks we have 1,513 golden tickets at check-in. If we run out of backpacks, we have a special IOU, with instructions for those families to pick up their bags the following Sunday.)

Once the family service begins, our Lead Pastor will greet every family and personally invite them all back to our normal Sunday morning services. Usually, we offer every child a free slushy if they come back to church the following Sunday. (Free slushies are incredibly attractive for kids, the machine was expensive but man do kids love them. We also sell slushies every Sunday to help offset all the free ones we pass out to first-time guests.)

During the service, we have 2 high-energy praise songs that engage the kids. Then we’ll have one of our Pastors come out and give a short message with a big object lesson ending with a salvation prayer. And guys, it works every time. Seeing a room full of new families in your church raise their hands and pray the salvation prayer is so exciting! (Make sure you follow up with those families! If your church doesn't have a next steps process for kids & students, try this one out!)

Allow me to wrap this up, back-to-school events are incredible. Blessing your community with the tangible love of Jesus Christ, in the physical form of a backpack full of school supplies can be so impactful but also a lot of work. I hope I gave you a simple vision of how we lead & host this event in South Florida.

“The vision works, when you work on the vision. The vision is simple but the work is hard.” — Dr. Thomas Manning (My Lead Pastor)

Have questions? Hit me up in the comments! I’d love for you to share this with another Pastor or leader in ministry. I pray this helps you as you minister to the Next Generation of Jesus Christ!

I love you! Jesus loves you! Go out and #BeBacon!

You just preached the best sermon you ever preached, in your entire life! And as you give the salvation call, every hand in the room is going up! The excitement is so real! You lead the entire room in the salvation prayer, wrapping up with the big “…in Jesus’ name, amen!” All these students just gave their hearts to the Lord, but what happens next? In the words of James Clear, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” So what does your Salvation system/process look like? (I’d love to hear yours in the comments)

For a long time, my system was really basic. I would give every child who accepted Jesus a little pocket-sized book that walks them through a short discipleship process on the decision they just made. Over the years, I dressed the book up a bit more. I put the book in a custom-printed plastic bag labeled “I Have Decided” with some candy, a card with a QR code/link to download a digital copy of the Bible, and another with a text keyword for them to sign up for water baptism. Overall, the process was ok but wasn’t effective. Most of the kids just ate the candy and the bag never made it home. The real goal was for the kids and parents to read the book together as a family to celebrate and reinforce the student’s decision to follow Jesus, but my system was just ok. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t good and it definitely wasn’t bacon.

“What’s bacon and how does it relate to ministry?” you may ask. Allow me to explain. When it comes to the breakfast foods: bacon & eggs, who is more committed, the chicken or the pig? I’ll give you a second to put that together…. In order for the chicken to lay eggs, it just pops something out that it can easily make again, eggs. Yes, eggs have doo-doo on them when they drop out of the chicken…. #Ewwwww. On the flip side, the pig has to die in order to become the greatness it was destined to become, crispy…delicious…scrumptious…bacon. For us to be the best, most effective ministers of the gospel we can be, it requires us to die to ourselves, our work ethic, our calendar, our character, and so much more to be all that God has called us to be. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s always easier to be eggs. Just throw a couple of things in a bag, pass them out to kids who raised their hands, and trust that the process will work…until it doesn’t. #Eggs

Let me share with you the most #Bacon Next Steps process that I developed with our NXT GEN Team at Christian Life Center. This Next Steps process is the same across all our family ministries from kids to young adults. Keeping the process consistent and similar across the board was intentional. For example, say an entire family gives their life to Jesus at the same time. That family can walk through the Next Steps process in alignment from beginning to end, fostering unity not only within their family but within our church body.

So without further ado, the NXT GEN Next Steps Process… (As you wrap up your message, “…in Jesus’ name, amen!”)

1. Text “Next” to 954–320–0009 Next Steps Text Graphic
2. The Student receives an automatic text message reply that reads something like this… “Congrats on your decision to follow Jesus! Check out our digital NXT GEN Next Steps Book https://tinyurl.com/CLCNXTGEN Love, The NXT GEN Team” Digital NXT GEN Next Steps Book
3. Follow up! Every Monday for 6 weeks we send an automated text with a short discipleship video from one of our Pastors on the NXT GEN team. (Here are all 6 videos)

The topics covered in the 6 videos:

1. Congrats & Information
2. Studying Your Bible
3. Learning How to Pray
4. Connect to Church & Small Groups
5. Be Baptized
6. Live a Life of Worship

We only have one opportunity to disciple students through an incredible, life-changing decision and that is why it is important that we implement a system that doesn’t leave our people high and dry, but intentionally guides them through the next steps after their salvation.

Now, I know I joke that this is the greatest Next Steps process, ever… but what do you think? Have questions? Hit me up in the comments! I’d love for you to share this with another Pastor or leader in ministry. I pray this helps you as you minister to the Next Generation of Jesus Christ.

Let me close out my first blog post, ever, with a quote from Brian P. Morgan. “It’s not what you know; it’s not even who you know; it’s what you implement that counts.” If you are interested in receiving more resources & content to help you be a more effective minister as you raise up the Next Generation of Jesus Christ… feel free to subscribe, BUT it’s up to you to implement this stuff. Knowledge is cool, execution is better.

I love you! Jesus loves you! Go out and #BeBacon!