Free CM Stuff

Innovative Missions Effort–Rice Bowls

Andy Johnson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:00:14 +0000

Rice Bowls is one of the most creative missions ideas I have seen in a long time. I have previously blogged about another (almost) free missions opportunity through Voice of the Martyrs called Prisoner Alert. You can also get free Action Packs from VOM, however, you have to pay the shipping fees.

Rice Bowls, is truly a “free” missions opportunity for your kids and families. Here’s the deal:

You request a certain number of “Rice Bowls.” They ship them to you free of charge. These rice bowls are plastic banks in which kids can deposit coins and bills.
You promote what you are doing by using promotional materials from their website and provide dates and guidelines for your people.
Collect the bowls full of currency.
Break them open using a creative means of your choice (we found hammers and “multi-tool” saws to be effective)!
Deposit all the money and send Rice Bowls a check.

We did this as our VBS missions emphasis this year and raised over $1700 for Rice Bowls. The kids really got into it!

God’s Kids Worship Give Away Winner

Andy Johnson — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:00:32 +0000

Congratulations to:

Becki Smith!

One More Way to Treasure God’s Word

Andy Johnson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:21 +0000

I posted on this very helpful Bible study website before, when it was called The Greek Study Bible. However, it has changed names and is full of many improved features. I thought it definitely deserved a repost.

Great Treasures is a colossal effort by a guy named John Simon who has developed a healthy appetite for the Greek Language. Great Treasures, however is so much more than just a Greek tool. It features:

Side by side translation comparisons
Ability to place your own notes in connection with a particular text
Word studies
Concordance of user-selected words
Accurate definitions of Greek biblical vocabulary (in English, of course!)

Is this a tool for kids? No. Is it a tool for those who teach kids? YES!

I firmly believe that in order to communicate God’s Word to kids we must go even deeper on our own than the general message we want kids to hear. This resource helps you do that. Let this be a tool to help change you spiritually so that your teachings and messages to kids will be an overflow of what God is doing in your life. Do not neglect this tool! It is incredible!!!!!

Mail Chimp–Free Email Marketing for Parents and Volunteers

Andy Johnson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:34:44 +0000

Mail Chimp is a great tool for tracking your mass emails to parents and volunteers. I am amazed that they offer so much for the free service. The free service allows you to store up to 500 email addresses (plenty for most churches) as well as send up to 3,000 emails per month. So if you had 500 addresses, you could send 6 mass emails per month free of charge. They also offer a 15% discount to non-profits.

I’m really looking forward to using this in a similar way that Jonathan Cliff does (only I believe he uses Constant Contact-a paid service). Jonathan sends out weekly update and leadership videos to his volunteers. He utilizes Vimeo for this. Mail Chimp will allow you to communicate things like this to your people as well as keep track of who actually has opened the email and who clicked on the links within it.

Free Church Forms

Andy Johnson — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:12:45 +0000

If you are looking for a good place for form templates, check out Free Church Forms. They have templates for all areas of church ministry. They are initially in PDF form, but the site suggests you go to PDF2Word Online to convert the files to a Word document.

Wednesday Give Away–Fall Quarter of God’s Kids Worship

Andy Johnson — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:40:35 +0000

God’s Kids Worship is on to something. They have an interesting niche in the kids worship market in that they have put together sets of music so that your worship leaders don’t even need to choose which songs they are doing each week. It is a sort of curriculum for worship.

The DVD’s are designed to be used with any kids ministry gathering, no matter what the curriculum. They worked hard to make it easy for a volunteer to use just the parts thye want, when they want them. Leaders can simply sing 1 or 2 songs, mix and match with other DVD’s, or have an entire worship event by adding their own message.

The music they use is great and the backgrounds are generally good, though I think you will find a little higher production in the Shout Praises and Hillsong series of worship. With that said, it is still a top notch worship company that produces quality material with which your ministry will benefit.

God’s Kids Worship is kind enough to be giving away 1 Fall quarter of the Modern Worship DVD Series ($60 Value). All you have to do is place a comment below answering the question: “What do I want kids to know about worship?”

I’ll randomly pick a winner next Thursday September 2nd!

Online Registration for the Small Church

Andy Johnson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:00:54 +0000

If you only have a few events each year and you want to step up to online registration, you may want to try Sign-Up-Sheet. You could go the absolutely simple route of using a Google form, but Sign-Up-Sheet provides you will the opportunity to build a bit of a community around your event by incorporating details which come later and event discussion by those who register. Check it out, I think it can be a great small church tool!

The Jackpot of Motion Graphics!

Andy Johnson — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:00:13 +0000

When my friend told me today about Red Ferris Wheel, I almost plucked my eyeball out in sheer excitement. Zach Fonville has provided us with a host of free still images and motion backgrounds. It is a HUGE collection! Download them now for your worship environments!

Google Reader–Keep up with your favorite blogs and websites

Andy Johnson — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:58:12 +0000

Want a simple way to keep up with this website as well as many other websites you check out regularly for new content?

If so, humor me a moment and follow this highly logical formula:

Free CM Stuff has around 1,000 different visitors (individuals) each month.
Only about 10% of you subscribe to an RSS feed (generally a blog reader).
It is deduced, then, that 90% of you are returning back to Free CM Stuff to find new content on a regular (monthly) basis.
Therefore, it’s highly likely you are wasting a lot of time checking on websites…

The solution for you pitiful souls…Google Reader. Google reader is a web interface that allows you to view the content of a website (not the whole web site) in an organized fashion. In fact, you can view a TON of websites all within this easy to navigate web page. Check it out, and be sure to subscribe to Free CM Stuff and all your other favorite CM blogs while you are at it! Contact me if you have questions: andy @ freecmstuff dot com.

Free Packaged Volunteer Recruitment Campaign–”Make a Difference”

Andy Johnson — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:00:25 +0000

I’m not big on pulpit pleas, but I do find a good deal of fruit in volunteer recruitment through a sweeping campaign each year. I do not just accept people on the spot (I’m big on interviewing, conducting personal asks, and placing according to passions and gifts). We use this campaign to educate the congregation about upcoming ministries and make sure new people know there is a great opportunity to serve kids. We allow people to show interest in a particular position and then follow up with them with applications, interviews, and orientations. Here’s what I am doing this year. I have packaged it in a generic fashion so that your church can use almost everything I will be using.

“Make a Difference” Recruitment Campaign

8.5 x 11 Logo
11 x 17 Logo (for wall posters)
Adjustable Bulletin Insert
Recruitment Video–Available here on Vimeo for download in HD MPEG (see below)