Mr. Mark's Classroom

  Many teachers are just sorting through great ideas to use this month, so I want to offer a few I learned from my good friend, Carrie Wood. She does a fantastic job at First Baptist Church of McAlester, Oklahoma and has for many years. Thank you Carrie for sharing these ideas!  Kazoo Parade- Kids […]

    My friend, Carrie Wood came up with some terrific ideas to use in the classroom and they help us all to remember what we are thankful for this year. I plan to use a few of these with my kids this November as we get closer to Thanksgiving. I only have a couple […]

  Through all the years of serving the church I have learned some things that I want to pass on to you over the next few weeks.  We don’t have to learn everything the hard way.  For me, there have been times of learning when I blew it and was stung so I never forgot […]

We have families coming to our churches that are looking for a church home. How do you measure up?  Have you thought about how your ministry is being perceived? What does the physical appearance look like? What does your promotional material look like? In this podcast, I bring up several things we need to consider […]

I hope you will enjoy this encore podcast about starting a new year of school and a new year of classes at church. I have been teaching Kindergarten each week, as well as fourth graders on Wednesday nights. I am loving my time to build relationships with the children and teaching the Bible. Building relationships […]

  Here is part two of this encore podcast with Miss Amy Adams. Our ministry hinges on our relationships. Everything God does is through relationships. It is worth stopping and evaluating how you are doing with the relationships God has given you. Change your negative thinking into positive behavior. You are spending way too much […]

Mr Mark, Have you worked with people who are always talking about their successes? For Months? Makes me wanna barf! The thing is, they are self-promoting to feel valued so I guess they are insecure with who they are or what they do. Here’s a better question, “Are you that guy?” I want to help […]

  Are you easily distracted?  I know I am. Often, I get my best work done the last hour of the day when I’m all alone in my office. I used to work later and later, but Connie, my wife, made a rule that I had to be home to eat supper at 6:30 pm. […]

  It is scary to think we could be looking at the first generation of biblically illiterate kids. Yes, the kids we are teaching right now. I’m not even convinced their parents are biblically literate. These are the future leaders of our churches. Please take a moment and think with me about this. When I […]

  Three things to know when you begin to gather and provide parenting helps: What is the age group you want to target? Younger Preschool, Older Preschool, Younger Children, or Older Children What needs do you want to address? Physical, Mental, Social/Emotional, Spiritual How do you want to use the information you gather? To be given out […]

  “Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.” – Seth Godin   Jesus…the Public Relations Guru Jesus was a leader of people, not things. Mark 12:37b “…the large crowd listened to him with delight.” Calling and leading of the 12 disciples Always had a call to action (repentance, giving, what not to do, etc.) Marketing […]

  Yes, we had a Fire Drill on Sunday morning. We left the building and met at our safe location. I remember bringing it up in staff meeting and getting some resistance. The truth is, our kids never thought twice about it. So many of the children already practice these drills at school. The littlest ones thought is was fun […]

  I am amazed how parents are the key to my classroom success. When a new child with special needs joins your classroom be sure to take a few moments to have a conversation with the parents. They have walked many miles with doctors and specialists, so they can impart some terrific ideas for aiding your leadership […]

The old issue of coming up with workers when we start a new school year.  Seems like it is starting next week and I still have two camps to preach and a mission trip to China.  What Am I going to do?  How am I going to get all this recruiting done?  I hope all the investing in my workers this year will encourage them to stay and serve.  On this podcast I will explore some ideas that make sense when training and retaining leaders.  What ideas would you add?

  I just finished a great week of VBS with great celebration and some big lessons learned.  In this podcast I recap some terrific ideas we used to make our VBS run smoother and how we promoted it to the community.  Our goal was 1000 and we actually enrolled 921.  Praise God!  That is a couple hundred more than before.  We also lead children through the plan of salvation in a new approach and had 23 kids make decisions for Jesus.  Yes, we are celebrating but there were a few challenges too.  I might be too transparent about these, but I’m hoping you might have some ideas to benefit me and our community of leaders.