Andy KirkACC KIDS

Children’s Ministry has shifted from traditional Sunday School to an impacting, vibrant, growth-causing ministry in the life of local churches. ACCkids resource the wider church leadership through conferences, training events, formal education and mentoring.

Over the past two years, ACCkids has been focussed on Leadership development through the demographic of Children’s Leaders. In that time we have held our annual National Conference ‘Kidshaper’ in 2019, along with that Kidshaper National Tour event, a five-city training event held over one week. We have continued with our successful Mentor Program, lauched a weekly Leadership Podcast, partnered with Champions Clubs to bring training and resources to churches in the area of additional needs, as well as launching the ACCkids Academy in conjunction with Youth Alive. Like everyone, we all had to adapt and change our approach in 2020 but through the strength of the programs and initiatives we have been running, we were able to support Kids pastors and leaders through COVID restrictions. We held four Online Conversations with over 70 Kids Pastors talking through response and strategy. As there was no physical conferences, we held Kidshaper as a Virtual Conference, which was a huge success. We will now run this event annually as well as our in-person events. Leadership Over the last two years tere have been some changes in State Leaders. The current team is: National Leader: Andy Kirk QLD/NT: Jason Van Vuuren NSW: Allyson Parker taking over from Hannah Shand VIC: Barry Newton taking over from Ezra Boots WA: Jordan Keehan SA: Alice McInnes

Stats Kidshaper Conference (2019):

Up 5% on year before Kidshaper National Tour (2019): 1000 people attended throughout week Kidshaper Virtual Conference (2020): Over 1200 People connected in Number of Mentor Students: 40 different churches in personal mentoring program

ACCkids Academy: 10 Students

Online Resources: 20% viewing increase

Training & Resources ACCkids has continued to develop it’s Mentoring program and well over 40 Kids Pastors and leaders have been trained and mentored. The launch of the ACCkids Kids Ministry and Leadership Podcast has created another platform for Kids Pastors and Leaders to upskill weekly. The Podcast has seen the leading Kids Pastors Internationally feature along with incredible Australian Pastors and Leaders from within our Movement.

ACCkids Academy launched in 2020 in partnership with Youth Alive.After many years of incredible success training Youth Pastors, we were thrilled to partner with Youth Alive. This is a key strategy to see leaders formally trained with a Kids Ministry focus.

All of our training and development

can be accessed from anywhere in Australia and beyond through TECHNOLOGY.

Events

The Kidshaper Conference in 2019 had Beth Cunningham from Church of the Highlands, Dave Gilpin and our National Team as speakers. The Conference was strongly attended and already pre COVID communication was around Digital Media, Building Teams and community through small groups. In 2020 we held the Kidshaper Virtual Conference with Justin Edge from Life.Church as speaker. Additionally we held five Electives via ZOOM with the whole resource pack sent out to all delegates. The Conference saw about 1,200 people attend and now the Virtual Conference will be an ongoing event. Highlights The main highlights in the last two has been the expansion into training through ACCkids Academy and the launch of the Podcast. Our heart is to train and equip leaders so anytime we can find ways to better resource and train further is a highlight. The other great highlight is a direct response from us having to adapt out of COVID with the Virtual Conference and Webinars hosted which has seen a greater community built through connection and community. New initiatives

• Online Platforms Increased From what was learnt in 2020, we have realised that the ability to run more webinars and also train remotely has increased our capacity to train. All of our training and development can be accessed from anywhere in Australia and beyond through technology. The Kidshaper Virtual Conference that we ran in 2020 has now been added to the yearly training opportunities to start the year. In 2021 Russell Evans was the speaker at this event that was streamed to individuals or local churches hosting an event for their whole Kids Team.

• OneHope and YouVersion Partnership OneHope and YouVersion brought us the Bible App for Kids a number of years ago and this has been an incredible resource for families. ACCkids has been joined with both these organizations around a new project ‘Kids Daily Bible Experience’ which has launched stage one on the YouVersion App. The creation of Content and continued joint partnerships will see many of our leading ACC Churches Kids Ministries involved. Goals

Over the next two years, ACCkids plan to continue growing and developing leaders in Children’s Ministry. We are looking for a continued growth in attendance in all our events and initiatives as we serve the wider church. We aim to outwork this through• More intentional Leadership development to these Regional Leaders (whether online or other specific training opportunities) • A Key Kids Leaders Summit similar to the Senior Pastors one held in Melbourne

• Appoint regional leaders across each State to take ownership of connecting with kids leaders in their area (especially in regional areas). • Continue to give Kids Pastors / leaders mentoring opportunities (especially to support new leaders as they take on a seemingly daunting role) • Continue to build the Kidshaper tour and Conference, for opportunities for leaders to gather and be inspired. • Create a communal online cloud that people can access resources / templates or that key leaders could contribute resources that may help others. As ACCkids continues over the coming two years to outwork the training and development of Children’s pastors and leaders, we would like to thank the ACC National Executive for it’s ongoing support. For local churches wanting any information on how they can be a part of all that is being offered, please contact us at info@acckids.org.au

ANDY KIRK National Leader: ACCKids