1. Network with others in ministry
This will be your greatest resource. Get on CMConnect and Kidology. Get on the phone and call churches that have ministries on the same level as yours, churches that are at the next level and churches that are at a level under your church's. Who knows, perhaps you'll save $100's just by learning what to do and what not to do!
2. Be a list maker
list stuff when you think of it - I mean... everything! I have to-do lists, lists of lesson series, lists of leadership topics that I want to cover, lists of silly rules characters can use when we review the rules in kids church, lists of object lesson ideas I've gotten from visiting a favorite store, lists of fun ideas for a Sunday school class, I just looked at a list of as many object lessons as I could think of with balloons.
No idea is a bad idea unless it's an unused or undeveloped idea. (consider sharing those ideas you can't use now with someone you're networking with). I have a mentor who has a file cabinets with unused ideas and a big fat hard drive full of ideas he's never used and doesn't think he ever will - wish he'd sell it all to me!
3. Make kids, individually, feel like a million dollars
I learned this from one of my earliest mentors. When I was a kid He would walk into a room and look me in the eye, shake my hand and tell me he was so glad that I was in kids church that day - I felt like the most important person in the room for the rest of the day! He did that to every kid - I swear!
