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Illustrated Ministry Joins Periscope

In the spirit of trying new things – Illustrated Ministry has recently joined Periscope. Some of you may be familiar with Periscope, and others may not be. Essentially, it’s a way for us to live-stream video that you can interact with while you watch. You can ask questions that we can see while we’re broadcasting and so we can respond in real-time. We’ve tried a few broadcasts but since we haven’t advertised it, we haven’t had a chance to really try it out when some of you were watching and hanging out with us.

How might we use this? Well, we’re still figuring things out – but sometimes we might just start up a random broadcast while we’re driving around town running errands. Other times we might give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the illustrations that you’re using. Or we might schedule specific events (sometimes around specific themes or discussion topics) so you can all check in and ask questions.

If you’re a Periscope user, we hope you’ll follow us on Periscope. If you haven’t used it before, download it for your phone (App Store / Google Play), follow us and stay tuned for our next broadcast.

As an introduction to using Periscope, we’re going to go ahead and schedule a Periscope gathering for this Wednesday (3/16) at 1:30pm Central Time. We’ll start up the broadcast at 1:30pm and we hope to see and hear from many of you.

Illustrated Ministry Turns 6 Months Old!

Adam Walker Cleaveland 2 Comments

Illustrated Ministry

I realize that I don’t know many of you personally, and thought I’d just reach out and share a brief update about Illustrated Ministry. My name is Adam Walker Cleaveland and I’m an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor who lives in the Chicago area. My wife is an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor as well and serves a church in Chicago’s North Shore. We have an amazing 4 year old (Caleb) and a sweet lab-pit (Sadie) that doesn’t get walked enough by me.

After doing youth ministry for over 15 years, I decided it was time that I try something new. I launched the website and mailing list for Illustrated Children’s Moments on September 9, 2015.

Six months later, we’ve changed our name to Illustrated Ministry, picked up a few people to join our team and currently have a very active website and online store, and over 3300 people have signed up for our weekly newsletter. This has truly been a joy for me to see how this business has reached so many people and provided fun and creative illustrated resources for children, youth and adults throughout the world.

Last month I spoke to a class at Columbia Theological Seminary over Skype about being an entrepreneur and someone asked me, “So, do you see Illustrated Ministry as a business or a ministry?” Good question. At times, it certainly feels like a business when I’m meeting with accountants and bankers, trying to figure out the best way to ship 37″ long poster tubes, dealing with UPS and the USPS and doing all of those “business-y” types of tasks.

But then I hear stories about how the giant coloring sheets have brought people together in churches over fellowship hours, intergenerational events and Lenten suppers. I see the photos of children doing devotions with their parents in their homes. I start doing the numbers and thinking about the 400 churches that bought the Lenten coloring posters, and imagine how many people are engaging in the spiritual practice of coloring in designs I drew on a piece of paper here at my desk in Skokie, Illinois.

It’s at times like this that it becomes clear to me that yes, Illustrated Ministry is a business – but it is so much more. It’s the way I’m living out my calling now. And it’s been such a joy to receive confirmation from so many people that these resources are helpful, engaging, fun and something that is meeting a felt need in faith communities and homes.

As I’ve been telling people recently – I’m overwhelmed (in a good way) and amazed that Illustrated Ministry has taken off like it has. I’m having a lot of fun sharing these resources with you all and I look forward to being able to continue to do so. Thank you!

Coloring to Connect on a Mission Trip to Mexico

Adam Walker Cleaveland 1 Comment

Since we’ve began creating coloring posters, it’s been exciting to see the fun and creative ways people have used them. We’ve seen children coloring in classes and during a Christmas pageant, youth and adults coloring during fellowship hours, people on sessions and church boards coloring during meetings, creative uses on mission trips and more! There are many ways that coloring posters can create space for relationships to grow, conversations to be had and your community to experience fellowship.

We love sharing some of the ways people are using our resources, and we wanted to let you know about a church who used our coloring posters to develop relationships while on a mission trip. One of our customers, Hope Lutheran Church from Fresno (CA) bought our large 4′ x 3′ coloring posters in Spanish, and took them on a mission trip they went on. You can see from the photos below that the coloring posters were a quick and easy way to begin to develop relationships with the children they were working with.

Adam Knudson, Associate Pastor of Youth and Family Ministries, sent me the below note while they were on their trip:

We are having a great time here in Mexicali with our brothers and sisters. Sometimes there is a language barrier but with coloring these pictures the differences are minimized. Kids, adults, everyone knew exactly what to do and could come and go as they pleased. This was a great resource for our team.

We currently have two sets of our coloring posters with Spanish words, and they are both available as digital downloads. You can use those to print these posters out at whatever size you want

Advent Coloring Posters: While these were sold as our Advent Coloring Posters, they can certainly be used for any occasion. These are our largest posters, ready to be printed as 4′ x 3′ posters. The words in the middle of these posters are Amor, Paz, Gozo, Esperanza and Emmanuel.
Lenten Coloring Posters: Our newest set of coloring posters includes nine 2′ x 3′ posters. The words/phrases on these posters are Reciba a otros, Dé, Sirva, Escuche, Ame, Vigile, Arriesgue, Tome y Coma, Abandanado, Vaya y Diga.

I know there are lots of churches that go on mission trips over spring break and in the summer, and I just wanted to encourage you to think about how something as simple as a large piece of paper and some crayons and markers could help provide a simple but meaningful activity to do with kids you are serving. Of course, these would work anywhere – and not just for mission trips to Mexico – so if there is a different language you need the posters in, please contact us and we’ll setup a custom order for you.

How have other people been using their coloring posters in creative ways?

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