Illustrated Children’s Ministry launched in September 2015, and has since grown into a worldwide community. These past four years, we have been honored to create and provide progressive materials for families and children’s ministries all around the world. Over these past years, our customers have shown us how well our illustrated materials work, not only for children but for people in all different stages of life.
Our coloring posters have been used in settings for all ages; intergenerational church events, nursing homes, campus ministries, youth group, mission trips, university faculty lounges, camps and conferences, and more!
A familiar anecdote that I hear often goes something like this:
We put the coloring posters out, and in no time at all, we had a group of people sitting around coloring, ages 2 to 82.”
Our curricular resources have been used with youth groups, all-ages Sunday school, and have been woven into sermon series themes.
We’ve branched into creating stationery and accessories like greeting cards, stickers, and buttons. As we continue to grow and commit to creating more intergenerational products, we want to ensure our name best reflects how we serve you.
It is for that reason that we are officially changing our name from Illustrated Children’s Ministry to Illustrated Ministry. We have been anxiously awaiting sharing this news with you, and we’d like to make sure you know what that is going to mean for us moving forward, and more importantly, how we believe this change will allow us to serve you in even more ways.So, what’s staying the same?
We will continue to make the quality children’s ministry resources that our customers have come to expect from us: coloring pages and posters, curriculum, Advent and Lent family resources, Children’s Moments and Children’s Worship Bulletins, Nativity sticker sheets, and more!
We remain steadfast in our commitment to creating thoughtful, progressive, and easy-to-use resources that foster authentic faith engagement through refreshing designs, creative activities, making space for questions and wonder, and inclusive language and imagery.
We also will continue to be responsive to creating materials you need and wish for. Some of our favorite product ideas and inspiration have come directly from customers. We’d love you to send us an email, post an idea in our community Facebook group, tag us on social media with #IllustratedMin, and let us know what would be a godsend in resources for you.
What should we expect from Illustrated Ministry in the future?
Since the beginning, we’ve created resources we wished we had, especially for children’s ministry. Now, with the same kind of quality, drive, and focus, you can expect us to create intergenerational materials, youth resources, worship planning guides, worship service resources, and more to meet your ministry needs!
We have too many ideas for the future to share here – but know that we aren’t going anywhere, and we are excited to see where Illustrated Ministry is in another four years!
Some Practical Stuff
Four years doesn’t feel like a super long time, but when you begin going through everything and trying to switch out “Illustrated Ministry” for “Illustrated Children’s Ministry” in products, promotional materials, emails, etc., we’re finding that this switch to Illustrated Ministry isn’t something that will just happen overnight. We are a small team that is working tirelessly on switching out everything that has been labeled Illustrated Children’s Ministry for the past four years. Please bear with us if you see any ICM reference as we continue to make the change over to Illustrated Ministry.
As we make this change – here are some practical things that may be helpful to know:
- Logo: We have a new logo! It should be very familiar, but we just wanted to mention it.
- Website: Our website is now illustratedministry.com, and our store can be found at store.illustratedministry.com. We worked with a great team to get things transferred over, but if you happen to run into any “dead links” or 404 error pages, please let us know.
- @IllustratedMin: We are now using the username @IllustratedMin everywhere on social media, so please note that change and make sure you’re following us!
- Credit Card Statements: Previously, when you looked at your credit card statement, purchases from Illustrated Children’s Ministry would appear as SP * CHILDRENSMINISTRY. Moving forward, you can expect to see your purchases from us appearing as SP * ILLUSTRATEDMNSTRY.
- Update your links: Do you have a link to Illustrated Children’s Ministry on your website? Make sure to update your links to illustratedministry.com.
We’re happy to answer any questions you might have about this transition from Illustrated Children’s Ministry to Illustrated Ministry – just let us know in the comments. And do you have hopes and dreams for what might happen in the next four years of Illustrated Ministry? Let us know in the comments as well! Thanks!
For those of you who didn’t run from your computers last Friday on April Fool’s Day, you may have caught the breaking news from Illustrated Ministry about our summer curriculum,