hi! i’m mal and i love kids!
…. like really really love kids. i love to talk to kids, i love to help kids, i love to see kids experience the peak of who they can be, as kids. i love cracking the door of possibility and seeing them sprint through it. i love the way they inherently trust that God is inherently good. they don’t have to be convinced. i love seeing them bring heaven to earth… now and i love watching them grasp the things of God before they’re even 12.
AND - as much as i love kids, i love helping people serve kids. what started as phone calls with kids pastors around the globe, turned into a passion for helping kids pastors and church leaders make their kids church dreams a reality!
i’m naively optimistic enough to believe that God wants to move through kids across the entire globe, and i’d love to help you too!
how i got here!
i grew up in church and i met jesus at the age of 4 on my childhood stairs. i knew i’d made mistakes, like lying to my brothers or disobeying my parents, and i knew i wanted to be in heaven forever with jesus.
salvation came early, but i don’t remember much about kids church or sunday school. my strongest memory in church as a kid is building a bug catcher in the sun at vbs. and in true transparency, as i got older, kids church looked silly and dumb. i felt called to ministry in high school and of course i thought for SURE i’d be a youth pastor…
fast forward…
after seeing the backside of a church during an internship in college, i’d vowed ministry wasn’t for me! but in 2014 i was in grad school for clinical mental health counseling and on my way to becoming a professional counselor when i found myself getting incredibly involved in a church called the belonging co. it only met on tuesday nights and didn’t have kids or youth programs yet so i jumped in on the production team. as sundays became available, kids church would launch and my co-lead pastors asked if myself and another girl would help lead the way.
“i’ll help, but i’ll move to youth once its available,” was my original thought. but now over 10 years later, i can’t imagine loving anything more than i love building kids church. i’ve seen kids encounter the presence of God in was i only ever dreamt about. i’ve seen kids pray for deaf ears to be opened, and tiny paper cuts be healed. i’ve seen kids on their face before god in worship, and watched as they prayed and prophesied over each other. i’ve seen anxiety leave forever, bravery become reality, and i’ve seen kids get visions of heaven with details they hadn’t yet read about in the Bible. and i want THIS to be the norm in kids church.
i’ve seen God move in adults too, from personal breakthroughs to corporate ones. from “there’s not enough volunteers,” to there’s too many. and i want THIS to be the norm in kids church.
from a small space, to three campuses, a tiny team to hundreds, from a handful of families, to hundreds of them, and from tiny events to big ones, all nighters and camps, i’ve seen it all.
let me help you make this the norm in kids church all around the globe!