Archive for June, 2009

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-21

Posted on 21. Jun, 2009 by .

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Leading a child to faith: C is for Confess

Posted on 19. Jun, 2009 by .

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C is my favorite part. Actually, C is kinda the linchpin of them all. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to admin that we’ve sinned, that we’ve broking a moral code. It’s also not too much to believe in Jesus and to believe what he did for us. A person could admit that they sin and believe in Christ, yet still not be a Christ-Follower. That is where C comes in. C is for confess. Confess that Jesus is Lord.

What does confess mean? What does Lord mean? Come on, we’re talking to kids here. We gotta break it down.

Confess means to say out loud or to say with your mouth.

Lord mean someone who is in charge. A king. A ruler. A boss.

I always follow up defining the words by asking this question. “So, if confess mean to say with your mouth and Lord means a king or ruler, what does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord?” I usually have to repeat definitions again. What does it mean.

Eventually someone says it. “It means to say out loud that Jesus is king.”

Exactly. But what is Jesus king over?

Everything!

What else?

Hmmmmmm…. Me?

Precisely!

This is the part where being a Christ-Follower begins and continues for the rest of our lives (and into eternity). To confess that Jesus is Lord is to make a conscious decision that Jesus is in charge of my life. That means I willingly let him lead my life. Whatever he say to do, I’ll do. He’s in charge of my words, my actions, my thoughts, my dream and my desires. I’m a slave to Christ. I’m no longer my own, I’m his.

I usually take a little bit of time talking about this specifically. We love to be in charge and do our own things. We’re going to mess up with this all the time. We’re going to try to do things our way and live our way. However, being a Christ-Follower means surrendering our will and our desires to him.

Becoming a Christ-Follower isn’t saying a prayer (although we do pray). Becoming a Christ follower is about owning our wrongs, believing that Christ made a way for us to have a relationship with God and most importantly, letting Christ lead our lives, becoming a slave to Christ.

That’s the ABCs. That’s how I lead children to the Lord. There are several different variations of the ABCs and other devices used to make this decision easy for children to understand but this is the one I like the most.What about you? What do you use?

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Leading a child to faith: B is for Believe

Posted on 18. Jun, 2009 by .

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B stand for Believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus is God’s son and that he died on the cross for our sins.

This is where faith becomes a part of the equation. When reading about the new converts throughout the early part of Acts we see how people believed and were baptized. Many of them had heard for Jesus, but didn’t witness what he had done. They took steps of faith to believe the words of those who witnessed what Jesus had done. Our kids have to take the same steps of faith. Do you believe that the Bible is true? Do you believe that Jesus is God’s son? Do you believe that he lived a perfect life? Do you believe that he died on the cross for your sins? Do you believe that he rose again?

When I ask a child these things, (and I’ve asked hundreds) I’ve never once had one say no. Never. If I were to drill down as to why they believe it, they would say “becasue it is in the bible” or “because that is what I’ve learned.” This is good. They have faith. They have no reason to doubt. This is child-like faith. Do they need to know the twenty arguments for the existence of God? Do they need to see the statistical probability of the scriptures being true as a result of fulfilled prophesy? Do they need to see extra-biblical evidence that support the people, places and events of the Bible? No. Not yet. For now they believe at face value and that’s okay. As they get older they may want to explore the depths of their faith. They may want to test what it is made of and challenge what they believe.

To believe is the foundation for C. Stay tuned for my favoite part of the ABCs.

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Leading a child to faith: A is for Admit

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by .

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I use the ABCs of becoming a Christ Follower when leading kids to Christ. It’s easy and it clearly explains the important aspects of becoming a Christ Follower.

So, the first part is to Admit. Admit that we are a sinner.

I usually have to define admit and sometimes even clearly explain what a sinner or sin is. We usually decide that admit means to say that you did something. Close enough. So to admit that I’m a sinner means that I say that I’ve done wrong. I’m coming clean, letting everyone know that I’m not perfect. It’s an essential first step. If wrong has been committed yet no one has admitted to it, there is a breakdown in the relationship. If a wrong has been done, forgiveness cannot be received until someone first admits they are in need of forgiveness. Christ has already given us the free gift of forgiveness, but we can’t receive it until we admit that we have sinned and we need the forgiveness.

This usually a pretty easy step. Just about every kid recognizes that they’ve sinned. It’s fun to go around the room and point out all the people who have sinned (we end up pointing at everyone).

Here’s why this is so important. Being a Christ Follower is about having a relationship with Jesus. As in any relationship, things can get in the way. For instance, if I wrong a friend or disobey a parent I’ve put something in the way of our relationship. In order to clear the relationship and make things right, I have to addres the issue. I need to admit to what I did, or apologize for what happened. Once I’ve done that, the other party can choose to forgive me and at this point the relationship is restored. It is clean and open. This is how it is with our relationship with Jesus. Until we admit that we’ve done something wrong (i.e. Sin), we can’t truly receive the forgiveness that he’s offered us. This is a barrier keeping us from having a relationship with God. So, the first step into coming into a relationship with God is to admit that we’ve sinned so that we can receive forgiveness.

That’s A of the ABCs. Tomorrow I’ll hit B.

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Kid’s baptisms: Are we focusing on what is most important?

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by .

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Okay, I thought I had finished this little series, but the conversation in the comments in this post has continued and has prompted me to write one more post.

I’ll be honest. I’m still really wrestling with what we’re going to do here at Gateway. For us to prevent kids to be baptized when it’s happening spontaneously like this seems very anti-Gateway. I don’t feel comfortable with it. However I must admit that every day I think about this, I dislike doing what we’re doing even more. I think I’ve narrowed it down and reached a conclusion on what is most important.

I feel it might be dangerous to allow kids to decide to get baptized because they feel like it the day we’re doing it as a church. That’s right, dangerous. Don’t get me wrong. There are some kids who come up to get baptized and they’ve made a genuine decisions and this was the day they decided to be baptized. However, I don’t think it is the majority.

Here’s the danger. So, a child wants to get baptized. Well, we have people there to meet with that child and talk with them. Often times the person meeting with the child leads them to faith or does the best they can to explain it. What’s dangerous is that we’ve placed our focus on them getting baptized, not their decisions to become a slave to Christ! “Oh, you’ve never asked Jesus to be your Lord and savior? Let’s do that real quick so you can get baptized.” God forbid they miss out on being baptized. Let’s convert ‘em real quick.

Shouldn’t our focus be on their decision to become a Christ Follower? I spend the first five minutes of my class teaching the kids that baptism is something you do as a result of deciding to follow Christ. I also repeat many times that the baptism isn’t nearly as important as this decision. We’ll do more baptisms. Don’t rush this decisions. Baptism can wait. I’m not saying that this is related in any way, but why do we wonder that 70+ percent of our kids abandon their faith when they leave home? Did you hear that? 70+ percent of our kids walk away from their faith when they leave for college. Do you think it’s because we’re elevating baptism above a commitment to Christ? It’s nothing for us to see hundreds of kids come to faith in a year. Woo hoo! That’s awesome! But I think I’d be satisfied to see half that number make this decision if I knew that they really, really, really got it.

Here’s my sticking point. When I walk out of the baptism class, I walk out knowing that they got it. They really got it. Some parents write on their response form “not sure they have made a decision.” That’s great. At least we know where they stand. Let’s not baptize them yet. Let’s make sure they got it.

Really, what’s most important?

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Leading a child to faith

Posted on 16. Jun, 2009 by .

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I love leading kids to faith. It’s the best thing in the world. Actually I really love baptizing kids too or at least helping parents baptize their kids as well. It’s just one of the perks of being a children’s pastor. If evangelism is your thing, then children’s ministry is the place to be. The largest number of decisions for Christ happen with kids, so it’s where they fish are biting.

So, I’m starting a little series on leading a child to faith. I know this sounds a little remedial, but perhaps something I write will give someone some ideas. What I enjoy the most is hearing how you’re doing it differently, which often gives me new ideas to improve what I’m doing. So, I don’t make assumptions about what I write about here. It’s all about getting better at what we’re doing.

So, in the 11+ years of being in Children’s Ministry, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to lead kids to faith. I’ll be really honest (and please don’t take this as arrogance). It’s not hard to lead a child to faith. Put any child in front of me and within thirty minutes I’ll lead them in a prayer. You’re probaby as good or better at it than me. In thirty minutes just about any of us could lead a child in a prayer. Kids are trusting. We can be convincing. Right?

It’s not about leading a child in a prayer! It’s about understanding what it means to be a Christ Follower, a slave to Christ. I asked Jesus into my heart when I was four. Why? My teacher told me that I would go to hell if I didn’t. Brilliant! Any dope can do that. Being clear and concise and helping a child to make the decision on their own is harder. Allowing the child to make a thoughtful decision on their own isn’t just a good idea, it’s what is right.

So, how do I do it? I use the ABCs. I stole it from Lifeway. I’ve heard a bunch of other tricks to teaching this, but I just really love the ABCs that Lifeway uses for their curriculum materials. Check in tomorrow for the ABCs and how I teach them.

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Baptism Cannonball

Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 by .

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I’ve always wanted to do this. Yesterday I did. baptism were over and we were emptying the pool.

Picture 2

Picture 3

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Kid’s baptisms: Post baptism summary

Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 by .

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So last week I shared what we’re doing for baptisms at Gateway. This weekend we actually had our baptisms at both our South and North Campus.

I met with a 9 year old girl for about 30 minutes to talk about baptism (she couldn’t make any of the classes). She knew lot’s about faith, but hadn’t ever made a decision to follow Christ. So, it was cool to pray with her and her mom and she was subsequently very excited to get baptized. I baptized her at one service and a set of twins at the next.  At the North Campus I baptized four or five kids and assisted two sets of parents in baptizing their kids.

Glorious!

We actually didn’t have any last minute kids show up. Every kid who was baptized had gone through the baptism class, which made me feel much better.

Well, I have 3 more baptism classes set up for this summer with one last baptism in August/September. We won’t make any more changes for this one, but I’m looking to do some more tweaking for next year.

So, here’s what’s on the agenda for the future:

A post baptism class:
We had a baptism in April where about 15-20 kids were baptized without attend the class. I’m thinking of offering a post baptism class just to see who we can get to come out. It won’t be our normal baptism class since these kids have already been baptized. However, there’s a great opportunity to give them tools to develop spiritual disciplines. I’ll have ot think about this one.

Pre-baptism class assignment/Baptism class tweak:
Okay, I love the baptism class and there is little that I want to change. As I wrote in my last post, I specifically cover the ABCs of becoming a Christ follower. the kids really connect with the presentation and as a result, many kids make decisions to follow Christ. However, for the last year or two I’ve been burdened. I feel like I’m leaving an important component out. With the ABC’s I cover the fact that we sin and that Jesus died for our sins, but I don’t feel like the kids really get why we need saving from our sins. It’s easy to talk about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but sometimes we don’t really elaborate the real problem our sin causes and why we so desperately need Jesus to save us. However, the baptism class is already a 60 minute class and I’m not sure I want to add another 15 minutes covering this and I dont’ plan to add another class. However, I could create a pre-baptism class assignment. Maybe a downloadable lesson kids can do with their parents or even some video driven content as well. By next summer I want to have this piece in place.

Post baptism process:
I really want to develop a “what’s next” process. Baptism isn’t the end. However, too many parents and kids kinda check-off their spiritual check list with baptism. I want to have a followup to the baptism class where kids and parents learn about spending time with God, growing in their relationship with God and maybe even preparing for communion. I know that attendance for something like this will probably be less than for my baptism class, but I’ll have to figure out how to communicate the vision for what we’re doing and apply the proper motivation.

Well, that’s it. Let me know if you have any ideas, thought or comments! Don’t just lurk!

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-14

Posted on 14. Jun, 2009 by .

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The Facebook Landgrab

Posted on 13. Jun, 2009 by .

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By the time you read this, you may have been too late.

Facebook just opened up the ability to grab vanity URLs that point to your profile page. Up until now, your profile page would look something like this: www.facebook.com/394058872990049458 (or something like that). Now you can replace that meaningless number with something easy to remember, like your name!

If you’ve logged in to facebook anytime recently, they’ve had an ad telling about it. I have been thinking about it, but I actually forgot and was about an hour late. How big of a deal is this? Well, in the first 3 minutes, 200,000 URLs were reserved. Crazy. I guess it’s important to some people. It will be interesting to see how many end up going in the first day.

So, if your name is John Smith, you’re probably out of luck. Oh, and if you’re name is Kenny Conley and you’re not me… you’re out of luck too! :)

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