Archive for September, 2009

Obama’s speech didn’t look like brain washing to me

Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by .

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In case you missed it, here is Obama’s speech to America’s children. Did you watch it? Did your children watch it? Did you watch it with your children?

I felt I needed to follow up from my post on Monday.

I thought the speech was good. Actually it was really good, a message many of our kids need to hear. It was about failure, hard work and taking ownership of our future. Regardless of whether we like it or not, the president of the United States is someone we all respect because of the tradition of the office. Most kids look up to this office. What kid hasn’t dreamed of one day being the leader of the free world?

So, this is a great message for our kids to hear.… Read the rest

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The Lock-In (Part 2)

Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by .

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I only have one ingredient to my recipe for success. All you need is the same ingredient and you’ll see success. Want to know what that ingredient is?

The ingredient is… FUN!

Okay, that sounds kinda obvious and cheesy, but I say it for a reason. I’ve seen a lot of church’s suck all the fun (or most of the fun) right out of an event like this. I’ll tell you what the fun-suckers tend to be.

  1. Over spiritualizing the event. Just because your event is a church event doesn’t mean you need to program it into a VBS/Sunday School/Kids Church filled event. I’m not saying any of those things aren’t fun. I’m just challenging you to the idea that you can gather a group of kids at your church and not do ANYTHING overtly spiritual.

    2. … Read the rest

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The Lock-In (Part 1)

Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by .

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late-night1I have a love/hate relationship with lock-ins. I’ve been doing them since I became a children’s pastor over a decade ago. I’ve done small and highly unorganized ones (in the early years) as well as huge and highly organized ones (my biggest topped 300 kids) and I’ve learned a few things along the way.

So why do I hate them? They’re so FREAKIN’ long! Now that I’m in my 30′s, it takes me a week to recover. By the time it’s over, I just want parents to not be late so I can go home and fall asleep on my couch. Yes, this is selfish, but it’s a perfectly acceptable reason to hate lock-ins.

Why do I love them? Because kids FREAKIN’ love them!… Read the rest

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The Lock-In

Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by .

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lockintest21This week I’m doing a little series on Lock-Ins. Over the years I have found them to be incredibly powerful events for the Children’s Ministries I lead. I thought I’d write a quick series on why I do them and how to pull them off.

I’m going to include how we plan, what resources we use, how much they cost and everything else you might want to know. I’ve got a lot of information and I don’t think I’ve really blogged much about my lock-ins up to this point. So, if you’re interested in taking a peak behind the curtain, tune in to the posts this week about lock-ins.… Read the rest

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Obama’s speach to our children

Posted on 07. Sep, 2009 by .

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obama with mic jan 18 2008Tomorrow our president is going to address the students of our nation. However, a significant portion of our children will not hear what he has to say. Many parents are pulling their children from their classrooms because they’re afraid that our president is going to indoctrinate our children. Many schools are not even showing the speech because parents have thrown a fit and they are afraid of the backlash. They’re afraid that our president’s views on abortion, health care, marriage and other policies might defile our children.

I’m not really sure I know how I feel about this. The first thoughts that come to my mind are not good ones. I understand that people don’t agree with our president’s policies and stance on moral issues, but is this behavior a little juvenile?… Read the rest

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-06

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by .

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-06

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by .

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Sometimes leaders know when to quit

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by .

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I_Quit_MaleSeveral weeks ago I was in an off-site staff meeting and I wrote down a scripture passage that I wanted to explore deeper. It concerned the selective nature of Jesus’ ministry.

Mark 1:35-39
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Today at church, one of the points was “Sometimes a leader knows when to quit.” When your vision is clear and you know what what you’re after, that often means saying no to some really good things.… Read the rest

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The facebook children’s ministry experiment (part 2)

Posted on 03. Sep, 2009 by .

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Children’s Ministry | Promote Your Page Too

Thanks everyone for jumping on board. You can see the viral affect already at work. Yesterday morning we started with four fans. I posted the badge on this blog and threw out a link in a twitter update (which did get re-tweeted twice). However, as of right now we have over 75 fans. Many of those came from the viral nature of pages. Those who became fans essentially advertised the page to all of their friends. A few of you promoted the page by “sharing” and that too promoted the site.

The funny thing I noticed was that many of my leaders and volunteers from Gateway were fans. Many of them I didn’t expect to be fans becasue they may not follow my blog.… Read the rest

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Facebook pages and twitter

Posted on 02. Sep, 2009 by .

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Over the past year I’ve loved the integration of twitter in facebook. I can update my facebook status from twitter which is BEAUTIFUL. Having this same feature for facebook page would be equally awesome. However, it’s not quite there yet. Quite frankly, I can’t get it to work. I have friends who say that they’ve installed the selective twitter app on their page and they have gotten that to work (this is where you type #fb at the end of all your tweets and it updates your facebook status). I haven’t though. I’ve even offered people money to get it working on my page, yet no one has been successful yet. I think it is becasue I use the twitter app on my regular facebook profile and I’m trying to use the selective twitter app on my page and the two just don’t like each other.… Read the rest

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