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. It’s a message of encouragement from the guy in the job most of our kids dream of being. What did you think?

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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. I actually think that the quality of relationships built while having fun may be significantly more powerful than any kind of “lesson” you want to teach the kids. At most of my lock-ins we’ll say a prayer to open things up and we’ll pray before eating breakfast, but that’s in. It’s my belief that if the kids like the lock-in enough, they’ll be drawn in to engage where things are a little more spiritual.
  2. Don’t play it safe. Be extreme! Think about things that kids LOVE to do and program the event around those things. Usually this involves being loud, partaking in sugary snacks and doing stuff they don’t get to do at home. I’m not advocating dangerous activities here, just do something different that what you do on Sunday. I like to tell people that we’re not just going to have fun at the lock-in, we’re going to have “stupid” fun. We’re going to get the kids as wired and riled up as possible. We’re going to feed them candy well past midnight (maybe even give them some for breakfast). We’re going to let them run and play until they drop. Most importantly, we’re not going to make anyone go to sleep. Yeah, you’ll get some parents to roll their eyes, but the kids are going to have so much fun, most of your parents are going to become true fans.

Here’s the thing. Fun isn’t really the ingredient. It’s the goal. In everything you do, “think fun!” Don’t be reasonable, “think fun!”

This scares many of you. Don’t worry, my lock-ins are not wild and crazy free-for-alls. Rather, they are well planned and highly structured. This way the kids still have fun, but they stay safe and it keeps things easy for my leaders. More on that tomorrow.

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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! When we announce that we’re doing a lock-in, about half the kids wet their pants with excitement. Almost every kids loves a sleep over and the idea of doing this at church is just extra cool. Throw in some amazing activities and you’ll have nearly uncontainable excitement.

Beyond that there are several other reasons I do lock-ins.

  1. They provide a jump-start of excitement into your ministry. All kids can get into a routine. Sometimes our ministries can as well. Something fun like a lock-in can generate some excitement and energy around your ministry (if you’re depending solely on lock-ins and events to energize your ministry, there’s a bigger issue though).
  2. They’re a great connection point for your kids. The average kid attends church 40 hours a year (I think the average kid at my church is much less). Connecting kids to other kids as well as kids to their leaders is a huge benefit to lock-ins. The 10-13 hours of the lock-in equals 25-50% of the time a small group leader might spend with that child all year. Doing an event like a lock-in at the start of a school year might be a great catalyst for relational growth/
  3. They’re great for building teams. I treasure this time with my volunteers and leaders. You don’t really know a volunteer until you’ve seen them amped up on sugar at 3 AM. The fun conversations, games and times spent with your volunteers during the event and while the kids are sleeping is so valuable.
  4. They’re great for recruiting new volunteers. Every time I do a lock-in I seem to grab a few new volunteers. Sometime it is that really protective parent who MUST come as a helper becasue they don’t want to part with their child for the night who ends up becoming a volunteer by the end of the night (it’s that connecting part and team building part that does it). I also have many parents get excited about being a part of something that their kids are so excited about.

Like I said, I have a love/hate relationship with lock-in (I really love them a lot more than I hate them). Whether at a big church or small church, I’ll plan one once a year. Check in tomorrow to see my recipe for lock-in success.

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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.

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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? The majority of parents and people making a stink about this are conservative families who are still sore about loosing the election last November and here’s a good way to stick it to ‘em!

Before you judge me or this post, read on.

Here is what the speech is about.
Here is pre-speech and post-speech activities and discussions for K-6th graders.
Here is pre-speech and post-speech activities and discussions for 7th-12th graders.

So tell me, where is the socialist agenda? Where is the health care agenda? Seriously. It is a freaking speech from the president to the kids. The speech is meant to encourage kids to step up, take ownership of their education and make learning a priority. This is a good thing. Many kids will not forget this moment, where they felt the president was talking to them. So many kids dream of one day being the president, this could be a great motivator educationally. If this was really about the speech or it’s content, then I’d understand… but I don’t think it is. It’s about what we feel about him and it’s an opportunity to speak out.

However, I do feel that it is our right as free people to protest, to speak up and to practice our freedoms. If this is your way of protesting, of showing the president “I don’t approve” then so be it. I can actually respect that. However, I’m not convinced that this is what all the commotion is about. People have turned it into something much more dramatic, saying that they’re afraid of how our president is going to brainwash our children with his socialist agenda. That, in my opinion, is ridiculous. Certainly we has parents have the influence in our children’s lives to teach them right from wrong and how to know when they’re hearing something that doesn’t line up with what we know to be true. Here’s a great post on how a conservative family might approach this situation.

Personally, I feel that this has given conservatives a black eye (if we didn’t have one already). This wasn’t a protest of people communicating to their government that they don’t approve, this seemed much more messy and ugly than that.

These are just opinions that don’t really matter. :)

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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. It means putting an end to successful programs becasue it’s distracting from what is best or what the organization really needs to be doing.

Jesus had a crystal clear view of where he was going. The need was great. People were searching for him high and low. However, Jesus didn’t respond to the need. He said “let’s move on.” This is visionary leadership as opposed to reactionary leadership. Know where you’re going and know that it’s okay to quit the things that are keeping you from your best.

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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. However, on of my leaders became a fan and she updated her status and invited everyone she knew that worked with kids and she got a great response (even one or two members of my staff). Ha!

So, on this page we’ll try one or two more things like this. I’ll send a message (which shows up as a notification) to all the fans and encourage them to come kind of action (post on the wall, invite another CM friend or respond to a discussion question). All of these things promote the page. Whenever a fan does something on the page, all their facebook friends will see it in their time line. So, we’ll take a look at how the page grows into the weekend and early next week we’ll take a look at advertising and see how that works.

Oh, and if you missed all of this, read my post yesterday about this experiment or click on the badge above to become a fan of this new facebook page.

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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.

So, what can you do? Well, the people at facebook would like you to integrate with twitter, but they’d rather have it the other way around. They’ve created a twitter app for your pages that will update your twitter account whenever you write on your page’s wall. Not nearly what I was looking for, but I guess it’s okay. So, when it comes to the twitter integration that I love with my personal facebook page, I’ll just have to wait until they have this for pages.

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