Archive for February, 2010

A little Algerian hate in Louisville, KY

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by .

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IMG_0445It’s been a while since I’ve posted in my Algerian series. In case you’re new to this blog, Wikipedia has sited Childrens Ministry Online as a “hate site” for the Algerian font. Check it out.

So this sign was on Bardstown Road across from the coffee shop Sam Luce and I hung out with Jarred Kennedy and Tony Kummer. Come on Bardstown Road. You’re eclectic, creative and unique. Why’d you go and use Algerian. This just took you down a notch in my book.

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Time with the “sign guy”

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by .

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One of my favorite parts of my road trip last week was getting to spend half a day with my friend Matt McKee. He goes by many names though. The Ministry Monday Guy, or the Two Minute Tuesday Guy (After it was too late, Sam and I had the great idea to film a Two Minute Tuesday with Matt, when I pretended to be Patriot and Sam pretended to be Aslan) and the infamous Sign Wednesday guy. But if that’s all you think Matt McKee is, you’re pretty far off.

Matt’s one of the most creative guys I know and I only know a few people in Kidmin who are as entrepreneurial as him. He’s always thinking up new ideas. Whenever I’m naming something or designing something, Matt’s the first person I call. He was a significant force behind G-Force curriculum and Elevate curriculum while he was on staff at Fellowship Church. Although he’s been serving at smaller church in Cincinnati, he’s working on big stuff that will influence the world of kidmin. I really like hanging out with people like Matt. I’m better because of it.

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So, Matt McKee is the social media king. Well, maybe not the king, but he’s at leas the mayor. He was on twitter for at least 9-10 months before it got popular. I remember hearing him talking about it long before I decided to check it out. So what does every social media mayor need? Social media badge pillows for his couch. I respect for him went way up when I saw these.

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So here is Matt’s legendary wide-format printer. I actually first met Matt at the C3 conference back in 2002 or 2003. At C3, they were always encouraging people to use plotters, and I had a few conversations with Matt about wide format printers. He also hooked a brother up with some wall calendars last year. I just felt complete seeing this. Matt’s the sign guy, and here’s his sign maker.

IMG_0431This one here is my favorite pics. I call it one of my bucket-list pics. Every time I video chat with Matt, I see this Starbucks sign in the background. It looks good, huh? It’s made of Styrofoam with green and white paint. When you’re up close, you see it was hand painted and such, but from far back, it looks like he swiped it from a Starbucks. About 6 months ago I got a picture with Jonathan Cliff’s infamous tree. Now I’ve got a pic with Matt’s Starbucks sign. Now to work on my other items… that will probably be the next road trip.

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Bringing big city quality to the small church

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by .

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SmalltownUSAYesterday I became acquainted with Jared Massey. He did something he totally didn’t have to and it blessed me so much. He simply wrote to tell me how much he’s been encouraged and equipped by this little blog. The part that warms my heart the most is that he told me that I’m (indirectly) impacting the kids at his church in Warsaw, IL. I’ve never been there, but I’m grateful that the time I’ve put into this site is making a difference. :)

But this isn’t about me. Jared told me about his situation. He’s at a small church in a rural area and he’s got a vision that gets me excited. He’s challenged by a very limited budget, sparse resources and not much opportunity to network with other children’s pastors. However, his vision is to “bring big city quality to the small church.” Isn’t that cool.

I’ve had so many conversations with Sam Luce (well, we spent just about every waking hour together last week) about equipping the church. Between our blogs, we have a lot of influence. However, when you add up all the churches here and there, we’ve not even touched the surface of the church in America. When the average church is less than 100 people, who’s looking out for the kids and who’s equipping them. I’m not sure how big Jared’s church is, but he’s taking initiative by getting out there and seeking resources to make the children’s ministry experience at his church the best possible. I’m so excited about that! It’s what I did when I was at my tiny little church in Jenks, OK and it’s what I wish every children’s pastor did.

I’m not done with Jared yet though. Not only is he a bi-vocational children’s pastor, but he’s a new blogger. Now that’s what I really love. Too many people never start blogging becasue they feel like they don’t have anything to say or since they’re in a small church, they feel that they don’t have an audience. I think that children’s pastors at small churches should blog to share their experiences as they have the potential to share and encourage others in their situation even better than I do. I read Jared’s first post, and it’s awesome. I told him that he give the blog posts of the mega churches a run for their money. He’s just gotten started, but check it out, it will challenge you right where you are.

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Coffee with Kennedy and Kummer

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by .

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photo(15)Although this title sounds like a movie, it really just describes a great meet-up Sam Luce and I had with two great Children’s Pastors. Tony Kummer is a Chidlren’s Pastor in Madison, IN, which is a small but beautiful town about 45 minutes North of Louisville, KY. He’s better known for his web site, Ministry-To-Kids which is currently the largest Children’s Ministry site on the web. Along with Kummer, we met with Jared Kennedy, who is the Children’s Ministry pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Lousiville, KY. You can find his site here.

IMG_0444-1We met these two guy at Sojourn Church, took a quick tour of their children’s space and then headed down to Bardtown Road (a funky and eclectic part of Louisville) for some coffee and Quills. For the next hour or so, we got to know each other, learn about each other’s journeys and wrestle through what we’re experiencing in our ministries. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay very long as we had to move on to Nashville, but we could have sat and talked for hours.

It was great getting to meet and know Tony. He was pretty quite, but I think that was due to a rough day. I didn’t realize how funny the guy is. His sense of humor is pretty dry and quick, but we cracked up quite a few times due to his remarks. He’s a very intelligent guy, which shows when reading posts from his blog. Although he serves in a small church, he thinks big which also shows from what he’s done with his website. It’s not an accident that it’s the biggest kidmin site on the web. I’ve shared many emails with Kummar, now I’m glad to be able to match his face and personality with his messages.

I first connected with Jarred about six months ago when he wrote some really nice things about me and this site. Since I first connected with him, I was very intrigued about his church. In many ways, Sojourn reminds me of Gateway. It’s very eclectic and arts driven. All down the hallways of their church, which used to be a school, is original art from local artists. The church doubles as a community center where artists and musicians display and perform their craft for the community. On the other end, Sojurn is a liturgical church. I don’t know if I can describe it well as I’ve never been to an actual service (Jarred, feel free to help me out). It appears that Sojurn puts a lot of emphasis on the best parts of the Christian tradition, something that many people are drawn to and something that the typical “seeker” church overlooks. What they’re doing has been very successful and it comes across as very refreshing. They’re currently expanding into the world of multi-site within the urban areas of Lousiville, KY, so we talked quite a bit about multi-site in Chidlren’s Ministry.

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I’m grateful for the time we had with Tony and Jarred. If you find yourself in the Louisville/Southern Indiana region, you should do what you can to connect with these two guys, you’ll be glad you did.

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Texas Snowmen

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by .

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texassnowmanI’ve lived in Texas for 5 years now and I’ve learned that when the white stuff falls, people get really excited. Since a large portion of my facebook friends are from Texas, my feed has been lit up with pictures of the snow on in the yard, on the street, on the car and everywhere else. It’s like Christmas here! I actually grew up a southern boy. In ten years in south Georgia, one time it snowed about 2 inches. That day was one of the best days of my life. But what all southern states have in common are their snowmen. We’ve seen them in the movies and on TV shows, and if there’s going to be snow, we’re going to build a snowman. Even if that means we’ll use up very inch of snow in the front yard, the back yard… and maybe even the neighbors yard.

So, you know you’re in the south when you see a snowman in a yard, yet there’s not any snow in the yard. Oh, and these snowmen usually aren’t totally white because they’ve picked up quit a bit of dirt, leaves and debris in the process of being rolled. But hey, it’s a snowman, right?

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Dear kidmin curriculum publishers: Conclusion

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by .

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Okay, I never intended this series to jump into a third week. Sorry, my week last week got a little busy.

I just thought I’d wrap it up with a few closing thoughts.

Here’s what we explored:

There were some great conversations on some of these posts. If you missed any, be sure to check them out.

There seemed to be a lot of agreement from other Children’s Pastors in response to these posts. I expected as much since I wrote these based on personal frustrations as well as hearing first hand what others have been frustrated about. However, the point of this series wasn’t to complain to publishers. We have a symbiotic relationship with publishers and if we don’t tell them what we want, they won’t produce what we want. I know of at least three publishers who were reading this series, so hopefully the conversations happening around these topics have given them things to consider.

Most importantly of all, communicate with your publisher. Tell them what you like and what you don’t like, it’s the only way your publishers will have the feedback necessary to build your dream curriculum.

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Called to kidmin?

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by .

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Screen shot 2010-02-23 at 12.11.07 AMLast week I participated in a think tank hosted by Tony Kummer. The think tanks explored the following questions:

“How do you understand God’s calling to children’s ministry in your own life? How would you counsel a young person who is exploring this children’s ministry as a vocation? What do you make of Kids Pastors who move on to other positions in the church such as executive or senior pastor?”

How would you answer these questions? To see how we answered and to chime as well, click here!

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Quit being a loner. Go meet someone!

Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by .

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I’m home form my six day kidmin road trip with fellow blogger and children’s pastor Sam Luce. First of all, it was a total blast. Shooting around Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio with the mission of connecting with as many children’s pastors as possible was a total blast. Over the 6 days, we connected with over a dozen children’s pastors, one kidmin band from New Zealand and the infamous Jim Wideman.

Our tour connected us with a virtual mosaic of personalities and ministry styles that both humbled and impressed me. On multiple occasions, reality defied my expectations in an unexpected, but pleasant way.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from this whole kidmin road trip is that ministry in isolation is stupid. I can’t even tell you how much I learned in the past six days, but I would never have learned so much if I hadn’t left my church behind for a week and charged out to meet some new people (and visited some I hadn’t seen in a while). Going to a conference is good, but too often conference attenders don’t really venture out to meet new people, exchange ideas, challenge processes and dream of the future ministry ahead. How does that happen? You sit in a coffee shop for several hours with someone in ministry you respect. You take a look at someone’s facilities and ask question after question after question. You connect with someone you want to learn from and go to their house, eat their food and play with their kids.

So, this week (maybe a little of next week as well) I’ll share with you some of the experiences Sam and I had. Don’t rely on mine though. Reading this is just touching the tip of the iceberg. I’ll continue to have conversations, chats and meet-ups with the people I mention that you won’t know about. You need to make your own “kidmin road trip.” Maybe it won’t take you hundreds of miles away crossing state lines. It could start with the church on the other side of town. How are you going to make this happen in 2010? You’ll be glad you did, I promise!

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-21

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by .

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App of the week: Car minder

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by .

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IMG_0413I’ll start off by being very honest. Taking care of my car the way that it should does not come very natural to me. I’m probably this way for a lot of reasons, some of them good, some of them bad. However, I’ve recognized that this is an area of growth in my life. Actually, I need help. If I don’t get the help I need, I’m probably going to be one of those guys with a cracked engine block because I forgot to put oil in it. I’m probably not that bad, but you get the picture.

A few weeks ago (when I was going to get an oil change) I downloaded Car Minder, and app for the iPhone/iPod touch. I was sitting in the office of the oil change place wondering how I could do a better job of maintaining my car. What actually got me thinking about it was wen the oil change guy always comes out to show you your air filter and asks you if you want to change it. I have no rhyme or reason as to why I say yes or no, it probably depends on how convincing the oil changing dude is. I thought to myself, “I wonder if there’s an app for taking care of my car.” Yup. Several.

I downloaded the cheapest, just a few bucks. You can track the maintenance needs of multiple cars. It will track how often you need to rotate tires, change the oil, change the air filter, change windshield wipers and service the belts. It determines when this is needed based both on time or mileage.

In addition it allows you to document repairs, maintain a gas log to see what kind of gas mileage you are getting or just add various information about the car. You can also write specific notes under each of the maintenance items. For instance, I left a note that my CR-V takes a #20 windshield blade for the driver side and a #19 for the passenger side. So the next time I’m at Walmart, I don’t have to look it up.

Here’s the only thing I wish Car Minder did that it doesn’t. Due to the nature of being a pastor and having to file an itemized tax return, I get to claim work related mileage on my tax return. I wish there was a way to record mileage for these situations in Car Minder. I could easily make notes of it, but something automatic would be best. So, if you’re looking for something like this, Car Minder is a great app.

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