Archive for August, 2010
Innovative use of technology for a conference
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
As I posted earlier today, we held an annual Church Leadership Weekend at our church. For the last several years, we simply gather 400-500 of our leadership core in the auditorium for vision, worship and prayer. However, someone had the brilliant idea to try something really creative.
Rather than assemble the masses at the church on Friday evening for dinner and opening sessions, we decided to distribute the meetings around the city. Close to 30 leaders opened up their homes to host the opening session in their houses. People came to houses where they had relationship already or some people came to specific houses because the house was close to where they lived. Most of the houses were pot luck dinners, so the food and fellowship was amazing.… Read the rest
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Creative way to get touch screens without buying touch screens
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
So I’m excited about this little piece of technology. We currently use Fellowship One for check-in, but we’re only using it as assisted check-in. I want to move toward self check-in stations, but I only have one touch screen. I know that you don’t have to use touch screens, but let’s face it, it’s a better experience. I know that there may be others in a similar situation. You have a lot of monitors already, but you want to move to touch screens. Touch screens cost $500 each (let me know if you know of a better deal) and that’s cost prohibitive for most ministry budgets.
Then I came across Magic Touch, a little device that turns any monitor into a touch screen.… Read the rest
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Your Sunday morning playlist: Welcome Music
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
Music is a powerful tool. It has a powerful affect on environment. I remember walking through UpStreet Kids at North Point Church for the first time a few years ago on a Sunday morning and they had High School Musical booming loud through the hallways. Upstreet had a great decor, but the music literally put a little extra bounce in my step. Amazing how it affected me.
So, what music are you playing in your environments as the kids are coming in? Do you play music in your lobbies or hallways? If so, what is on your playlist?… Read the rest
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Leadership Weekend Review
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
This weekend was Gateway’s annual Leadership Weekend. Every year it’s a Friday night and most of the day Saturday event where the core of the church comes to worship together, pray, be challenged and hear the vision for the upcoming year and engage in how God is leading us. This was my third such event at Gateway, and it was absolutely phenomenal. This year we laid out some pretty major challenges for the leaders of Gateway. The staff has been in an organizational restructuring for the last 6 months and the full plan of why we restructured and what the new structure is setting us up to do was revealed. It was met with excitement and zeal. The energy surrounding this weekend was absolutely contagious.… Read the rest
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I need help with a report
Posted on 30. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
Okay, I’m crowdsourcing a problem I’ve run into. I found the PERFECT volunteer report for Fellowship One. We check all of our volunteers in every Sunday. We keep up with our volunteers as well. If one drops out, we make their ministry assignment inactive. This way, I can run a report and pull up the names of only those who are active. Likewise, I can pull the same report of those who are inactive to see who isn’t serving anymore.
As PERFECT as this report is, it’s got one little problem. Actually, it’s big enough to make it report frustrating. I’ve sent in a request to have this enhanced, but I’m hoping that someone out there can help me before I hear back from the fine folks at Fellowship Tech.… Read the rest
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-30
Posted on 30. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
- CMO: #kidmin Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-23 http://bit.ly/bgsTdt #
- CMO: #kidmin The social church database: a new concept http://bit.ly/bMzcFA #
- CMO: #kidmin Using the iPad for check-in http://bit.ly/cCBZP0 #
- http://tweetphoto.com/40970243 dang! #
- Feeling a little sluggish this morning. Work kept up too late last night. #
- CMO: #kidmin The social church database: who is doing it? http://bit.ly/bckCZV #
- CMO: #kidmin The social church database: what to watch out for http://bit.ly/byMgnu #
- http://tweetphoto.com/41364909 taking the kid for a ride. #
- CMO: #kidmin Do you know of any great Bible Songs? http://bit.ly/bEYrEA #
- Out with my nextgen team today doing research and gathering info about families in Austin. #
- @robpatterson cradle to college. Actually, our college stuff is very new and just starting up… I'm not over it, but connected to.
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Do you know of any great Bible Songs?
Posted on 26. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
Okay, I’m going a little old school here. I’m looking for some really good “old-fashion” Bible Songs. Cheesy instrumentation is okay. Before you disown me and unsubscribe from this blog, let me explain… please. 
Every night when I put Titus to bed, we read from his Bible and something that has been significant is singing together. For close to a month, we read the story of Joshua and Jericho because he really likes the song. I know that he’s learning the story and falling in love with his time in the Bible even more because he loves singing the songs. A few weeks later we started reading the story of Zacchaeus and he really likes that song as well. This week, we’ve been reading Daniel and the Lions Den, but I don’t know a song for that.… Read the rest
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The social church database: what to watch out for
Posted on 25. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a Kids Pastor or somehow involved in the world of kidmin (although I know there are others as well… including my mom and other extended family). So, I need to throw you a serious line of caution. Don’t miss this… seriously.
When it comes to your role and what you’re responsible for, these social church database tools are the icing on the cake. I do believe that both tools (and those yet to come out) will enhance our ministry to our volunteers and better equip them to do their jobs. However, the people who are really going to get excited about these tools is everyone in your staff outside of the children’s ministry. Actually, they’re all going to go nuts, especially your pastor, small group pastors and the like.… Read the rest
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The social church database: who is doing it?
Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
Yesterday I started a new series about the social church database. If you’re like me, you got excited about the possibilities. So, who is already doing this? How do I get more information?
I’m by no means an expert in this stuff, but I try to keep up-to-date with what’s out there. So here’s what I’ve learned these last few months.
The first instance I’ve seen of the social church database is The City. It’s gotten a lot of buzz the last few months, a connectivity tool developed at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Several big churches have moved to it and more are looking at it. I totally understand why… it’s beautiful. I’ve spent many hours on The City and it is what’s been missing.… Read the rest
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Using the iPad for check-in
Posted on 23. Aug, 2010 by Kenny.
I’ll be the first to admit. Using the iPad for check-in was beyond cool. It’s funny how many of you commented and messaged me for more information about using the iPad for check in. A few weeks ago when I first wrote about the idea of using the iPad for check-in, that post got more hits than anything I’ve written in a long time. I think I know what it is. You really want and iPad, don’t you?
Ha! Well, here is what I posted a few weeks ago along with links and video. This is where it all started.
I wasn’t overly creative. I simply copied what they did. I downloaded WinAdmin on my iPad. From there, I ran into problems.… Read the rest
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