Month: November 2013

It’s time to get your Advent on…

That title might have been offensive to some… terribly sorry. Oh well, it’s true though, isn’t it? Advent has totally become the “think” in our Kidmin communities in recent years, right? It’s not like advent is new or anything. I remember the creative calendar boxes from when I was a kid, but now it seems to be everywhere, and that’s a great thing. (Confession: I’ve never actually done advent, in a serious and disciplined way – meaning to do it every day for 25 days. Don’t judge, I think we’re going to give it a shot this year.)
So, I thought I’d share some of the advent ideas out there as there seems to be quite a few. Maybe you’re looking for some inspiration to create your own for families in your church or you simply want to point families to an advent resource they can do on their own. Well, here are some of the ideas I know about.

Read More

The Bible App for Kids

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get my hands on the brand new Bible App for Kids from the makers of YouVersion, the Bible App just about everyone has on their phone. What a treat! The App is released into the wild on Thursday, but I thought I’d give everyone a sneak peak into this new app aimed for our kids.

I’ll start with this. I didn’t have any expectations going into this. I learned that this app was coming out a few weeks ago, but let me tell you, I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve not done any research or looked into what this app would be like. So, as I downloaded a copy of the app, I did so with no specific hopes or expectations for what this app would or would not be like. Honestly, I opened this app pretty much like most parents probably will.

Upon opening the app, I was impressed. My initial response was, “there’s no way a church designed this app.”

Read More

Geocaching: My Confession

Orange’s 252 Basics curriculum is featuring wisdom during the month of November and to tell the story, they’re using the activity of geocaching as a fun way to set up the ideas.

I must admit that I was a little excited about this theming option. Here’s my confession, I’ve been an avid geocacher for almost 9 years. Yes, before they had a cool app for your smart phone, I had a handheld GPS, pages printed from geocaching.com, a pen and a bag of geocaching swag. Although I don’t cache very much anymore (one or two times every month or so), I have caches in 20 states, 6 countries, I’ve logged over 700 caches and have hidden nearly 40. Yes, I’ve even attended a couple of geocaching events.

Those of you who truly know me, this probably comes as no surprise. Ha!

All this to say, I think geocaching goes hand in hand with Children’s Ministry.

Read More

Ministry Bait and Switch

For those of you new to children’s ministry, there’s something very important that you need to understand. Actually, there are many who have been in ministry for a long time who haven’t caught onto this idea. I like to call it the “Great Bait and Switch” of ministry. It’s counter intuitive from what feels natural, but if you get this and run with it, you’ll expand the scope of your influence like crazy.

Most likely, the reason you’re in ministry is because you’re good with kids. You’re probably really good with kids. You’re like the kid whisperer. You speak and they listen. They’re like play dough in your hands. There’s honest to goodness giftedness there and it’s obvious why you responded to the call of Children’s Ministry. However, what brought you into children’s ministry isn’t going to be what helps you build a large ministry that impacts kids beyond your personal influence. I’m not discounting your gift, but operating completely out of your giftedness with kids will limit your ability to reach more than than a hundred or so kids if even that. If you’re content to reach and ministry to just a hundred or so kids, then that’s perfectly fine, but if you want to see impact beyond that, you have to rely on something entirely different.

Read More

Illuminate Conference 2014

So, I’ve been a little quiet about the Illuminate Conference this fall. Normally I’m promoting it pretty heavily already. In case you’re a new reader, Illuminate is a conference that I launched a few years ago at my church. Illuminate’s goal was to equip, empower and encourage those who serve kids in the local church. It was a conference that was both local and affordable, designed specifically for the volunteer in mind. No other conference put together such a high quality lineup of communicators for such an affordable event for volunteers. Oh, and Illuminate has been so successful. The first year saw nearly 1000 attendees in three cities and the second year saw nearly 2000 participants in five cities. What a fun ride.

So, what’s new this year? Well, my vision for Illuminate became bigger than my capacity to run it on my own (remember, I’ve got a full time gig too). So, I asked Orange to come in and help me take Illuminate to the next level and I’m so excited to see what Illuminate is becoming. Sue Miller and Amy Fenton have taken the reigns and are putting together an amazing team of communicators and assembling top notch content and are packaging it in a format that is new, but even more strategic than I’ve done in the past.

Read More

Why I love that Hollywood is making Noah

I’m talking about the movie in case you haven’t heard. See the trailer below:

I love a good movie and the trailer indicates that this one could be pretty amazing. They seemed to spare no expense when it comes to the talent. Oh, and the visual effect loop pretty amazing too.

Here’s the problem, there’s going to be lots of talk about this movie as it comes out. There will be a big debate as to why every Christian should go out and see this movie and take a non-believing friend. Churches will likely book showings. Then there will be others who will demand that Christians not go to the film, how the inaccuracies dilute the truth and will confuse people. The Gospel Coalition blog wrote a great article about this situation.

Honestly, I don’t care about either position.

Read More

One HUGE mistake ministry leaders often make

I’m probably preaching to the proverbial choir. If you’re reading this, it probably doesn’t apply to you… or maybe it does.

One of the biggest mistakes ministry leaders often make is to not take the time to learn from others. Before your mind goes there, I’m not entirely thinking what you think I’m thinking. I’m not necessarily talking about the well read and well visited blogs and books written by the top ministry leaders in Christendom… although you should learn from them as well.

I’m talking about the church down the street and the church you’ve never heard from in Montana. They’re doing something you haven’t thought of already and if you’d take a few moments of your day for a conversation, it could better you ministry.

Hey, you don’t have to tell me. We’re all busy. I’m so busy, I’ll never get everything done in the week that I need to get done this week. If I add a non-essential phone call, a less-than-critical lunch or God forbid – a day trip for a visit… well, how will I ever get all my work done. This is the very reasonable line of thinking that every busy ministry leader faces. However, I’m a big believer in the line that “Leaders are Learners” and that means budgeting a little bit of time to learn not just from books, but from others. Yes, that means you might miss a deadline or not get something else done, but the value of learning something new that could changed what you do is to critical to putt off.

This last week I gave about 5 hours to learning from others and it was huge.

Read More

Words are Powerful

This may be blog cheating, but I had to share.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post over at the lead small blog that impacted me in a powerful way. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was was going to write until I just started typing. As I typed, the words came to me and 20 minutes later, I connected to deep wound and hand an thought… maybe an idea. Actually, I’ve been calling it an epiphany.

This epiphany hit me so hard, it has made me want to bring in every one of my volunteers for specialized training in this one area. It will only take 5 minutes, but it could make the difference of life and death for a kid or student. This idea is all about positive words, but you’ll have to read about it here.

Check out my article: The Power of Words at LeadSmall.org.

Read More

Marketing 101: Engage potential customers

I recently watched the youtube viral video “Test Drive” embedded below. Thanks Sam Luce for sharing.

Really fun video. Everyone loves a good prank and this is a great one. Why does it currently have 39 million views? Because people enjoyed it and shared it. People gathered around someone’s desk at work and watched it together. It’s got all the elements of a perfect viral video.

However, this video is very different than most videos that go viral. This video was made for one intended purpose…

Read More

Recent Comments