Month: February 2014

Be different and be awesome

My wife came across this video a few weeks ago and showed it to me. I couldn’t help but smile. I mean, I like a good cello as much as the next guy, but this is simply amazing.

Here’s what stood out to me about these two guys.

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Finding your productivity sweet spot

For years, I’ve believed that my most productive time of the day was between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM. I’m a night owl. I like it when it’s quite. No one is emailing me. No one is calling me. I can just get stuff done. However, I think that I’ve been lying to myself. Don’t get me wrong, I am a night owl. Actually, I think I’m just a big kid who doesn’t want to go to bed. But I think I’ve been fooling myself about my most productive hours.

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The two most significant questions: Part three

I’ve been talking about the two most significant questions asked in the hallways of our children’s ministry environments.

Did you have fun?
What did you learn?

If your’e just joining this conversation, you might think, “What’s so significant about these two questions?” Nothing really, at least from our perspective. They’re really not significant at all. When you get to the bottom of it, they’re absolutely not the questions we wish were asked in our environments. They’re shallow and automatic… meaningless even.

But, they’re significant because they represent an opportunity.

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The two most significant questions: Part two

Yesterday I began a short series on the two most significant questions asked every week in our church hallways. They are questions parents ask their kids when they pick them up after the service. I truly believe that the answers to these questions have a huge impact on whether a family will come back the following week.

Yesterday, I revealed the first question, “Did you have fun?” Fun! It’s what parents seem most concerned about. More than anything else, parents care about whether their kids laughed and giggled during they hour they were there. It may not be our favorite question, but I think we have a fantastic opportunity. If we can create an experience this is crazy fun, that visiting family is much more likely to come back next week.

The second question is better. I mean better because those of us who work in children’s ministry like it more. It’s a question we want moms and dads to ask. Interestingly, this question is typically asked after the “did you have fun” question and much less often.

Question number two:

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The two most significant questions: Part One

I’ve been a pastor to kids for a very long time. Over all my years of ministry, I would say that there are two questions parents ask that are asked more than any other questions. From connecting with hundreds and thousands of ministry leaders, I’ve learned that most of us in kidmin don’t like the questions (well, at least one of them). We wish the parents didn’t ask this question, but I feel that this is a different issue all together. I truly believe that having the right answer to these two questions may make the difference of whether a family is going to come back to your church. Focus on creating a great answer to these questions and I believe that you’ll have a different retention rate.

Question number one:

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App of the Week: If This Then That

You might have heard of IFTTT, it’s not really that new. Someone told me about this crazy new app/website nearly two years ago and I started using it a little over a year ago for simple things and I’m simply just amazed by what it can do. It’s only limited by your imagination and creativity. I recently came across a few new formulas that have saved me time, so I thought I’d share these with you.

If This Then That was first a website, but also comes as a very functional app. It’s slogan is “putting the internet to work for you. Essentially, the website/app contains dozens of channels like gmail, dropbox, facebook, twitter, Instagram and many other apps/services you know and don’t know. With these channels, you create formulas. Trust me, it’s way easier than it sounds. Actually, you can browse hundreds of other people’s formulas and simply copy or modify them to fit your own needs. Here are a couple of the formulas I’ve been using for a while.

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Meeting families where they are

Sometimes I feel that churches miss the most significant chance they have with visiting families. It has to do with the disconnect between where families are and where we in the church want them to be.

This is probably a larger philosophical conversation based on how your church may interface with the community at large. If your church believes that it’s primary focus is to disciple believers and to do so through weekend services, then you probably won’t be seeing tons of unchurched visiting families showing up on Sundays. That’s totally fine, it’s just important that your expectations, philosophy and experiences are aligned… otherwise there will be frustration.

However, I often see churches where philosophy, expectations and experiences are not aligned. It’s a ministry’s desire to see the unchurch show up in droves, but when they arrive, the church isn’t really ready to create a welcoming experience.

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Password Hack: Recover Passwords on your Mac

Tell me if you’ve ever had this happen. You’re at a family member’s house and their internet is locked down with a wifi password. You have access on your computer but someone else needs it and the person who knows the password isn’t there. It’s not like this happens all the time, but it’s happened often enough for me to be frustrated. Just a few weeks ago I was at a church for a conference. I had access on my computer from the previous year. I was trying to take care of email on my phone, but cell service in the part of the building I was in was non-existent. I needed access to the wifi on my phone, but no one was around who knew it. Good thing I’d learned how to recover a previously entered password on my computer. Here’s how:

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Invest in you!

Yes, this is an Orange Conference promotional post. Yes, today is the last day to register before the price goes up. However, I write this post because I care. Ha! No, really.

For seven years I’ve written nearly 2000 post with the intent to inspire and encourage those who work with kids. If I had to boil down ministry to kids into two or three “most important things” I would definitely include learning/development into one of those “most important things.” I think that is why I’m such a big fan of the Orange Conference. I come home every year tired, overwhelmed (in the best way possible), over-packed (somehow my suitcase grows) and inspired.

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