Archive for 'Fresh Ideas'
GREAT new song for kidmin!
Posted on 12. Apr, 2012 by Kenny.
I hopped over to iShine the other day to watch some of the video clips over there. It’s a great site people!
Regardless, I came across this song and music video by Jaime Grace. I bet that’s not her real name… it sounds to perfect. Ha! As soon as I heard it I thought… the kids would love this song… even if it’s just fun music for when kids are hanging out. Toby Mac is in the song (small parts) which is fun as well. Looks like you can download the video… but its worth looking in other songs and videos by Jamie Grace.
Jamie Grace – Hold Me featuring tobyMac (Official Music Video) [www.keepvid.com] from iShine Live on Vimeo.… Read the rest
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Task list vs. wish list
Posted on 11. Apr, 2012 by Kenny.
I’m in the middle of writing an article about family ministry and it made me think of a specific frustration that I and my team experience so many times when it comes to family ministry. I thought I’d post my thoughts here as it isn’t likely this aspect will be covered in the article.
I and my staff team have all sipped the family ministry kool-aid. We’re all believers and have great vision for what family ministry could look like at our church. However, there’s one massive barrier. We’re all so busy doing what it takes to make the weekend experiences successful that there’s not really any time to do some of the things we’ve dreamed of doing.
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Good Friday family experience
Posted on 04. Apr, 2012 by Kenny.
I’m excited about what Gateway is offering families this year for Good Friday. We’ll have Easter services on Saturday and Sunday, but we’ll offer a unique experience on Friday. From 5-9, we’ll have several “choose-your-own-adventure” type experiences for people to choose from. We’ll have dramas, music, worship, short teachings, short films, audio experience of the cross, art installation and tactile experience (with a several crucification nails from the 1st century), a guided prayer experience and several other options. All these things are happening multiple times during the evening all in different venues. Due to the nature of Good Friday, many of the venues are not really child appropriate, so we are hosting a family experience in addition to childcare for kids under the age of 4.
The family experience will feature songs and a short film about Good Friday (I wrote about it here) which we’ve broken down into parts where we can expound on what was happening and guide families in discussion around the events of Good Friday.
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Good Friday resources: Where are they?
Posted on 03. Apr, 2012 by Kenny.
It seems that there really isn’t any shortage of Easter resources. From curriculum, video, and other needs, you can find just about anything you’re looking for. But that’s not true of Good Friday. It appears that most resources seem to lump all of Good Friday and Easter into one package, but the Good Friday stuff really can’t stand on it’s own. With more churches offering Good Friday services, events and experiences, the need for stuff specific to Good Friday has increased.
At Gateway we’re doing a very interesting and unique (unique to us) experience for Good Friday which I’ll write about later. We’re putting together a family experience around around Good Friday and we really had a difficult time finding what we were looking for. With what we did find, it was hard to find something that wasn’t too bloody and something that wasn’t too cheesy.
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Does your church have a unified voice?
Posted on 02. Apr, 2012 by Kenny.
I’m about to celebrate 4 years of serving at Gateway Church and let me tell you, I’m so thankful. It’s been a wonderful journey so far and I’m looking forward to many more years ahead of me. One of the things I love the most is how strategic Gateway is about reaching a specific demographic. Jim Wideman had done some consulting for Gateway years ago and while interviewing, he told me that Gateway was one of the very few churches he’d worked with that very closely reflected the culture they were trying to reach.
One of the ways that Gateway does this is training leadership in the “Voice of Gateway.” Just a few weeks ago we sat through a 30 minute refresher in an all-staff meeting.
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Get a $10,000 raise this year!
Posted on 29. Mar, 2012 by Kenny.
The title sounds appealing, doesn’t it? I didn’t pick a misleading title, I really meant it. Most people reading this right now apply and are eligible for this $10,000 raise regardless of how much you make right now. What’s the catch. We’ll it’s not a get rich quick scam. It’s called frugal living.
Several years ago, my wife found a blog series about finding 100 ways to save $100 in a year. If you could find 100, then your annual savings would literally be $10,000. Some people live very frugally, but most people have a lot of fluff in their budget… even if they don’t make a lot of money.
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Digital signatures for volunteer documents
Posted on 27. Mar, 2012 by Kenny.
I have questions that have both a technological and legal aspects. More and more our ministries are moving toward a digital medium. One of the biggest holdups for many volunteer processes is “paperwork.” It’s frustrating as we have conversations with people, meet them in person and then say, oh, fill out these pages and then we’ll get the ball rolling. Some of us have taken additional steps in putting all of these forms online, but it still usually requires someone to download the form, print and sign it. Once this is finished, those volunteers either mail it in, hand deliver it or scan/fax/email back to us. For living in the 21st century, this seems like a bunch of steps from digital to analog and back to digital again. I’m wondering though if we can keep the process purely digital. Here are my thoughts followed by questions.
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App of the week: Keynote Remote
Posted on 25. Mar, 2012 by Kenny.
A sure fire, no miss app for me that has saved my hide on many occasions this year has been Keynote Remote. If you use a mac personally or use macs for presentations at church or other speaking opportunities, I’d highly suggest investing in this very useful app for your iPad, iPod or iPhone. I’ve found myself in situations where the remote clicker I needed to use for a presentation could not get a clear line of site with the compter or perhaps I was too far away from the compter to get an appropriate signal to control the slideshow.
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My problem with Christian media
Posted on 24. Mar, 2012 by Kenny.
I really enjoy reading, especially fiction. I have so many books on my “to read” list and sometimes I can get into a rut. The cure is to pick up a work of fiction to keep me going. While in Middle School, I was first exposed to Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness. For years it held the “my favorite book” award in my heart. Unfortunately, it’s been 20+ years since I’ve read it and it’s become more of a distant memory. Then something changed.
In the past 5-10 years, I’ve become increasingly tired of most Christian media, primarily novels and movies.
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Film Review: Blue Like Jazz
Posted on 22. Mar, 2012 by Kenny.
Today I had an opportunity to attend an advanced screening of Blue Like Jazz. Donald Miller, Steve Taylor, Marshall Allman and others were there for a Q & A. What a wonderful privilege. I’ve heard Donald speak twice at Orange and as a result, I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years last fall. It was probably one of the best books I read last year. I’m only half way through Blue Like Jazz right now. I wrote more than a year ago about how KickStarter was used to get this movie funded, which is an incredible story of it’s own.
So, last week I got an invite to attend the screening and I made arrangements for Sara and I to get a little date and see the movie. So, what did I think?
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