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.

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. I kind of relate this to the task list versus the wish list. Sunday is huge and Sunday is super important. It’s critical and worth our time. However, we all recognize that impacting families, something we’re not doing nearly at the capacity we’d like to is also critical and could prove to be far more effective than just what we do on Sundays. Preparing for Sundays and leading teams to pull off weekend experiences is really what we were hired for. It’s on our job descriptions and could be equated to our task lists. If we didn’t do what was on our task list, it would be very noticeable and it would affect everyone immediately.

However, the wish list is different. We believe that if we do what is on our wish list combined with what we do on the weekends, we’ll see even greater returns on time and resources invested. However, if we don’t do what is on our wish list, most people won’t even notice. For the immediate future, no one will be affected. To some degree, this would just be ministry as normal for the past 20 years.

This is a quandary, isn’t it? We often really want to do what is on our family ministry wish list, but we don’t have time and often times our supervisors don’t understand or see the benefit for extra staff or resources. More often than not, we end up working a lot of extra hours to “make it happen” and end up creating additional programs that are unsustainable for the long-term… but we keep it going because it’s what we’re passionate about. It’s on ou wish list.

Have you ever found yourself here? Have any thoughts? I’ll probably continue this discussion tomorrow to explore some of the practical “next steps” for those in similar situations… but please speak up and share what you are thinking… or doing!

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.

In a separate experience, we’re hosting a family worship and communion experience where we’ll teach about communion and allow parents to walk their kids (if they’re ready) to take communion, perhaps many for the first time.

We’re really excited about this event. After its all over, I’ll post our notes and a review in case this is something others may want to use in the future.

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. Something that an entire family (5 and up) could watch together.

We ended up finding this video on worshiphousekids.com. It wasn’t perfect, but close. There was about 15 minutes of “Good Friday” video that we could edit down to a 10 minute clip that is very well produced. There are a few scenes that were a little bloody, so we had to do some visual overlays and it all came out pretty good. The video cost us $30 which was fine with me considering the quality of the production. The only funny part was the title screen. Seriously, you’ll crack up when you see it.

So, other than that, where could someone go to find great Good Friday resources?

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. Because we’re attempting to create environments where people who are far from God can come and explore faith, it’s important that we’re all on the same page in the way we communicate. We synchronize our terminology and the way we communicate so that there isn’t confusion to those who attend. Here are some examples:

Gateway Glossary

• Christ-follower: Believer or Christian
• Build into or Invest in: Disciple (verb)
• Came to faith: Saved or born again
• Talk about our faith journey or spiritual life: Evangelism or witness
• Serving trip: Mission trip
• Brokeness: Sin
• Just checking out faith or far from God: Seeker or non-believer
• Truth: Gospel

We even follow a set of values in our communication. Here are a few examples.

• Non-Self-Promotional: We don’t make ourselves or Gateway the hero of the story, only God
• Showing, not telling: We tell stories and give examples rather than tell people what to think
• Hype-Free: We don’t beat around the bush, especially if the subject isn’t pleasant.
• Educated: There are more Master degrees in the audience than many other places, so we must get our facts, references and such right.
• Socratic: Ask questions, even in your writing. Draw in the audience by the questions we ask.
• Funny to be serious: Be playful with the audience. Build credibility. Dont’ say something funny just for the sake of being funny, but so that you can say something serious.

I’ve never seen anything like this at any other church. I have known churches to have a design and style guide, but nothing around the organization’s voice. I thought I’d share in case there are some that would find this really helpful.

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. After paying gobs of cash for a baby and being back down to one car, we’re very motivated to hit some savings goals… by Christmas. We’re setting a goal to save $5000 by the end of the year. We’re off to a bit of a late start and there are several things that we started a few years ago and we’re already reaping the rewards from the savings.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about taking on an extra job or making more money. I’m just talking about not spending as much money. Some of it has a cost, usually to comfort or extra time. I don’t have loads of spare time as it is, but hitting the savings goal seems worth it to me, plus it’s something Sara and I get to do together. So, below is the list.

I’ll write some follow-up posts with more details of what we’re doing specifically in the coming days. My wife typed out this list and I tweaked… so if it sounds like an odd thing for me to say (like having cute napkins) it wasn’t me.

Oh, last thing. Here’s how we actually plan to save where we dont’ just see the money get lost in the budget. Once we determine an item that we’re going to save (like moving our Netflix subscription from $19.00 a month to $9, we’ll adjust our entertainment budget by $10 and increase our monthly savings transfer by $10. So, every way that we determine to save, we immediately adjust our savings transfers so that the savings is actually being moved into an account. In areas like electrical/water savings, we can see our actual expenses versus our budget and transfer the surplus manually after we pay the bill. Okay, here’s the list. I hope that some of these things inspire you. If you end up saving $10,000 this year, feel free to send me an iTunes or Amazon giftcard to support my app and kindle habit.

1. Utilities – Time our showers (5 minutes is probably enough)
2. Utilities – Our HOA informed us after the drought last year that we’d need to replant our grass. (Thank you HOA. We did know that. Something about the brown dirt where we once had grass was a clue.) Buffalo Grass is a grass native to this area that only requires watering every 30-45 days even in drought. Yes, please!
3. Utilities – Turn down the temperature on the hot water heater (not sure we can go much lower actually).
4. Utilities – Look into a blanket designed to insulate hot water heaters. See if it’s worth it.
5. Utilities – Agree upon an acceptable amount of water for Titus’ bath and use the smaller bathtub consistently rather than the master bath garden tub… or even just going to 3-4 minute showers most days of the week.
6. Utilities – Look into faucet aerators (apparently a very cheap device that mixes air with water to create great pressure but reduce water usage).
7. Utilities – Plug all our electronics into power strips and turn them off when not in use.
8. Utilities – Unplug all cell phone chargers when not in use.
9. Utilities – Unplug all small appliances when not in use.
10. Utilities – Stop charging phones and computers overnight.
11. Utilities – Read fridge/freezer manuals to see if we can run them any warmer and still maintain appropriate food safety.
12. Utilities – Select a temperature that is our max for air and heat. Make dressing warmer/cooler the first action rather than adjusting the thermostat.
13. Utilities – Use the stove, broiler and crockpot more often than the oven, particularly in the summer.
14. Utilities – In the winter, open the oven door after cooking to help heat the house.
15. Utilities- Make sure all of us (Titus included) turn off lights in rooms we are not in.
16. Utilities – I often stays up late at night and falls asleep with his computer and lights on. Set a phone timer to wake me up every night to go to bed and turn off lights/computer.
17. Utilities – Check the utility company. If certain hours of the day are cheaper, run laundry, etc. during those hours.
18. Utilities – Check the trash company. How much is the discount for a smaller city bin? Be vigilant about recycling and composting to fit trash into a smaller bin.
19. Utilities – IDEAS FOR OTHERS – get a thermostat timer to adjust temperature while you’re at work. (Should pay for itself in first year and after that… it’s all profit)
20. Utilities – IDEAS FOR OTHERS – get a hot water heater timer to adjust the temperature while at work. Not sure this works for gas heaters (Should pay for itself in first year and after that… it’s all profit).
21. Utilities – Have electronic free nights somewhat regularly. Burn candles. Be romantic.
22. Utilities – Learn to pay attention to sunrise/sunset. Plan bedtime accordingly to maximize natural light.
23. Phone – DID THIS ALREADY – cancel our home phone
24. Phone – Review our phone plans/needs. Downgrade appropriately. I’ve heard that you can negotiate rates… be assertive on this.
25. TV – DID THIS ALREADY – cancel cable/satellite
26. Netflix… go to streaming only.
27. Internet – Review our internet plan. Make sure it’s the best plan for us. I was recently told that you can negotiate this.
28. Insurance – Review our car and homeowners insurance plans to make sure we are not paying for benefits we don’t need.
29. Insurance – Look at paying for the full year at once. Cheaper with many companies to do this.
30. Insurance – DID THIS ALREADY – Health insurance is thankfully through work and is already a high deductible/HSA plan.
31. Insurance – DO THIS ALREADY – Compare health bills with Explanation of Benefits from insurance companies. I was overcharged at least $300 last year.
32. Insurance – Save up a little money and move the car to a higher deductible plan.
33. Infant Care – Switch to cloth diapers
34. Infant Care – Make our own potty pail (this will make sense to those who cloth diaper)
35. Infant Care – Ask a friend for her recipe for homemade cloth diapering detergent.
36. Infant Care – DOING THIS ALREADY – Make our own baby food
37. Gas – Group errands according to vicinity
38. Gas – Check tire air pressure regularly to meet recommended level for maximum gas mileage
39. Gas – Be aware of cheapest prices (If you pre-buy gas at walmart or some places on a giftcard, you can save money)
40. Gas – Apparently driving slowly helps with gas mileage
41. Clothes – Learn to at least look at secondhand clothes for the kids. Don’t know enough about this to know if it’s really cheaper than shopping clearance sales which is my current method.
42. Groceries – Eat vegetarian at breakfast, lunch, and dinner several nights a week.
43. Groceries – Experiment with making our own bread. Certainly healthier. Cheaper and delicious? Worth the time investment? I don’t know…
44. Groceries – Use cloth napkins more often to cut out paper napkins. Bonus – they’re cuter.
45. Groceries – Learn to make my own household cleaners and detergents.
46. Groceries – Portion control.
47. Groceries – Don’t eat after 8 at night. (Good for weight loss too!)
48. Groceries – Only drink water. (Ummm…yes…I am kicking that Dr Pepper habit. So not Fun!)
49. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Watch meat sales. Meat sales rotate through a cycle every 6-8 weeks, so I buy in bulk when what we like is on sale.
50. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Watch produce sales. Learn to know what is a good price per pound and buy only what’s on sale. Bonus – usually what’s on sale is what’s in season, so it tastes better.
51. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – use meat as a “condiment”. Meat in chili or on a homemade pizza goes much farther than a pot roast.
52. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Make a meal plan.
53. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Learn to make simple dishes. A side of steamed broccoli is cheaper than a broccoli casserole. Bonus – it’s healthier too.
54. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Look in the pantry, fridge and freezer first to get ideas for the meal plan. Then look at the sales ads. Full-priced items can be the few remaining items to fill in the gaps. Websites that let you search recipes by ingredients can help with this.
55. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Cut the junk. Junk food is not filling, so you have to buy more food to feel full.
56. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Kiss cereal goodbye. For the price per pound, you can buy steak on sale. Just sayin’. Use grits, bulk oatmeal or bake muffins (which can be made in bulk and frozen) instead.
57. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – cut down on paper towels by using old rags/towels for cleaning
58. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – eat protein at every meal and don’t be afraid of healthy fats. Both help cut down on food cravings so we eat less food.
59. Groceries – DO THIS ALREADY – Run a zero-waste kitchen. If you want ideas for this, ask my wife. I’ve learned so much about this the past few years.
60. Groceries – Every 6-8 weeks, don’t go to the grocery store… just scrounge out of the freezer/pantry
61. Entertainment – Slash this budget significantly. Really – just say no.
62. Entertainment – Learn to have people over more often, rather than eat out.
63. Entertainment – Use the library for books and DVDs. I already mostly do this, but we can be stricter for sure.
64. Entertainment – Pay more attention to the free hiking trails, free city festivals, free museum days. Those are more fun than restaurants/movies anyways.
65. Entertainment – Trade babysitting with friends for date nights.
66. Haircuts – A friend offered to cut our hair. Take her up on it.
67. Haircuts – If you normally get your haircut once a month, push back to every 5 or 6 weeks.
68. Other – Cancel the gym membership. There is this thing called a trail. I should run on it.
69. Other – DO THIS ALREADY. Use a written budget. Thanks Mom, Dad, Dr. Rinne Martin at ORU and Dave Ramsey for teaching me this!
70. Other – DO THIS ALREADY USUALLY. Spend mostly with cash to not overspend.
71. Other – Spending cash only has a psychological affect on us… you tend to spend less.
72. Mortgage – Last year we refinanced our mortgage to 3.5% on a 15 year note. This didn’t free up any cash for us, but it’s saving us a TON of money over the life of the loan. Refinancing can be a good idea for some people.

A digital application
I can see two versions. An editable PDf where the volunteers downloads, fills out and either emails the application back or uploads it via a wufoo form or something like that. No printing or scanning.

A digital background check
We can already do this, although we don’t do it very much. Fellowship One provides a volunteer pipeline where individuals can log in and submit their own background check. We don’t use it very much because everything else is paper-based, so it seems less confusing to keep the background check process analog as well. I included what a volunteer fills out to get a background check though Fellowship One below.

A digital ministry agreement
There are a few significant bits of information that I want every volunteer to know and understand before they begin volunteering. I actually even want them to sign off that they know and understand… even agree to comply with. This may include our expectations as well as core policies such as appropriate touch, suspected child abuse and other key issues.

All of these “physical” documents we already keep in their file with Fellowship One which is secure and private, but almost all of these documents are scanned from a paper copy.

The Big Question
What does a digital signature look like in these cases? Could I simply add a disclaimer at the end of each document saying that filling out the following fields gives us consent that the information submitted was true, accurate and from you. The fields would request their full name, date of birth and maybe even the last four digits of their social security number… making that harder for someone to randomly fake. I know that Fellowship One does a background check completely digitally (I included the screenshot below) and no one has to “sign” anything. You have to give your social (which is required to run a check) which maybe helps validate that the person filling out the form is who they say they are.

So, what can we do? What legal issues do we need to consider? What issues might we run into if someone did something inappropriate and claimed that they didn’t know and that they didn’t sign the document that we have digitally signed by them. Also, if we use a Wufoo form to transmit files electronically, the form is a secure page (signified by the https at the front of the URL). Does that then provide a safe transport of files with documents of a more sensitive nature (although we’ll not ask for people’s full social security number on these forms)?

Let me know. I’m really curious as to what our options might be.

The unique aspect about Keynote Remote is that as long as the computer and your device are on the same WiFi signal, they can communicate and you can control the slideshow. It’s brilliant. Depending on how you set up your slideshow, you can easily teach from the notes on your iPad or iPhone built into the presentation which makes controlling the slideshow so natural. You can easily see what slide is next before sending it to the display, you you really can be free of the laptop and just give your presentation.

Here’s two cool things I did with this app. I was in one location where there wasn’t WiFi. I actually signed up for tethering through ATT (it is prorated, so you can turn it on for a few days and then turn it off and not pay very much money. Then, I connected my laptop, the presentation computer to my phone on a local tethering WiFi signal and through that signal, I could control the presentation from my phone. At the Nashville Illuminate Conference, I had Jim Wideman give a presentation from a room that had built in 42 inch TV’s for displays. Unfortunately, the computer connection to get the signal to those TV’s was about 150 feet away. With Keynote Remote, this was a simple solution. I plugged in his laptop to the TV’s on the other side of the building and Brother Jim was able to control the slideshow from an iPad that was on the same WiFi connection as the computer. Genius.

So, I highly recommend this app, it’s wonderful to work with and may help you out when in a jam.

In the past 5-10 years, I’ve become increasingly tired of most Christian media, primarily novels and movies. I think I first realized my issue while reading some books by Ted Dekker. I loved that he was pushing the boundaries of Christian fiction/suspense. Book after book exposed the darkness of humanity and sin where characters in the book, often the protagonists were non-Christians. However, they didn’t exactly talk or act like non-Christians and the characters were totally unbelievable. Thinking it was just that book, I picked up another and found the same to be true in others. I quickly realized that that this was simply “Christian entertainment” written for the Christian sub-culture who wanted a taste of horror or suspense without crossing any lines.

I think it’s really cool that some movies written and produced by churches have made it to the big screens. I’ve seen a few of them and they were pretty okay. The story was touching, but even as I’m sitting there watching the movie, I knew that I could never invite a friend who was far from God to come and watch it. They’d ask if it was a joke. They wouldn’t get it because so many of these movies are simply “Christian Entertainment” produced for the Christian subculture. There are enough Christians going to see these movies,they’ll keep making more.

Then I saw the movie Blue Like Jazz. It is a Christian movie, but it was NOT created for the Christian sub-culture. It is the movie a person far from God can go and see and no think it’s an inside joke they haven’t heard or. It defies all the Christian movie stereotypes, the makers really are trying t distance themselves from being lumped into the category of “Christian film.” I really do hope that more films like Blue Like Jazz are made. I think that our culture needs to see more expressions of art with powerfully positive messages that point to redemption and a God that loves them without them feeling like they’ve just seen a propaganda film. I also hope that Christians will go and see this movie in mass, with an open mind. I hope they’ll see and understand that this movie wasn’t made for them for entertainment purposes, but the film tells a story that family and friends who will never set foot inside their churches needs to hear/see.

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?

Amazing! Wonderful. Superb! This was a movie that needed to be made. There is a message in this story that needed to be told. It wasn’t preachy or irrelevant. I feel that I could take anyone who is far from faith to this movie and they would enjoy it and the story, or at least parts of the story would resonate with them. It’s entertaining, heart-warming and touching. What a great film.

Don’t get me wrong though. It’s not a perfect film. I’m not going to say this is the best movie I’ve ever seen or anything like that. It had it’s issues. Two characters had very irritating accents that came across contrived. Although the early part of the movie was HILARIOUS, it seemed a bit over-the-top… reminded me of the Christian satirical film “Saved.” But the film drew me in and when it was over, I was very satisfied. What a great experience… leaving plenty of room for great conversations.

So, who is going to see this movie? People who read the book, for sure. I think the trailer is engaging enough that many people will go see it out of curiosity… it looks like the kind of movie people would enjoy. I think it’s a great movie for high school and college students to go see. It tackles many of the issues they will or are experiencing in their phase of life.

So, who isn’t going to like this movie? Unfortunately, a lot of Christians are going to hate it. I expect that it will get some scathing reviews because it’s not like any other “Christian” movie out there. It has language, drug references, inappropriate material and all kinds of other sinful content… and we all know that Christian movies aren’t supposed to have any of that stuff in it. I’m already writing my next post in my head about this, but you’ll have to read that tomorrow.

So, here’s how I’ll leave you. Go see this movie.

Go see this movie on Friday, April 13th. Go see it again on April 14th. Make a date night of it. Organize the biggest group of friends you can plan to go to dinner and go see this film. Order group tickets and take your student ministry.

Why? Well, this movie is opening in 25 cities on April 13. Hollywood doesn’t care about this movie or movies like this. They care about the bottom line, how much money is it making. If theaters sell out this weekend, it will open in additional cities the following week and expand again the following week. Again, they’re motivated by money and if it makes money, they’ll put it in additional cities to make more money. If it doesn’t do very well, it won’t spread to additional cities and will likely remain in the theaters for a week, maybe two. More movies that tell great stories that point to Jesus need to be made and helping them be successful ensures that they will continue to be made. I’m not encouraging you to go spend $20 to so see two hours of crap because it has a great message. It’s good, you’ll enjoy it, but don’t wait to see it on DVD or another week, put it on your calendar and make it happen.

Check out the movie’s page here.