I absolutely loved Craig Groeschel’s talk at Orange this year. He essentially communicated many of the philosophical and strategy positions behind Orange, but from his own personal perspective and experience. His shocking statement was that we should not aim to raise well rounded, highly educated and happy children. That’s what our culture communicates as a need, but this doesn’t line up with the scriptures.

• Well rounded really isn’t best. It’s average in everything. When hiring someone, you’re typically looking for someone who is good in one or a handful of areas.
• Well educated isn’t necessarily the best either. How many parents send their students to great schools only to have them lose their faith in exchange for intellect.
• Seeking happiness isn’t best either. Our culture worships the false god of happiness. Seeking happiness in itself is fleeting.

I’m not advocating that any of the things above are bad. I want some of those things for my kids… but it’s not the central object of desire. The scriptures say, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his own soul.”

Instead, we should aim to raise single-minded, Christ-centered, Bible-anchored world changers. YES! This is what I want!

Craig had so many other great nuggets of wisdom, I’ll end this post by listing them here:

• Parents: You will always be the most important voice… but you must not be the only voice.We must have intergenerational voices. Not just 20 year olds speaking into 16 year olds, but 60 year olds into 16 year olds.
• Raise your expectationsWe have dumbed down and lowered our standards. We must raise the standard of what we can expect the next generation can do. In biblical times, a child would have memorized the first 5 books of the bible by age 12. Of teenagers, we expect then to go to school, don’t get anyone pregnant and make your bed. We’ve lowered the standard and raised an entitled generation. Everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.
• Craig expected all of his kids were expected to have a mentor and be a mentor. How many 11 year olds think they can mentor? Those who have parents who think they can. Craig’s 16 year old wrote a book. How many 16 year olds wrote a book? Those who have parents who think they can.
• Raise your kids to be investors. Raise your kids to be owners. Tell them, you can lead a Bible study. You can lead your teacher to Christ. They can own a business. You can be in leadership at our church.
• Rules without relationship equals rebellion.
• If it’s not real to you, they’ll know. They are fake detectors. If you want to see them forgive freely with grace, forgive freely with grace.

While at The Orange Conference last week, Andy Stanley spoke specifically to to the issue of staff culture. Many of the points I’ve heard before in one of his leadership podcasts, but it was a great and timely reminder. He spoke at length about creating a staff culture where mutual submission is present. Yes, God may have called key leadership and senior staff to do something significant and the primarily purpose for additional staff is to serve that vision (I truly do believe that), but this doesn’t mean that senior staff doesn’t and shouldn’t serve the staff that works for them. This type of mutual submission creates a healthy culture where people want to work.

Specific points from Andy’s talk include:

1. Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. Don’t buy into the myth that you have to do it for everyone.
2. Systematize top-down service.
3. Create and maintain a sustainable pace.
4. Celebrate and reward mutual submission when you see it. What’s rewarded is repeated. What’s punished is avoided. What’s neither rewarded or punished gets neglected.
5. Confront your ego. If you have a big ego, then let your staff know.
6. Drop the term loyalty from your vocabulary. If you need to demand loyalty, you’ve got personal loyalty problems.

All of these items are leadership gold, but I wanted to speak the the two that stuck out to me the most.

Systematize top-down service

I recognize that I’m a systems guy to the core. I’m always looking for time-savings tools that allow me to automate tasks. I also recognize that systems also keep me accountable. There are things that I want to do, but left to my own devices, I’ll neglect them. I need a reminder or process that triggers my action. Andy talked about how they do 3 month reviews for every employee. In this review, new employees communicate how leadership could better help them get their job done. Whenever possible, they act on this request as an opportunity to serve the staff. So, I’m writing this one down as an area for personal development. I want to serve my staff and I want them to feel like they’re loved an valued, but I’ll be far more successful at this when I create a system to help me.

Create and maintain a sustainable pace

This statement brings all kinds of conviction and guilt at times. I suffer from work-aholic tendencies. I take on more than I can handle and on top of that, I’ve been attempting to maintain two jobs for the past year as opposed to just my normal work. In addition, I’ve taken on some side projects that are both time consuming but also very important to me. At this moment, I don’t really know what a sustainable pace is. I’ll have to dissect this one more… maybe asking for a little help here from others.

I’ve actually been able to attend more breakouts than last year… and I’ve actually been paying closer attention in the general sessions as compared to last year. I hope to publish my notes from some of the sessions/breakouts later tonight. I also had the opportunity to lead a preconference breakout on yesterday, and include some notes from that as well.

Stay tuned…

Matt Norman who actively blogs over at Kidmin1124.com wrote a great post. Matt simply posted a brief summary of each chapter which is helpful as by just reading his summary’s you’ll see how this book is just right for you. I did love his opening line thought:

“the week caught up with Eric as he buried his face in his hands and wept.” With this one sentence I knew that his book was for me.

I think many people can relate to that experience.

Neil Hancock did his blog review over on his blog, Fight 4 the Heart. Neil said that he read the book because there wasn’t an Eric Trap movie in the works. Ha! I’m glad he pushed through anyway. I actually haven’t thought about movie deals, maybe we’ll work on that next year… would have to be pretty low budget though. Neil continues the sentiment you’re hearing most other people, you’ll likely identify with Eric’s plight.

Vanessa Small also wrote her review at her blog, LetThemCome1014. She is currently a volunteer who has high hopes to be in full time ministry in the near future. She found the book insightful as something to keep in mind so that she might not fall into the same traps.

Lastly, Joy Bowen wrote a blog review on her site, ImpulsiveJoy. She broke the book down into four things she was challenged by: Answer the Question, Talk to Your Leaders and Volunteers, Seek Out Your Senior Pastor and Have a Heart to Heart. Joy also made a quick video with her review. Enjoy the video below.

The first stop is over at the Compel Blog, which is the kidmin encouragement/resource blog for the Church of God of Prophecy denomination. Jason Vernon, the blog’s author is the senior pastor at RTP Community Church (which I wrote about a few weeks ago). He’s a great guy and I’m so glad to get the perspective of a senior pastor for this book. What spoke to him most was the chapter on delegation. Craig Gyergyo who wrote that chapter did an incredible job approaching delegation in a very unique way. Many of us do a great job delegating tasks, but we don’t delegate authority, which is huge. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Read Jason’s review here.

Stop two was an unexpected surprise. It really is great getting reviews from a variety of perspectives, including senior leaders, volunteers and others. However, I wasn’t expecting a review from a physician with a background in psychiatry. Let me tell you, Steve Grcevich from the Church4EveryChild blog had a completely different perspective. He reviewed this book from an “underneath the surface” view of the underlying reasons why Eric struggles the way he did. Steve, thank you for your perspective, it was so informative and refreshing. Please, check out this review as I think you’ll learn a lot from what he had to say.

Stop three included a review from my long-time blog/twitter friend Wendy Douglas. It was great to get her perspective, as she is a volunteer. When you talk to her, you wouldn’t know it. How much do I love volunteers like Wendy. In her review, she identifies with Eric’s struggle and she made a very important point. This book wasn’t written to point out how some children’s pastors/leaders fall short and need to get better at being a leader, but it reveal common flaws that ALL of us share. I’ll blog more about this later. Check out the review, it’s a great one!

The last stop of the Eric Trap (for the day) was over at Mike Rubin’s Providence Blog. Mike suggested renaming the book, “The Mike Trap.” Hmmm, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it… but I’ll be happy to cross out “Eric” on the cover and write your name in for you. I appreciate that Mike did point out something I’ve forgotten to reference in these posts. One of the best parts of each chapter is the “My Eric Trap” section at the end of every chapter. This section gives you a chance to ask yourself (or your team) a set of probing questions. It’s one thing to read the book, but another thing to start putting the principles in action and that’s what these sections are about. Check out Mike’s blog here.

We’ll that’s Day 8. Thanks everyone for participating, Day 9 looks to be just as exciting!

So, I decided to do my part in supporting BLJ and I organized a group outing. I’m taking almost 30 of my student ministry volunteers and high school students who play in our student band to go see it.

So, here are some ways that you can support Blue Like Jazz:

• If you don’t have any plans tonight, go see BLJ. Take a date, a friend or organize a small group of people to see it with.
• If you do have plans tonight, go see it tomorrow night. It’s not as good as opening night, but it still helps.
• If you’re booked all weekend but you really want to help the film, buy someone else tickets. Send that young couple you know out on a date.
• Don’t know anyone to send to the movie. Just buy the tickets and do whatever else you were going to do. I know, it seems wasteful, but it supports the film.
• Even if the film isn’t showing anywhere near you, just buy tickets in any random city you want. Isn’t that fun?

I saw that Kelly Dolan posted on his wife’s (Amy Dolan) blog today about why they’re going to see the movie tonight as well. The good news here in Austin is that I was planning to take everyone to the 7:30 showing, but it was sold out… so we’re going to the 10:00 show. I hope they sell out everywhere!

NOTICE: In case you were not aware, BLJ is not a “family friendly” film. Just because it is Christian in nature doesn’t mean it’s safe for the family. I just didn’t want anyone going based on my recommendation and accidentally exposing their kids to inappropriate content.

Sarah Richards, Children’s Pastor in MN wrote a great post summarizing the essence of The Eric Trap on her blog this morning. She’s also giving away a couple of books, so if you haven’t scored one yet, be sure to comment on her post!

Wayne Stocks, my friend from Dad in the Middle wrote a very fun post. I really appreciate his post. He expressed his hesitation with another collaborative book… and I totally get it. Collaborative books are great. One of my favorite books (Switch) is a collaborative book. However, sometimes collaborative books can get in a rut. A couple good chapters… a couple not-so-good chapters and some chapters that could go either way. All in all, they’re great resources… and this is what Wayne was feeling. However, the Eric Trap was different. He got sucked in right from the beginning and couldn’t put it down. He finished it in one day… two sittings. It seems like a lot of people have had this same experience. He’s also giving away a few books. Go visit his blog to find out how you can get a copy. Thanks Wayne for your review.

Lastly, Chris Sykes both wrote a review and made a video which is below. I think he might have been showing off a little filming outside from beautiful South Florida… ha! Chris had some strong things to say, describing The Eric Trap as a conference in a book… or even a year of coaching in a book. He accused us again of following him around and documenting his ministry life and putting it in book form. No, we’re not that creepy… but I wouldn’t put that past us.

Are you getting excited yet? The book will be available soon!

Today we had two incredible reviews of the book, The Eric Trap. Let me tell you, these people aren’t being paid or encouraged to say what they’re saying. I personally asked about 3-5 people to write reviews and Sam invited 3-5 people as well. Everyone else simply requested a book to review. I had a conversation with Brother Jim last week where he told me that he didn’t know half the people who were going to review the book. We determined that this is a good thing… that’s its not the normal fans who are going to say it’s a great book just because someone’s name is on it. Someone asked, “What if someone doesn’t like it?” Well, there’s probably going to be some people who don’t like it. I know that when I’m shopping for something on Amazon, I always read the top reviews and the bottom reviews. A product without any negative reviews sometimes makes me a little wary (that’ not an invitation for negative reviews so you know). We all just believe that the book is going to speak for itself, and so far… the verdict is that this book is going to help a lot of people.

As I posted earlier today, Evan Doyle posted a video review of the book in just over 3 minutes. If you’re too lazy to read, watch his video.

Later today, Henry Zonio wrote a great review from a skeptic of “leadership” books. I liked how he explained that the story of Eric disarmed him. It caught him off guard and presented real issues in a relatable way.

Lastly, half-way through the day, Brother Jim decided to give away a few books by commenting on his blog and sending out some tweets. As a result, everyone who commented ended up getting a free book. There are still plenty of opportunities to get a free book if you haven’t already.

Well, the tour continues on tomorrow with reviews from three other bloggers.

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!

Evan Doyle was the first person to submit a video review. Awesome… and it only took 17 tries.