…and we’re back! For the last 2-4 weeks it’s been touch and go with this site… and at times it was pretty much dead in the water. So here’s what happened. I use Dreamhost where you can host multiple sites on one account. Some of the sites I had are old and out of date. They weren’t getting updated when WordPress upgraded and at least one of those sites were compromised. Since all my sites sit in one directory, they all got infested. Yuck!

So, I got this site cleaned and moved over to a more secure location where other people make sure the site is clean and up to date. I’m sure I’ll talk more about that later. Hopefully, you’ won’t ever get the scary warning below ever again when visiting this site. If you do… I might just give up.

Well, I’m actually out right now. Since I’ve not been able to blog here, I’ve been blogging at other places. For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been doing a series called the Homeless Blogger. You may ask,  ”How would I have known about this?” Well, I’ve been tweeting every post multiple times… another great reason to be on twitter! For those of you who continue to resist, I’ll post links to my Homeless Blogger series later this week.

It’s good to be back. I’ve missed you. Really, I have!

The results? Childrens Ministry Online is the top blog for the second year in a row! Woo hoo!

It truly is an honor. This last weekend I got to speak at a conference where no one knew who I was. Well, maybe there were 2 or 3 people who have read this blog. I encouraged the conference attendees to read kidmin blogs. I encouraged them to contact the authors of the blogs and and pick their brains. I told them not to be intimidated, we’re just a bunch of nobody’s trying to make a difference.

So, although I’m the top Kidmin blogger for the second year in a row, that doesn’t change the fact that this nobody still loves helping others, connecting, sharing ideas and learning from anyone who has ideas. Although I’ve gotten a little slower in recent months (due to Illuminate), feel free to contact me about anything, I love to connect.

What makes me happiest about this list?

Two of my closest friends are with me in the top 3. Oh yeah, and Matt McKee is 14! Ha! I love you too Matt!

I’m excited about many of the other kidmin people I know that are blogging their hearts out. I’m excited to see other friends climbing up this list and making a difference, sharing ideas and making Kidmin better. Here’s to another year blogosphere!

So, in case you missed it, this weekend the March Madness for Kidmin bloggers came to a close. The winner, Jared Massey of Small Town Kidmin. In case you missed all of this, let me explain what happened.

Over at ministry-to-children.com, Tony launched the 2nd annual March Madness bracket competition. Last year I worked my tail off for 3rd place. I know that the other four in the final round also worked their tails off to get to the final four let alone compete to win the championship. It was fun and certainly created exposure to a lot of kidmin blogs that may have gone unnoticed by some. However, it was all about influence. Obviously each blogger would encourage people who followed them to vote, but bloggers were using the influence they had to gain votes as well. Family, friends, volunteers… and every person they know on facebook. Again, the competition boils down to influence.

However, this year a few of us had an idea. What if we did something a little unconventional. Last year a lot of us worked our tails off to work against each other. What if a bunch of us got together and worked our tails off to work toward a common goal? Influence is great… but using that influence toward a common goal instead of against one another is even better. So that’s what we set out to do. I contacted Jared Massey and told him that 4-5 bloggers were going to leverage our influence to make sure he won the competition. Over the weeks, that influence grew and in the end, Jared won it all.

Here’s what I found interesting. I was nervous at the beginning that people would get mad at me… like I was trying to “fix” or mess up this competition. That wasn’t my intent at all. I vocalized my concerns to several people. However, as I sent out emails and contacted people about what we were trying to do, I was overwhelmed by the number of people who LOVED the idea and were blown away by the gesture. I honestly felt like it was a good thing that we were trying to do.

So, what was the point? I think it was to show that when a group of people put their minds to something, they can do anything. I think that far too often, people in kidmin are so focused on their own stuff and have little time to collaborate or work outside the box in front of them. However, when they press “pause” and come out to play, great things can happen for kidmin. Look what happened with Jared. He probably wasn’t going to make it out of the first round, but because a bunch of people united together, he won the whole shebang. I think this sets a great precedence. Kidmin, let’s do something great… together!

Tony, a special thanks to you for hosting another March Madness. I really didn’t mean to mess up your contest, but it provided the greatest platform for this little experiment. I don’t plan on pulling this stunt again next year… but that’s still a year away. I guess the contest wouldn’t be much fun if a handful of people were picking the winner every year. Ha!

Thanks to everyone who played. In the end, there were many winners. I feel like the world of kidmin grew as a result, people have been exposed to new ideas and new resources. Oh, and if you haven’t read all the comments, Jared wasn’t the only one who won the iPad. I like this ending much better!

Happy Birthday to CMO!

I didn’t do very well with this. Because of my agressive blogging schedule last week, I took a day off… which happened to be my blogs 4th birthday. Oops.

Well, it’s been another great year. I didn’t blog as much as last  year (I had a crazy pace last year), however I did see some substantial growth in everything form unique visitors to page views. I love it when people write to tell me that it’s been a blessing, but I’ll be honest, connecting with thousands of kidmin from around the world has been the biggest blessing I ever could have imagined. This little project has brought significant change and progress to my ministry and life as well.

So, how much have I written these last 4 years?

Well, in over 1,350 blog posts, I’ve written more than 600,000 words. Wow!

Next year will be year five. I should plan something special right? I start putting together the planning party committee now.

Here are my birthday posts from the last 3 years:

• Year One
• Year Two
• Year Three

So, I wrote a short post (well, as short as I could muster up) about parents partnering with their Children’s Ministry. Be sure to check it out and leave lots a comments! I highly recommend subscribing to Sprad’s blog. You can do so by clicking here.

So, what is it that’s had me so busy?

Leadership Networks Innovation Lab

My NextGen team and I were invited to spend a day in Dallas with Leadership Network to begin a year long Innovation Lab with five other great churches pushing the limits of what Family Ministry looks like today. It was probably one of the most powerful retreat/conference/breakout experiences I have ever had. I’ll tell you more about it later, but this gathering was absolutely transformational for our team.

Vacation

While I was in Dallas, my wife and Titus went on to Atlanta to visit with family (where Titus had his first visit to the urgent care… I’d already taken him to the Dr. the Monday before). I arrive to Atlanta on Friday and had a nice long lunch with my friend Matt McKee. We spent the next 5 days in my hometown of Valdosta, GA with my parents. It was very restful, except that Titus still was not feeling well at all and had another visit to the urgent care in Valdosta). My family and I almost died while caught in a horrible lightning storm while tubing down a river in North Florida… check here for the video). We then wrapped up our vacation with 3 days at Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. That was the perfect ending to our little vacation, even if it meant one more visit to the Dr. (this time at the hospital which included chest x-rays).

Just so you know, Titus is fine. Just a really pesky cold.

Volunteer Expo

Last Sunday, we recruited more than 200 people for various Sunday serving opportunities, more than 100 of them for NextGen alone. We’ve got another week for the expo, so I’ll write more about what we did next week.

So, that’s what has had me so busy. I’ll look forward to some new conversations with you in the coming weeks.

So, for the last two years, I’ve reviewed the previous year for this blog and then set goals for the coming year. So, let’s take a look at how I did. Here were the goals I set:

• 550 posts (that’s a post an a half every day… I want to hit 1000 posts by the end of year three)
• 1,500 comments (I had twice as many comments as posts last year, so let’s see if I can triple it this year)
• 50,000 Unique Visitor (This should be doable, but we’ll see)
• 100,000 Page Views (This will be a bit of a stretch, but very possible)
• Most popular post: Hmmm, I’m thinking about it right now…

And here is what I actually did.

• 551 posts. Not only did I meet my goal, I exceeded it by one post. Seriously, even though I met my goal of 550 posts, I’d totally be bummed for ending year 3 a 999 posts.
• 1,389 comments (Okay, I’m kinda bummed on this since I was so close. I think with another 2 weeks or so, I would have hit 1,500. Although I didn’t make the goal, I’m very satisfied with what I did.)
• 25,141 Unique Visitors (I think I just assumed that I’d be able to quadruple like I had from the year before. Guess I was being a bit too optimistic.
• 72,665Page Views (I knew this one was going to be a tough goal to hit. I’m satisfied with what I was able to hit though)
• Most popular post: This one. It doesn’t surprise me, seems like a lot of people really engaged in the conversation.

So, I hit one of my four goals. In some people’s books, that would be considered failure. One out of four is just 25%. However, these goals I set last year did actually drive me at a very intense pace this last three months. As a result of hitting the first goal, it enabled to get me pretty close to two of the other three goals. I’ve heard a saying all my life, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” However, another quote I really like is, “Aim for the stars. If you miss, there’s still a great chance you’ll hit the moon.” I aimed for the starts and I’d recon I hit Saturn. I’m very satisfied with my trajectory.

So, what about year four? I hope this doesn’t disappoint, but I’m not going to lay out the goals like last year. To some degree, my goal-driven personality about got the better of me. I really didn’t need to hit 1000 yesterday, but since it was my goal, it would have been really hard not to hit it. I’ve also got some other projects I’m hoping to work on this year. I’d be surprised if I came anywhere close to 550 blog posts this year; however, I think I would like to hit around 300 for sure. Everything else is up for grabs. I have certain things I hope to develop and improve on when it comes to this blog an other ventures, but not really things that can be numerically tracked like visitors and page views.

So, thanks for sticking with me another year (or joining me this year). Here’s to one more!

This is it. This is the end of the line friends. Over two weeks ago the March Madness for Kidmin bloggers began From the 64 who started, there are only four remaining and I am one of those four. It’s been a long journey (comparatively speaking) and it’s all come down to this. As a reader of this blog, a friend or maybe a family member, I’m going to ask that you send a vote in my direction. You know what would make a victory Oh So Sweet? This competition ends on Friday afternoon which this weekend happens to be the THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY/BIRTHDAY of this blog. Wow, how amazing is that? Coincidence? Fate? I’ll let you decide. In addition, this weekend I’ll post my 1000th post on this blog. That’s a lot of content. How great would it be that one of the first posts of this new millennium of blogging be an announcement that your vote brought me to a solid victory?

You can make this happen. Click here to vote for this blog! Click here and vote for Kenny Conley to wish this blog a happy three year birthday! Click here and vote for Kenny Conley because it just feels right!

Thanks so much for your vote!

Let me introduce to you my favorite, non-ministry blog. It’s called Dixie Gypsy and it’s written by my beautiful wife. When I was 18 I made a list of the things I wanted in a wife (yeah, I was that kind of guy). I’ll share a secret with you. One of the items on the list was that she would be a Southern girl. Hey, what can I say? If you’re from the South, you know what I’m talking about.

So, my little Southern Belle is writing her own blog. Actually, she started the blog almost two years ago but got busy with other stuff. She’s back at it again, writing about food, trips we’ve taken and raising a little giant. She’s such a gifted writer and has such an amazing way with words. I think you’ll really enjoy reading her blog, but I’m partial.

So, click here to visit the Dixie Gypsy.