Tag Archives: Communication
Confusing terminolgy and spiritual concepts for kids
Posted on 15. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
I’ve been in vocational ministry to students and kids for over 13 years. Over this time, I’ve made some observations. I’ve found that we as pastors and communicators often use confusing terminology with kids that may seem to pacify a short term goal of simplicity, but often create a long term problem of misunderstanding.
I totally get the reasoning. Spiritual concepts can be complicated and difficult to grasp. However, giving “not exactly true” explanations for the sake of simplicity isn’t the correct method in my personal opinion. I think that some of these confusing terms and explanations have “stuck” and we continue to teach them because it’s what we learned as well. This week I’m going to cover a few of these terms and concepts.… Read the rest
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Better Design: Conclusion
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by Kenny.
Well, this wrapped up my little series on better design. In case you missed any of the posts, you can catch them all here:
Better Design: Introduction
Better Design: Why you should care
Better Design: Four Rules
Better Design: Contrast
Better Design: Repetition
Better Design: Alignment
Better Design: Proximity
Remember, we communicators by what we do. Unfortunately, we communicate in more ways than one, sometimes in ways we’re not strong. Bushing up on these simple design rules will help you become a better communicator in other mediums than just the spoken word.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. The main resource I used in telling the four rules was the the book, “The Non-Designer Design Book” by Robin Williams.… Read the rest
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Better Design: Why you should care
Posted on 28. Dec, 2009 by Kenny.
I had to take a design class as a part of my masters program for Education. Although I was glad to take this class (since I love design), I wasn’t sure why this was required. Now I understand.
It’s the same reason why you as a Children’s Pastor/Director/Leader should also care about design.
By the very nature of what you do, you are a communicator. It’s how you do what you do. Although the majority of what you communicate my be verbal/written, design plays a significant role in your ability to effectively communicate. Whether it is a take home paper, a note to parents a sign on a door or even slides for weekend productions, we’ve all had to design these.… Read the rest
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Orange 09: Breakout C – Message: Rules of Engagement… the Art of Communication
Posted on 04. May, 2009 by Kenny.
This session was led by a previous White House Communication Director. He had many great things to say about communication.
Communication is about understanding people and having conversations. It’s about content and delivery.
Communication is both an art and a science. We need to master the art and understand the science.
Life boils down to two things:
- Uncontrolled events
- 10,000 hour rule (working hard)
You are always communicating, even when you say nothing.
When in sales, you focus on the relationship. The sale is the fruit of the relationship.
Persuasive Conversation
The goal of conversation is to affect behavior (occasionally it is to raise awareness)
Two keys to persuasion
- Be likable (be yourself). Humor is only a tool if you’re funny.
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Orange 09: Session Three (Reggie, Perry and Andy)
Posted on 04. May, 2009 by Kenny.
Reggie asked about sermon prep:
Andy prepares all day Wednesday, half the day on Thursday and reviews most of Saturday evening.
Perry was elusive. He said he downloads Andy’s message. It seems that Perry’s schedule changes.
Kids for so long have been bored with church.
Many parents take their kids to worship and say “I want my kids to see me worship.” How egotistical is that? If your kids haven’t seen you worship the rest of the week, your teaching them that you’re a hypocrite.
Middle Schoolers scare the crap out of Perry.
When you’re giving a message, speak like it is your child is in the audience and it is their last chance. If you’re more concerned about covering the material, you’re not concentrating on reaching that person.… Read the rest
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First six months: Automated communication
Posted on 14. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I didn’t forget about stage three for my communication process. I’m including it last because I’m not done developing it here at Gateway.
The weekly email and blog posts are separate forms of communication I have to write every week. However, there is a substantial amount of communication that does (and needs) to happen every week that I really don’t need to be involved with. Every week we get questions about infant baptism, questions about our programs and opportunities to serve. In addition, we get many visitors who may come back if we follow-up with them. A lot of times, these are the communication pieces that fall through the cracks. If done well, our parents will feel valued and informed.
We have several pre-written emails to respond to our most popular questions.… Read the rest
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First six months: Results
Posted on 13. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I don’t love that only 1/3 of my parents are opening my emails. Why can’t it be half or 2/3? However, I’m getting 300-400 people open my email every week. That’s still a lot of people.
As soon as I started doing this, I was barraged by emails of parents thanking me for keeping them in the loop. I don’t get nearly as many emails with general questions anymore. Even when I have silent weeks where no one emails me back or sends a question, I’ll overhear people talking about things I wrote while in the check-in line on Sunday. Or a parent I hardly know will ask a specific question about something I blogged. I love it!
Sure, only 1/3 of people are opening the email every week, but these are the people who when you don’t communicate are the ones who will beg for information.… Read the rest
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First six months: Blog and Constant Contact
Posted on 12. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I’ve been writing this week about my first six months at Gateway and how intentionally communicating with parents has been a huge deal.
I was building a process for communication and I needed something that was efficient and something that would scale well. Sending emails from my inbox wasn’t a good long term solution. How would we add new emails? How would we remove emails? Who would manage this every changing list? If my parents are constantly getting a long email from me every week, are they going to be more or less likely to read or respond to other emails.
So, I implemented stage two of the communication strategy. I launched a blog for Kids Quest. Now I set up a domain on a server, but that’s only because I’m partially OCD and a big geek.… Read the rest
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First Six Months: Email
Posted on 11. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
This week I’m writing about the one thing I’ve done in my first six months at Gateway that has paid of BIG TIME! It’s all about communication. No one should be left in the dark.
Once I realized that I needed to start communicating consistently, I moved pretty quickly. I ran a report that gave me the email addresses of all moms, dads and household of any kid who attended Gateway in the last four months. We sorted the list, eliminated the duplicates and simply cut and pasted them into my Outlook email. I crafted an email (it was a little longer than I wanted it to be, but it was divided into heading for differnt age groups or events). that I would send out every Wednesday afternoon.… Read the rest
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First Six Months: Communication
Posted on 10. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I’d like to say I came in with this plan that reaped huge payoffs, but I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I had plans and we’ve implemented many of them. However, this communication thing came more as a reaction than something intentional.
After just a week or two of getting to Gateway, I was picking up the vibe that many people didn’t know what was going one. Actually, people were telling me that they didn’t know what was going on. 
It wasn’t really with anything huge, just the little stuff. When do kids promote? When is the next child dedication? When is camp? How can I volunteer? I remember getting bombarded with all kinds of questions, questions, questions. Unfortunately, I also started responding to emails and phone messages of people who had been seeking answers to questions for weeks or even months.… Read the rest
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