Childrens Ministry Online

Be Strategic

Posted on 23. Jan, 2012 by Kenny.

From day one of engaging with Orange (more than 4 years ago), the word strategy was a word I heard often. It’s not a new concept, but it was something that was brought to my attention again last Friday and I’m glad it was. Reggie painted a clear picture of the importance of strategy. He described how many great churches have incredible mission and vision statements that never really seem to do anything. Many of those church’s doors are closed now.

Strategy – A plan of action with an end in mind.

I love it. I’m leading a breakout at Illuminate in Nashville in a few weeks titled, “What Matters Most.” In this breakout I’m going to speak about how sometimes we lose track of that particular “end” in mind or maybe the “end” we’re focused on really isn’t as important as it should be.

I wonder what would happen if we as ministry leaders scripted out all that we did in a given week or month and then asked the very important question, “What is specific end we’re trying to get to as a result of this event/program/resource/meeting?” I think it would reveal what things we’re doing that are strategic and those things that are just wasting time. Man, do I hate wasting time. What’s worse is when I’m wasting time and don’t even know it.

Families, kids and students need us to be as strategic as possible. We must be strategic with our time, our tallent and our resources. How are you being strategic today?

Continue Reading

How I’m dealing with Halloween

Posted on 26. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

So, three years ago I wrote a post about Halloween titled, “Halloween = Satan?”

I had almost forgotten that I wrote it. Since Halloween is coming in a few days, I figured I’d address it.

Like I said before, I didn’t celebrate Halloween as kid. We always went to the church to hide. It was a fun family night of games, bon fires and candy. If we did stay home that year, we turned the lights out and locked the doors. We were not going to celebrate this evil holiday. I’m not saying that this behavior was wrong or that I have any regrets, but my wife and I have decided to make different decisions about this holiday.

Three years ago we decided that Halloween is a huge night for our culture. If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be at the church hiding or he wouldn’t have his door locked and lights out. He’d be at the party or trick or treating with the neighbors. So, we decided that we’re not going to hide, but we’d meet our culture where they’re at.

So, three years have passed now and I’ve got something to say. We got complacent and missed the point. The last three years we’ve attended Halloween parties where Titus got to dress up and do a little trick or treating. It was so much fun and it created some great memories. However, the three parties we attended these last three years were parties with church friends. We didn’t meet our culture like we decided three years ago, we just did what the culture did. Oops!

I feel that what we’ve done the last three years is just the polar opposite. We isolated ourselves with our church friends just like we did 30 years ago at the church, but now we’re just celebrating the holiday like everyone else does. This is just my opinion and personal conviction (so don’t at all feel judged or anything), but if this holiday based on a premise of evil, even though it isn’t really that on the surface today, then why is it okay for us to just celebrate it.

This year, Sara, Titus and I are on mission and doing what he thought about three years ago. We have a small group and we’re going to set up in the driveway where we meet. We’re going to provide free hot chocolate, games for kids and lots of candy. We’re just going to use it as an opportunity to meet our neighbors. If it’s the one night that our neighbors come knocking at our door, then why not take advantage of the opportunity and keep them in the driveway a little longer while they sip hot chocolate and their kids play carnival type games? Sara and I are really excited about this as it’s a way our whole family and be a little more on mission on this holiday.

BTW, here is a great article on the origin’s of Halloween.

Continue Reading

Service project versus teaching kids to serve

Posted on 07. Jan, 2010 by Kenny.

Our mission for Next Gen mirrors the mission of our church. One of the components of our mission relates to serving. Specifically, here’s how serving supports our mission.

Be the Body (Serve)
We help kids realize that they are part of a collective body bigger than themselves and that through God’s power they can make a significant difference in the world for Christ.
Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

I’ve been working with my team in setting goals for 2010 and I’ve been thinking a lot about this area of service. Last year my goal was to initiate two serving initiatives where participation would exceed 50%. We did two outreaches in 2009. One was a flop and the other appeared fairly successful. However this year I want to put a little more though into this area of service.

Rather than just have a service project/initiative, I want to teach our kids how to serve. I’ve done all kinds of service projects in my years of ministry. We’ve raised canned food, peanut butter, gifts, money and all kinds of other things. Through these drives, we’ve helped thousands of people in need. But I’m not sure we were always successful in teaching our kids to serve. When doing these projects, how often were parents just going out and buying the stuff for the kids to turn in? Although it may help our project see success, does it make a difference where it’s most important.

I can only speak for myself (although I have a feeling many others of you are in this same boat). We’ve held initiatives where the goal is to raise “x” amount of money or “x” amount of whatever. Success is determined by how close we get to “x.” What if we looked at the initiative from the other viewpoint and “x” amount of whatever wasn’t what determined success, but perhaps a percentage of participation was? In addition, what would it have to look like so you could track participation?

Just thinking out loud on this. What do you think?

Continue Reading

Gutsy or stupid about your mission

Posted on 06. Jan, 2010 by Kenny.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mission the last few weeks. One of my goals for this year is for pervasive saturation of the vision and mission in the heart and minds of our volunteers and leaders. Actually, it’s not optional for our leaders. They have to know our mission… what we’re trying to accomplish. I’ve been talking with my team how we can continue to over-communicate our mission so that everyone will get it.

Just before Christmas I had to stop at a gas station to use the bathroom. I usually try to refrain from taking pictures in the rest room, but I couldn’t resist. Just above the dirty toilet was Tetco’s mission statement. What was especially ironic was their first line, “…by providing quality service in a clean and pleasant atmosphere.” I’ll give them the benifit of the doubt. It wasn’t one of those really disgusting gas station bathrooms you find in those small interstate towns in Mississippi, but it wasn’t clean.

Here’s my thought though.

Why did Tetco put their mission statement above the toilet in the men’s room, probably the first place to get disgusting at a gas station? It was either gutsy or it was stupid. I kind of admire them for doing it. That way if they actually could keep the bathroom clean, it would make a strong statement about how they live out their mission. But if they don’t, it’s more of a joke. Kind of like the children’s ministry that paint’s “the best hour of your kid’s week” on the wall of a church with a boring children’s ministry.

I think this is risky and I like it. It’s all or nothing. You’re either going to win big or you’ll be a joke. No space for playing it safe.

What do you think? How can you take more risk with living out your vision/mission?

Continue Reading

Values terminology help

Posted on 04. Aug, 2009 by Kenny.

Okay, I’ve been working on our ministries vision, mission and values. We’ve settled on our values, but I need help witht he wording with one of them. Currently our values are:

• Safety and Security
• Relevant Teaching
• Engaging Environments
• Authenticity
• Excellence
• Creativity and Innovation
• Biblical Reliance
• Worship
• Communication

My problem is that I don’t like “Biblical Reliance.” As a value, I want our kids to rely and depend on God’s word, that they know and love God’s word. However, Biblical Reliance or Biblical Dependence don’t do it for me. What do you think? Any ideas?

Continue Reading

Orange Leadership Forum (Part 5)

Posted on 28. Apr, 2009 by Kenny.

Reggie is a big fan of Apple computer. He equates ministry and leadership to Apple.

Between the Macintosh Plus and the MacBook Air, there have been 80 system upgrades. The technology has changed dramatically, but the mission has never changed.

As the church, we need to guard our mission.

Too many churches stick with their mission, but never upgrade their system. We need to lean into the younger generation and ask them to help us upgrade our systems. Frequently upgrade the system!

Sometimes we fail to connect people to our mission when making a system upgrade. When making changes, ALWAYS connect people back to the mission. Don’t talk about change before connecting them to the mission. Then they’ll know why the change needs to happen.

Too many churches have competing systems. When a computer has too competing systems, they cancel each other out and there is failure. The greatest thing I can do as a leader is to clarify the system.

Continue Reading

Mission review (Surge Part 4)

Posted on 14. Mar, 2008 by Kenny.

Typically after every event I do, I make notes for the following year. On the server where we keep all the files, I’ll usually open a folder under “Surge” called 2008. In it will be a single word document with all the recommendations for the next year. I try to do this within the week of the event and then close the file out completely and not think of it for a while. It feels very good to close the file and move on rather than dwelling on it continually. So, here are the things I would do differently (but I must preface… there is very little I would have done differently… it was an amazing experience).

[...]

Continue Reading

Staff Retreat – Developing Mission, Vision and Goals

Posted on 28. May, 2007 by Kenny.

A few weeks ago I took my staff on a retreat. We rented a great lake house on Lake Travis just outside of Austin, Texas. Initially I was taking the team to the PDCM conference… but it was cancelled. So I found this place and made plans to retreat instead of going to a conference.

Â

The strategy of the Purpose Driven model has helped me tremendously in ministry. Since I moved into my current position a year ago, I’ve made adjustments to ministry to reflect a more “purpose driven” strategy. Everyone has been on board for the most part; however, I wasn’t completely convinced that everyone understood why. This is the reason why I planned to take everyone to Saddleback. So when the conference was cancelled, I decided that we would watch 2 or 3 sessions from a past PDCM conference, and talk it out and make it reality for our church. [...]

Continue Reading