Tag Archives: Relationships
Does your youth pastor hate you?
Posted on 02. Nov, 2011 by Kenny.
Sorry about the title, but I wanted to get your attention. It may have been a little extreme, but it does tie in… kind of.
I’m writing an article about the relationship between children’s pastors and student pastors. Interesting subject, huh? I’m pretty much done with the article, but I’d love to gather some data around one element I wrote about. So, would you answer the single question below describing the relationship between your student ministry and children’s ministry. First, let me define the relationships:
Dysfunction Junction: You totally don’t get along. There is virtually no relationship. Communication is non-existent, dismissive or even hostile.
Mutual Existence: The relationship between your two ministries is healthy. There is a respect for each other, maybe even friendship. Although respect is present, the ministries don’t really work together, culture, values and practices are different.
Integrated Partnership: The two ministries work together on many projects. Resources and ideas are shared freely and both ministries work together toward a common goal.
So, which description best describes this relationship at your church? (feel free to be honest, votes are anonymous. I promise… I won’t… or can’t… send the results to your student pastor.)
In order to get good results, I need data. Pass this post/poll on to others to answer so we can get some good information about the state student ministry / children’s ministry relations.
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Processing through Mad Church Disease
Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
I’m right in the middle of Mad Church Disease by Anne Jackson. I’ll be writing a review next week as I should finish it in the next few days. It’s good stuff. However, I had to post a few things I read the other night.
Relationships:
The average pastor rates their relationship with their spouse at a 4.5 out of 5. They typically rate their family at a 4. Although they give their own families high marks, when they rate the health of other pastor’s families, they average 3.2. The study conducted shows that ministers typically have an overly optimistic view of their own family as compared to the families of others.Prayer:
Those most satisfied with their prayer life spent almost an hour in prayer per day; those who are least satisfied with their prayer life average 21 minutes per day.
This is good stuff. I’m tweaking my 2010 goals/objectives as I’m reading this book.
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Promoting volunteers
Posted on 21. May, 2009 by Kenny.
I’ve always been intrigued by this idea. At the end of every year we promote kids to their next grade. Why don’t we promote the leaders too? Sure, some do but why isn’t it the norm or expectation?
I was talking to my good friend (and permanent intern) Josh Kornberg about this last night. He’s an elementary major in college and he said that this is a newer strategy in education. It’s called looping. I have a lot of friends who are teachers and they often complain about the start of a new year as they have to begin again with a new class and start from page one.
The real beauty is when early childhood leaders promote to elementary to follow their group of kids or even when elementary leaders promote to middle school. We’re trying to create this culture here at Gateway. We may see a few leaders make the jump this year, but I anticipate this becoming normal for next year.
I was having a conversation with a friend in ministry and talking about this very thing. He explained that he really didn’t like middle school, so he’d probably move back down to first grade or something when his group moved to middles chool. I challenged his thinking? “What is it you don’t like about middle school? What if the same kids you’ve been leading for three years moved up into middle school. You’d still like them, wouldn’t you?” He replied, “I didn’t see it that way.”
Some people really aren’t geared for some age groups. There are some middle school and high school leaders that wouldn’t belong in early childhood. Likewise, there are plenty of early childhood leaders that don’t belong in highschool. However, when the established relationship is prioritized, everything changes.
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Early Childhood small groups
Posted on 21. May, 2009 by Kenny.
Say what? Early Childhood small groups? Aren’t you supposed to start this once kids get into elementary? That’s been the given assumption. Some churches are starting to break this mold and give this a try. We’re going to start this really soon and we are very excited. So, please keep in mind that everything I write below this paragraph is theory and a vision of what could be.
My staff came back from Orange with all kinds of ideas. On of the ideas my Early Childhood director had concerned alignment of terminology. Basically this is where churches use the same vernacular for positions and programs throughout every ministry. It makes perfect sense. In the Early Childhood area we have three main positions. Lead teacher, room leader and caregiver. The lead teacher travels from room to room and the room leader is in charge of the room. Caregivers are simply caregivers.
So, the thought was that we call our room leaders small group leaders. This helps align terminology. It helps when recruiting as people have a better idea of what a smll gorup leader is than a room leader. Then we started to brainstorm and think outside the bun. One of Gateway’s core strategies is to connect people in small groups. We believe that life change happens best in the context of personal relationships. Although we do have kids in early childhood who have great relationships with their caregivers and room leaders, but it isn’t expressly intentional. It just happens. However, if this is a value of our church, what if we made relational development intentional in early childhood? What if rather than just have the name “small group leader” in early childhood, we actually changed the job description so that it really was a small group leader?
So, it isn’t going to necessarily look like small groups in elementary or adults, but it will be a small group. We’d follow the same strategy we are with elementary. Althouh we may have 15-20 kids in a room, we’ll run reports to see who the regularaly attending kids in that room are. Those kids would be in the small group leader’s small group. Now, that leader wouldn’t gather his/her kids in a small huddle each Sunday (unless they are in one of the 4-kindergarten rooms where they actually do that). However, this small group leader would intentionally plan to have specific one on one time with the 8-10 kids who are in their small group. The other caregivers are there to help take care of the rest of the kids, but the small group leader has a laser focus. Outside of Sunday, this leader would call the families or kids and send postcards. A relationship would be developed. Even though all the kids in this small group wouldn’t necessarily experience a “group-like” experience, they would each have a shared/personal experience with their leader.
The beauty of this plan is that we can essentially start small groups with our babies. That’s right, a four moth old can be in a small group. All they have to do is come on a semi-regular basis and they’ll be assigned to that room’s small group leader.
So, what do you think? Do you think it will work? In about six months, we should be able to let you know. I’d appreciate any ideas you might have.
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Small Groups in childrens ministry
Posted on 19. May, 2009 by Kenny.
I’ve been doing small group ministry with kids for the last three and a half years. Before that I was in churches that did Sunday School, but it wasn’t working (I’m going to write a post later about Sunday School). I must say that small groups have changed everything. Too often the Children’s Pastor wears the mantle of spiritual shepherd over the congregation under 11 years of age, but the only way they can do this effectively is through small groups… unless you only have 12 kids in your church. Then the Children’s Pastor can do it.
I’ve got a few thoughts on small groups that I want to share this week. I’m going to throw out a little philosophy, a little practical application and perhaps some of you will comment with your thoughts and ideas that will benifit everyone (including me and what we’re doing here at Gateway).
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