Monthly Archive for May, 2007Page 2 of 3

When you care enough to send the very best

Published
by
Evan Doyle
on May 22, 2007
in Leadership
. 1 Comment

Every night I have a quiet time which consists of a short devotional (in the ESV) and that day’s “Bible in a Year” assigned reading (in the Message paraphrase). Last night’s reading was the book of Malachi (I start in September). I had read this passage before, and many other translations carry the same meaning, but the Message’s paraphrase of Malachi 1:12-14 especially stood out to me:
“Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!
A curse on the person who makes a big show of doing something great for me—an expensive sacrifice, say—and then at the last minute brings in something puny and worthless! I’m a great king, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, honored far and wide, and I’ll not put up with it!”

My initial response to this was, “Great! A good way to guilt people into donating new items to the Children’s Ministry!”. But then in thinking about it some more, I realized that this could be applied to our personal lives as well.

Often when we are burned out, we stop giving our best to God. We may or may not attend worship, but whether we do or not, we may not feel like giving God our worship or may feel like prayer is ineffective. However, our God is amazing and deserving of our best! And many times, you will find that if you give your best, God gives his best back.

Check out God’s word for encouragement constantly, and connect with other ministers in your area. Encouragement can come from the strangest places sometimes. Don’t be terribly showy. Just give God you, and nothing more, and that will make him more than pleased.

Lessons from the street

Published
by
Ryan Frank
on May 22, 2007
in Leadership
. 8 Comments

Saturday I had the opportunity to go on bus visitation. A deacon who normally visits one of the bus routes was with his grandkids so I volunteered to visit for him. It had been a while since I had gone on bus visitation. I got what I needed: the addresses, the half sheet promotions, and a bucket of candy. I was ready to go.

What I forgot was how long it took and how tiring it was. I thought I would breeze through it in an hour or two at the most. Wrong. Although I came home feeling like I do on Sunday afternoons (exhausted) my heart had been blessed. Here are six lessons I learned Saturday.

1. A 10-year-old girl turned to her mom on the front porch and said, “He’s the guy that let me help sing!” Then I remembered a few weeks earlier I asked her to come up front and help me do the motions on a song. I didn’t even know this child’s name but she grinned ear-to-ear when I asked her if she would help me again. Lesson from 8th Street: What might not mean much to to me can me the world to a kid.
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Ministry wisdom from the man behind the sunshine

Published
by
Evan Doyle
on May 21, 2007
in Communicating, Culture and Leadership
. 0 Comments

And no, in this case I’m not talking about God. I’m talking about the Jimmy Dean commercials with the sunshine character in them. Very funny commercials, yes, but I digress.

Here’s the real reason why I’m mentioning him. Over the course of this blog, you’ll learn that I really like quotes from various people. Correction, I really LOVE quotes. But here’s a quote from Jimmy Dean, the man behind the sunshine (Not made in reference to ministry, but still applicable):
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

Ministry many times may seem ineffective. A few years ago, the “culture winds” were blowing one way, and so you adjusted your sails. But have you adjusted your sails recently, or on a regular basis?

NO ONE else in the world…

Published
by
Nevan Hooker
on May 20, 2007
in Leadership
. 2 Comments

I love doing stuff at any given moment that I’m almost positive no one else in the world is doing. There’s something fun about the thought that “could I be the only one in the world doing this right now?” A few years I ago I tried to do such a thing…I was at Milligan College and got a ton of Barq’s root beer and threw a huge root beer party. It was a blast and created quite a few memories and new friendships. In our ministry I believe we’ve taken a similar approach to how we do events, camp, and worship…we think way outside the box and usually get a little crazy in the process (like a singing memory verse puppet using only a sock named Sir Stink A Lot that stole the show at camp last summer week after week).

So where in the world am I going with this? I have no idea other than the thought that I believe we need to think way outside the box, get original, and get crazy to reach the kids in our ministries. If you get a chance, take some time and post some things that are possibly unique to your ministry…perhaps the way you do worship, small groups, games, events, camp, choir, puppets, decision counseling, announcements, etc.

Passion, Purpose, and Designer Jeans

Published
by
Evan Doyle
on May 20, 2007
in Leadership
. 3 Comments

You may look at that title and say, “What in the world is that supposed to mean?” The title of this post is also the title of a sermon Louie Giglio preached at Passion 2006 and is available on the Passion ‘06 DVD. I encourage you to check it out.

The concept behind the sermon is that whether you are a pastor, missionary, or a fashion designer, you should do everything to the glory of God. He says that you don’t necesarrily have to sew a Bible verse into the label of the jeans, or anything blatant like that, but that it could be as simple as making those jeans the best of the best, being honest, and giving back to the church and community. Amazing things could come from a concept as seemingly simple as that.

Some of you may know that me and Ryan are Mac freaks. We love our Macs. Windows is just weird (no offense to our Windows readers, we love you guys, just not your operating system of choice :)) Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, and today I was reading a post online about his top 10 quotes of all time. There was one quote that reminded me of this sermon and inspired this post. It said:
“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else would we even be here?”
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Different is good

Published
by
Jim Wideman
on May 19, 2007
in Blog Updates
. 2 Comments

Arbys told us this but it true in more than Roast Beef, it’s also true in children’s ministry.

I’m in Murfreesboro, TN at an amazing church. This church has 3 auditoriums that are all together in one location, 1 has live preaching the other 2 are video. They do 3 services for a total of 9 crowds. Tonight I spoke to their children’s workers who had served for a year and tonight was the re-up night. It was great but that’s not how i do it. But, here’s some radical news, that’s OK! It’s alright to do children’s ministry differently. What’s you’re point… network, ask what others do, visit every place that you hear something good is happening. Find out what they are doing that’s working even if it’s different. Sometimes just knowing what others are doing also let’s you know you’re doing OK and you shouldn’t change a thing.

I’m not married to anthing but my wife. If there’s a better way to do things I want to learn. Take a lesson from the 5 for $5.55 guys…Different is good.

Dr. Falwell and bus kids

Published
by
Ryan Frank
on May 17, 2007
in News
. 2 Comments

Falwell

My heart was heavy Tuesday when I heard that Jerry Falwell went home to be with Jesus. Though we never met he was always someone I admired and looked up to. People always ask me if my church (Liberty Baptist Church) is connected to Jerry Falwell because of our name, but it is not.

Today I was reading some of Dr. Falwell’s sermons on the Thomas Road Baptist Church website. This one touched my heart. The title of the sermon is Preaching to the Poor.

Here’s what he said, “…I believe that is one of the reasons God put His hand upon Thomas Road Baptist Church in our early days of existence. We had over 100 buses and faithful laymen who got up on cold, windy, snowy days to crank up old buses and drive all over Central Virginia to pick up children and bring them to this church. Most of these children were poor—some very poor—and they came from needy homes where parents were poor. They came from shacks, trailers, or inner city homes. Today, many of these children are serving Christ faithfully. I meet them all over America.
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Can the kids in your ministry stand up in culture?

Published
by
Evan Doyle
on May 17, 2007
in Culture and Leadership
. 7 Comments

Seeing as I am the only one who hasn’t posted yet, I figured I should do that. I have been reading “What You Didn’t Learn from Your Parents About Christianity”, written by Matthew Paul Turner and published by Th1nk, a division of NavPress. There was a section at the beginning of the book that hit me hard with relation to our ministry. I’m going to post a few excerpts of it here, and comment on each section immediately after.

“I started hanging out with Jesus when I was 4. I loved Him like I loved Big Bird. Of course, I knew He was much more important than Big Bird, by my affection for Him was similar. The songs we sang in Sunday School made Jesus seem more like a novelty act than a Savior. Jesus was someone who liked to give me hugs and pull me onto his lap, and every once in a while, he would teach me a great truth about how I should be treating my little sister.

See? JUST like Big Bird. Although sometimes Big Bird was actually a little cooler than Jesus. He had his own skating show: Big Bird on Ice. Jesus never put on ice skates, and he didn’t have cool friends like Bert and Ernie.”

Is this not what happens many times with our younger kids? We make Jesus look like the always happy, smiling face who always loves us. But yet at the same time, we make Him look like a total nerd who had no friends outside of church and even those friends weren’t that great. While there’s nothing wrong with singing “Jesus Loves Me” and “The B-I-B-L-E”, we have to tell kids that there is more than that to Jesus! He is deep. Many times we attempt to “dumb down” Jesus for younger kids, but it may be surprising to learn that many times they are not accepting Jesus younger because they are not learning Jesus younger. I accepted Christ at the age of 3, and I feel confident that I knew what I was doing. I don’t expect every kid to be ready then, but recognize that while you may be teaching them more, you can’t always guarantee that your volunteers are promoting the same ideology. Be consistent!
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When someone throws a spear

Published
by
Ryan Frank
on May 16, 2007
in Conflict, Leadership and Reviews
. 3 Comments

I just finished reading “A Tale of Three Kings”. I bought this book about five years ago when an evangelist came to our church and told me that every pastor needs to read it. He was right. In fact, I make it a practice to read it once a year.

Question. What do you do when someone throws a spear at you in your ministry? You know what spears look like. Spears hurt.

We know what comes natural. The natural thing it is to pick up the spear and throw it right back! It demonstrates that you are courageous, you stand for what’s right, you’re a defender of the faith. After all, sometimes spears come even when you didn’t do anything wrong.

David understood that. Mad King Saul was trying to kill him at every corner. How did he respond?
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So you want to be a children’s pastor?

Published
by
Ryan Frank
on May 16, 2007
in Leadership
. 5 Comments

What’s it take to be a children’s pastor? Here are four things you need to start with.

1. You must want to be one. The Bible talks about desiring a good work (1 Tim. 3:1) and being a fruitful teacher (John 15:16). If you want to be a children’s pastor, you’ve selected the ripest harvest field in the world to work. A ripe harvest field requires diligence and work. However, if your want is great enough the price will become insignificant. You’ve got to want it and jump in with both feet. Wanting is the first step, but it in itself is not enough. You need God’s help.

2. You must pray to be one. God is all-sufficient and willing to give you a helping hand but you need to ask for it. There are a lot of promises you can claim when you pray. One of my favorites is Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
Continue reading ‘So you want to be a children’s pastor?’