This morning I had the opportunity to preach in “big church”. This happens about twice a year and I really enjoy it. I enjoy it all except for leaving kids church for the day. This morning I greeted the kids, helped lead the first song, and then stepped away from the plate.
God has answered a HUGE prayer request this fall. He has given me a worship leader. Katie Singer (yes her last name is Singer) is doing an awesome job leading worship, adding choreography, and the whole nine yards. She has a ton of energy and the kids love her. Katie graduated from Bible Institute last year and is preparing to do children’s worship ministry on the road.
Evan Doyle (17-year-old and author on this blog) played the part of Pastor Ryan and ran the show. Everyone said he did great.
My senior pastor preached to the kids. We switched places for the day which is something we hope to do more often.
Overall it was a sweet day. The sweetest part of the morning was not preaching both services in big church. It was watching two young people that I invested time into hit a home run when I stepped back from the plate. Great job guys!
One of my favorite thinkers about marketing is Seth Godin. He’s written a new (and free) ebook about getting traffic to your website or blog. He points out in this book that there’s an enormous amount of superstition about what makes some pages rank high while others languish.
Seth says that the secret is to have content that is updated, unique and useful. Sites that do all three manage to get more than their fair share of traffic. Question: How’s the content on your church website? Your kids ministry website?
Click here to start downloading the PDF (1.1 MB). It’s free to read and share, and it’s.
My friend Dave Wakerly wrote a great post on his blog this afternoon about the need for more children’s pastors to blog! Man, you’ve got to read this and if you’re not blogging, get busy!
WARNING: The easy part is starting a blog. After all, there’s a blog born every half a second. The hard part is maintaining it and keeping people interested.
Read Dave’s blog post by clicking here.
In the thirty years I’ve been involved in children’s ministries I’ve noticed there is often a communication problem between church leadership and the children’s ministry. I think the problem exists because we forget that communication is hard work. Take the telephone for instance. We love to use the phone but someone had to do a lot of work for us to take advantage of its usefulness. We forget that for a telephone to work someone had to go in the woods and cut down a tree, drag it out of the woods then they had to cut off the limbs and skin off the bark, then weather treat it and then dig a hole and plant the pole. Then they had to repeat the process a few million times and then connect all the poles with wire. Then they take the connected poles and connect them to your house. That’s a whole lot of work. Communication within your ministry is also hard work. I also think those of us in children’s ministries forget there is one group of children we have to communicate with and three groups of adults we have to work with. We must communicate well with parents. We must communicate well with the workers around us and we must communicate well with the leaders above us. What areas of your ministry do you need to improve on your communication skills?
Yes, that’s right. I’ve got a copy of the January/February issue of K! in my hands right now. This thing is so completely awesome in so many ways, I can’t even begin to express it in words. You’ll just have to subscribe to the magazine to find out.
The magazine has so many great articles in it from tons of great ministry leaders (including, but not limited to, Roger Fields of Kidz Blitz, Jim Wideman, and of course, yours truly, ha ha). We can’t wait to hear from you as to what you think about it. You should be getting it in the mail very soon. It’s our Christmas gift to you
Just looking back over the last few months is crazy. In July, Ryan came to me with another one of his crazy ideas. He has a lot of those. However, I felt like this one was especially insane. We knew nothing about publishing a magazine. Even important stuff, like writers, editors, designers, printer, postal laws (which are quite an adventure, as I’m told), and lots of other exciting stuff like that. By September, we had held our first editorial meeting. Now, we hold the very first issue in our hands and are about to send it to you. That’s exciting, and nothing short of amazing.
Look ahead to see more about the next issue, as well as more exciting things coming down the pipe from KidzMatter and The Way We See It. Have a wonderful Christmas and happy new year!
There is not a day I live on planet earth that I don’t network. I have been amazed at the doors that open everyday if you are looking for them. I joined Facebook the other day. It has been amazing the “young” Children’s Pastor’s I been able to connect with by taking advantage of a free tool. (If you are on facebook, please invite me to be your friend also sign up to talk about leadership on my group “theClub”.) Another wonderful book to read if you are serious about growing your sphere of influence with others is the book “Never Eat Alone.”. This book is the best I’ve ever read on the power of networking. Make a people to connect to list and call or email them with 1 short question. (Depending on your relationship.) I am amazed at the people that I give my cell phone number to that doesn’t take advantage of that relationship. If I have some one’s cell phone I try to call them at least once a year to stay connected. It’s Wednesday and just off the top of my head I’ve talked to over 35 Children’s Pastors by phone and email to learn something. I guess what I’m wanting you to do is stop and thinK about the relationships you are taking for granted that God has presented you to grow and learn from. He’s the one that created the whole iron sharpening iron thing not the leadership, and personal growth coaches.
That’s the way I see it.
I just got off the phone with 9 great friends who are some of the greatest children’s ministry leaders in America. We spent 90 minutes talking on the KidzMatter conference line about K! Magazine and the world of children’s ministry. You know what I’ve been thinking about since we all said goodbye? The power of networking.
I’ve always enjoyed burning the trash. I guess what I really enjoy is the time with my blow torch. It’s fun to start a fire and watch it spread (to a degree, of course). If I am sounding creepy, just hang on. There are some basic things that are true about fire. For one, a spark can go out pretty fast left to itself. Second, a spark combined with another spark combined with another spark (and so on) will create a blaze.
I’ve never understood why so many people in ministry want to do things all by themselves. Why don’t more children’s pastors connect with other children’s pastors? Why don’t they do lunch, talk on the phone, provide mutual encouragement and support?
Remember, it’s easy to stop a spark. It’s difficult to stop a blaze. The devil knows this and he would rather that you get into your groove and then exclude everyone else. If he can get you alone, he has a lot better chance of squelching the fire. You need other people! Man, I’m charged up after spending 90 minutes on the phone with my friends. So what are you waiting for? Start connecting!
That’s the way I see it.
I received the following update on Charlie a few days ago and wanted to pass it on to you. Here you go. Ryan
It has been exactly one month since that terrible day when Uncle Charlie nearly lost his life in a high speed head on collision in southern Oklahoma. We were told time and time again what a miracle it was that Uncle Charlie was able to survive. The more we learn of the details of the accident, the more we all realize how blessed and fortunate we are to still have Uncle Charlie around! Since that day, many more miracles have taken place, all of which we give God the praise and glory for!
One of those miracles involved Charlie actually flying home (with full assistance) to Florida to heal and eventually go through rehab! Uncle Charlie was not supposed to fly for at least 8 weeks due to his 14 broken ribs and broken sternum. But when doctors saw Uncle Charlie’s improvement in breathing and saw where his internal bleeding had stopped, they granted him permission to go back to Florida just in time for him to see his youngest son graduate from Bible College! What a surprise it was for his son as he had no idea Dad was coming home! Continue reading ‘Update on Uncle Charlie from the UBM staff’
