Archive - April, 2010

My Orange Conference Schedule & Breakouts #orange10

April 26, 2010 in Children's Ministry, Leadership, Strategy with 1 Comment

Sam Luce had the great idea of having everyone who is attending the Orange Conference post their breakout selections and why they chose them. So, here’s my Orange Conference schedule along with the breakouts I chose and why.

Wednesday, April 28

Thursday, April 29

  • 9:00AM – Main Session #2
  • 11:30AM – Breakout: Say What you need to say as a children’s small group leader - I’m attending this because small groups are the destination for our children, and we want them to be great!
  • 2:30PM – Breakout: Leading through the budget crunch - I’m attending this because we can always use help with making the most of our resources.
  • 4:15PM – Main Session #3
  • 7:00PM – Family Experience Showcase

Friday, April 30

  • 9:00AM – Main Session #4
  • 11:30AM – Breakout: Difficult conversations in leaders’ circles – I’m attending this because difficult conversations are a part of leading and I’m interested in what Sue Miller has to say, because she rocks.
  • 2:30PM – Breakout: Sticky volunteers for children’s ministry – I’m attending this because the Baby Dedication breakout with Kendra is full, and because I want all the help I can get with making children’s ministry a place where volunteers stick!
  • 4:15PM – Main Session #5
  • 6:00PM – Go home and get ready for KidStuf!

If you are going to Orange, what breakouts are you attending?

Big Week Ahead, Orange & Drive Conference #orange10 #drive10

April 25, 2010 in CCC, Children's Ministry, Leadership with 0 Comments

I’m REALLY excited because I’m going to the Orange Conference and the Drive Conference this year! It would be great if they weren’t back-to-back, with a KidStuf at church wedged in the middle, but that’s okay. It will be a whole lot of fun and I’m sure it will be extremely draining at the same time.

I’m really looking forward to meeting a bunch of people that I’ve interacted with online through blogs, twitter, and other social networking sites like www.cmconnect.org. I’ll be flying solo at Orange but Tom, our KidStuf director, is coming with me to Drive. Tomorrow I’ll post the breakouts I’ll be attending at Orange so you can see what I hope to learn.

If you can’t attend Orange, consider watching the opening session live on Wednesday night at 7:15PM here:

http://www.makingoforange.com/

I’m sure I’ll be tweeting like crazy at both conferences and my blogging will depend on how tired I am each night but we’ll see. If you’re attending either one, let me know, I’d love to meet.

Comment here, reply on twitter or email me.

The Importance of Mentors: Part 3

April 22, 2010 in Leadership with 0 Comments

In the first post I talked about the importance of having mentors and in the second post I shared 3 mentors I have who are farther along in their journey than I am. In this post I’ll share about some mentors who are closer to me in terms of their life experience.

Chris Myers served as the Youth Minister at the church I grew up attending. He served while Jennifer and I were heavily involved in serving in the Youth Ministry so we served together for a couple years and developed a strong friendship. Chris is a few years older than me, and we meet when we can. Chris is one of the greatest men I know in regards to his commitment to his family. Like all of my mentors, he also has great character and integrity.

Andrea Hamilton worked on staff at our church before stepping into a children’s ministry position at a church plant we support. We meet to share children’s ministry ideas, challenges and struggles. Technically I’m the mentor in that relationship but I learn as much from Andrea as she does from me. She is gifted in areas where I am weak, so I learn from how she leads and the ideas she comes up with. I would love to find more leaders like Andrea to mentor, but I have to admit that part of the reason for that is because I want to learn from them as much as I want to help them.

Those are the mentors in my life. Who are your mentors that are close to you in life experience?

The Importance of Mentors: Part 2

April 21, 2010 in Leadership with 0 Comments

In the previous post I talked about the importance of having mentors along with some key things to keep in mind when seeking out mentors. In this post I’ll share 3 of the mentors in my life who are farther along in their journey than I am.

Alan Ray is my father in-law, and he has been a mentor for me in a variety of ways. We do not have an intentional plan and part of that is being 3 hours apart, but I learn from him pretty much every time we’re together. I’ll also call or email him when I need some specific help, something I often do when preparing to preach, as he is a pastor with 30+ years of experience serving in churches.

David Robinson is my pastor/boss, and David and I meet often to talk about everything from our church, to my role, and life in general apart from church. Like Alan, David is very wise and is a great person to talk to about anything. I always come out of our meetings with more clarity about my life and the things that I’m presently facing.

Jeff Shultz was my youth pastor growing up, and is now the pastor of a church near our church. Jeff was one of the biggest influences in my life growing up and I’m grateful to still have him as a mentor. Jeff is also very wise, he’s a great counselor, and he’s known Jennifer and I for so long that it’s really easy to talk to him because the history is there. He knows how our history and family experiences have shaped who we are. Jeff is also strong in areas where I am weak, but they are things every minister needs to do so it helps me to learn from him.

In the last part I’ll share about others who are around the same place as me in life, or earlier in their journey than I am. What mentors do you have that are farther down the road than you?

The Importance of Mentors: Part 1

April 20, 2010 in Leadership with 0 Comments

Mentors are an important aspect of my life. Almost every leader I want to learn from has talked about the importance of having mentors in their life. Jeff Henderson is one such leader, and he recently shared how his Personal Advisory Board of mentors works. You can see part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

I wanted to share with you the mentors in my life, in hopes that it might motivate you to find mentors of your own. One of my mentors said that it’s good to have somebody farther down the road than you, at the same place as you, and somebody behind you that you are mentoring. In this first part I’ll talk about some key things to keep in mind when choosing mentor. In part 2 I’ll mention those farther down the road who mentor me and in the last part I’ll talk about some mentors who are closer to me in terms of their life experience.

Here are some things I’ve learned in the process of seeking mentors:

  • Choose mentors who you look up to because of their character and wisdom. It’s not helpful to choose mentors who do not model the type of life you hope to live. Every person will have faults, but be sure to choose mentors who “have it together”
  • Choose mentors in the field or profession you are in, or hope to be in. A lot of mentoring will likely involve your profession so it helps to have mentors in that field.
  • Choose mentors who will be models in regards to their character, integrity, family life, etc, regardless of their profession. Sometimes you get both in one person, but not every time.
  • Write questions down before you meet with them and take notes during the meeting if you have to. Sometimes I immediately take notes afterwards, rather than during but that’s only if I know most of our discussion will be unstructured rather than question-answer.
  • Honor their time. Don’t be late or run late with the meeting.
  • Make the ask! You might be thinking you don’t have anyone, but that could be because you haven’t asked. Some of the people who would never see themselves as a mentor can make the best mentors.
  • Be completely transparent with at least one of your mentors. What’s the point of having a mentor if you can’t be honest with them?

I hope that helps you in choosing a mentor. Anything you would add/change?

China might shut down my blog, but….

April 15, 2010 in General with 1 Comment

Okay, so reading through my blog subscriptions in Google Reader I come across a Mint.com post about how China has a massive firewall that filters what their people can see on the internet. The reason for the news was that Google decided to stop providing censored search service and instead opened it up. That’s not a secret or anything, but….

I click the link in my Google Reader to open up the official post and it’s gone. All I get is the Mint.com MintLife home page and the previous entry is currently the latest. As of right now (11:14pm Thurs) you can see it on the RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MyMint

I think China put the kabosh on Mint.com or something. Who knows, this post may not be here that long either. If I go missing, somebody call Jack Bauer.

On a different, but related note, the political leaders in China need to learn that power should be used to serve others, not control them.

We need to kick infidelity in the face

April 13, 2010 in General with 1 Comment

Below is an infographic about American studies regarding infidelity. I thought it was interesting that surveys showed 30% of protestant ministers have had sexual relationships with women other than their wives. But, I also thought it was interesting that they didn’t clarify if that was before or after they became Christians, before their marriage or during (adultery). I tend to think the lack of that detail means that 30% isn’t specifically about adultery.

It’s also funny that my home state has a $10 fine for adultery. That will straighten them up.

Infidelity Statistics
Via: Online Schools

Free Children’s Ministry Resources #kidmin #fammin #orange10

April 6, 2010 in CCC, Children's Ministry, Church Planting, Leadership, Strategy, Systems with 1 Comment

Our church is just over 4 years old, and we have had to develop a lot in that short time for all of our ministries, including our children’s ministry. Fortunately we used resources and ideas from a ton of great churches, including North Point and CCC in Naperville, IL. Our curriculum and strategy partner, reThink, was also a huge help in that process. What that meant was, we typically didn’t have to create resources from scratch and instead had to tweak something that already existed.

We’re far from finished, and I’m sure a lot of what we have done could use further improvement and refining but I wanted to make all of our resources available to children’s ministry leaders everywhere. So, I’ve uploaded everything our church has created for children’s ministry, including processes and systems for leadership, administration, environments, events, and resources for volunteers and parents.

Head on over to the FREE RESOURCES page to see what’s available. Contact me if you need editable files and please send me back anything you improve upon!

Friday Five

April 2, 2010 in General with 2 Comments

Here are my five favorite blog posts from this week:

Alex Penduck – Why I’m Building an Ark – Part 6 – Alex uses the final part of the series to share some details about his decision to plant a church in Harford County, MD, called Generation Church. My heart is for Baltimore-area churches, especially new ones.

Brad Lomenick – Up Close Conversation with Reggie Joiner – Reggie is the creator of reThink, the organization our church partners with for children’s ministry strategy and curriculum.

Seth Godin – Failure, success, and neither – Seth shares some great thoughts about the importance of taking risks, not fearing failure and ultimately finding success.

Chris Elrod – Things I Do Not Understand – If you’re a church leader (staff or volunteer) you will LOVE this post. Hilarious but sadly true.

Perry Noble – Ten Questions That Unchurched People ARE NOT Asking! – This is another hilarious, but true, post regarding church life.

Why some people should change churches: Part 3

April 1, 2010 in Church Culture, Church Planting, Leadership with 0 Comments

In Part 1 of this thread, I talked about reasons people should NOT change churches. In Part 2, I talked about why people should change churches, and how to discover your fit with a specific church. Here, I will talk about my reason for writing about this in the first place and the challenges that are out there.

Pretty much every city in the U.S., and around the world, needs more churches (if you believe that’s a good thing). But, part of the problem isn’t the number of the churches, because some places have tons. Part of the problem is they need more healthy, growing, relevant churches that are making a difference. You hear all the time how the median church size is around 75 people (half are smaller, half are larger). Plus, you hear that 90% of churches stay the same or are shrinking in terms of size from year to year. Something has to change. In my town of Baltimore (count & city), about 18.8% of people attend church regularly, so over a million people do not.

I think there are tons of passionate, amazing Christ-followers who are sitting in churches that are stagnant or dying and they are not there because they fit with the church’s mission, vision, and strategy. They are there because they grew up there, or because it was their first church or because it was the first church they plugged into when they moved into town. Those people are loyal, and have stuck with their church in spite of numerous frustrations with the church’s leadership and effectiveness. They are making a difference there, but I believe they could really make a difference in a church that was a better fit.

I know this is crazy, but could you imagine what could happen if all those people became involved with churches, or helped start new churches, where they fit well and would be used to their greatest potential? Their effectiveness and impact could be ten-fold larger and the churches they get involved with would be more effective as well.

Yes, the church they leave would miss them, but, they wouldn’t die simply because they left. Some churches need to die in order to provide new life to other churches, but that wouldn’t be the case for most people in the situation I have described. Their churches would probably survive for a long time after they left.