[Kid Inspiration]

Artwork is up at kidsongworld.com for this years Hillsong Conference! Our 5 day kids conference… it is going to be AWESOME! Great new ideas and creative surprises.

I have the best team in the world!

Last weekend over 8 services there were hundreds of awesome volunteers serving the children of Hillsong Church.

8 services!

That is two months of church for a LOT of churches around the world.

And that’s what I keep telling our team. My role is to give the ministry away, to our awesome volunteers, and eventually to our kids.

I would LOVE nothing more than a child to come up to me and say ‘Wow, what a weekend… we did it!”

…

…

Don’t get all uptight on me… I know it’s God that does it…

BUT he chooses to use people, I plan to make dang sure he has the opportunity to use children.

Leader: Give away your ministry (it ain’t even yours). 

I just read the best newspaper article ever.

Would you like to read it?

But what if I do and then you don’t read it all the way through… and watch the video clips on the page?

I guess I will have to take that chance.

Pearls Before Breakfast by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Can one of the nation’s greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? The newspaper sets out to discover if violinist Josh Bell — and his Stradivarius — could stop busy commuters in their tracks. Read On.

Have a thorough read of the article… take your time, it may take a few minutes to really read it all.

Done?

Okay, just love the premise and experiment.

You can probably guess the one section that I loved the most.

Yep.

Its was this paragraph.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

The point I would like to propose to you is this.

NOT that parents can often be too busy to notice their children.

BUT that every child in their first year of school considers themselves an artist/painter/sculpter. Then with every subsequent year when you ask the same question less and less children put up their hands to admit to their creativity.

Until you have a classroom with no artists by early high school.

(Teachers, try the above in your classroom).

This from the aforementioned article.

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

Maybe life just chokes the poetry out of us.

When kids notice beauty… life…

I want to let them enjoy it.

And teach them how to live with poetry.

Little Zachary was doing very badly in math. His parents had tried everything… tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers. In short, everything they could think of to help his math.

Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and enrolled him in the local Catholic school.

After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious look in his face. He didn’t even kiss his mother hello.
Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work.

His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner. To her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word, and in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before. This went on or some time, day after day, while his mother tried to understand what made all the difference.

Finally, little Zachary brought home his Report Card. He quietly laid it on the table, went up to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his Mom looked at it and to her great surprise, Zachary got an “A” in math.

She could no longer hold her curiosity. She went to his room and said, “Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?”

Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no.

“Well, then,” she replied, ?Was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? “WHAT WAS IT?”

Little Zachary looked at her and said, “Well, on the first day of school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren’t fooling around.”

You don’t need a title to be a leader — by Mark Sanborn — This is the kind of book title I love!

Haven’t read the book yet… but it is on my to read list!

Great review from Kem Meyer, the Communications Director at Granger Community Church.

(Post is from May 06, but better late than never).

Read Post.

Here is an interview with the Author Mark Sanborn:

Mark Sanborn – A couple years ago, I was talking with the vice president of a multinational technology company in the south Denver area and he shared a story. He needed someone on his team to lead a mission-critical project. It wasn’t enough to find someone who would do a good job. He needed a leader who would do a great job. After careful thought and consideration, he approached a colleague, who I’ll call Bob, who was considered an up-and-comer. Bob had demonstrated tremendous potential and his work on previous projects had been exemplary. As past performance is one of the best indicators of future performance, the VP decided to sit down with him.

After explaining the project and what he wanted Bob to do, the VP extended an invitation to him to lead the project. After a brief pause, Bob responded, “I assume you’ll make me a director if I take this on.” His unexpected response caused the VP to pause. What were Bob’s real motivations? Was he a person driven by the need to contribute, or the need to gain? Would he act in the best interest of the organization, or only himself? After brief hesitation, he explained that the title change didn’t go with the invitation. Furthermore, he went on, given Bob’s concern, the VP was withdrawing his offer to lead the project.

The VP went back to the drawing board. After more deliberation, he came up with an alternative candidate. The person who came to mind was a woman, Gail, who had also shown great promise. Gail wasn’t actually a member of his team – in fact she acted in a freelance capacity. But the VP knew Gail’s can-do attitude and strong people and problem-solving skills were what were needed. Despite her lack of an official position within the company, the VP decided to ask Gail to lead the project. Given his previous experience with Bob, he approached her with some apprehension. In extending the offer, he added: “I want you to know that if you accept this challenge, and succeed, I can’t automatically make you a director.” Gail didn’t even hesitate. “That’s all right,” she said. “I don’t need a title to be a leader.”

Read the rest of the interview.

Bottom line: I love looking for people who are passionate and not looking for the recognition that comes from a leadership role.

Every believer is a minister of the gospel — not just the professionals. That’s why we don’t really use titles in our church culture… Pastor is a function… NOT a title.

The downside to day care?

These kind of articles become a LOT more interesting when you have a one year old child — in day care three days a week.

It seems that children who are looked after by their mothers up to the age of 3 do significantly better in developmental tests than those cared for by nurseries, nannies, childminders or relatives.

Of course, statistical studies on behavior and grades and development alone cannot measure the full impact on children of spending their days away from both parents. The presence of a parent provides children with a sense of safety and well being, personal love, the instilling of family values, and a stronger family bond. Parents are parents best when they are actually present. A nanny or other child care provider may be able to love a child and teach him to follow all the rules. But more than the feminists will admit, children often…simply need Mom and Dad.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Related Links:

A Downside to Day Care? – MSNBC
•Study: Day Care Slightly Weakens Child-Mother Bond – CNN
•Mother’s Care is Best For First Three Years – The Times
•Number of Hours and Length of Time in Child Care – nces.ed.gov
•Blueprint For Action – Healthychildcare.org
•Official: Babies Do Best With Mother – The Guardian