[Kid Inspiration]

This is the world i’m living in.

And I’m convinced that we very rarely realise it and the opportunity it is.

I really don’t want to settle for the status quo.

Anyway watch the vid…

Enjoy this from our latest kids album:

I haven’t written one of these posts in a while, but I think to start out 2009 it would be great to write about some new blogs and not so new blogs on the internets.

The last time I wrote something like this was in May 2007: The State of the CM Blogosphere

So today I write the State of the CM Blogosphere Jan 2009, or “Blogs of most excellent repute”

I will try and write about new blogs here rather than the ones listed in the last report. But if I really feel like there is consistent goodness coming from those blogs I will be forced by sheer respect to mention them. It is worth at this point to mention two resources: church.alltop.com, A list of some very influential Church blogs and from Church Relevance: The Top Church Blogs

I cannot even remember how I got the number of 232 blogs that discuss children’s ministry in my old post, I even went onto Technorati to figure it out, but the site was slow so I gave up. I do follow 121 blogs that relate to ministry to children, although only a very small amount of those update regulary.

I do need to talk about the rise of twitter this last year, but that will be kept for another post!

So, here are a few of the top blogs that I love reading at the beginning of 2009!

• Just Pudge – Still in the game, probably one of the most engaging blogs still to read, who has taken a cue from his senior pastor Perry Noble who writes an enormously readable blog. It was great to meet the children’s pastor of Newspring Cherie Duffy when she was over here in October who doesn’t blog but does twitter.
• Justyn Smith – From ‘The Church‘ in South Las Vegas. Started strong and hopefully will keep going because I think he has a lot to say! I met him last year when he was over here in Sydney with his pastor Benny Perez to speak and is a fantastic young pastor to children!
• Jim Wideman – Just a great guy starting out in ministry, a great fresh new pastor with a LOT of wisdom and a huge future ahead of him (at least thats what it seems like ). I will be meeting him this year when he makes it over to Australia with his daughter Yancy to speak at kidshaper conference.
• Rob Bradbury – Rob and his team from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne blog about a lot of cool stuff… now because it’s not just Rob, I think it’s frequency of posts could increase. And they do need to remove the annoying Captcha for commenting (hint, hint) But Rob is really my hero in ministry in Australia. And you should get the K Magazine issue that features him on the cover with a fantastic article about their relatively new church plant.
• JC’s Thompson – A blogger since Sept 2007, the Elementary Production Director for the Children’s Ministry at Brookwood Church in Simpsonville, SC (I copy and pasted this from his site). I love the way he thinks so read this post to get an idea of what ticks in his brain. Looking forward to reading more!
• Kenny Conley – Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. Love the practical stuff that has been coming from Kenny recently… the photos for portable church and makeover stuff. I do learn visually so it has been great for me to see all those photos!
• Jonathan Fietzer – The Assistant Children’s Pastor at World Outreach and Bible Training Center in Milwaukee, WI. Jonathan has a very fancy site, and lots of great posts!
• Karl Bastian – Karl has a new blog look and is fulltime on kidology.org, by far still the best place to get answers and support when you need them from incredibly generous people. He writes a great blog with a fantastic mix of personal and minstry.

etc.

etc.

Lots more that I could write about, but pasting all those links in takes a lot of time and my wrists are beginning to hurt.

TIPS: If you are starting to think about maybe writing a blog, then please do it. One of the greatest things I have found is that making my thoughts public is a great accountablility system. Keeps me learning and giving and making time just to think (VERY important for any form of creativity). And make sure to mix the ministry with your personal life, if we have learnt one thing from Pixar movies is that story matters. I want to know YOUR story, not just your thoughts.

One of the things that fascinates me about this time is the demise of old school media. Mainly because of the fact that our kids are growing up with a radically different view of news and media than me.

It’s not (very) obvious right now (you can still buy Time Magazine at a news-stand), but like a sub-prime mortgage crisis it will hit all of a sudden when there are no advertisers left to pay for any of the printing of magazines.

• Since 1994—and the release of the commercial web browser—newspaper audience penetration has fallen a third, from 23% to 16%. In that time, circulation fell 14% (59 million to 50 million, according to the Newspaper Association of America) while population rose 20%.
• Since 1994, newspaper print advertising revenue fell on an inflation-adjusted basis by 10% (from $34,109 million in 1994 dollars to $42,209 million in 2007 dollars, says NAA).
• Since 1994, the number of newspapers in America fell from 1,548 to 1,422, according to NAA.

You can read more in one of my must read blogs Buzzmachine by Jeff Jarvis

The way our kids get their news and how they relate to media is one of the biggest cultural influences on them, so it is vital to understand HOW they see the world around them… because it is DIFFERENT to you and me.

It will be like talking about the crackle of a needle on a vinyl record during a message to kids to talk about the evening news soon (The median age of network evening news viewers is 61 in 2008, according to Magna Global USA.).

…

P.S. People will still want news in the future… its just that no one making the decisions at Fox News/NY Times/Time Warner is 9 years old. The way we get it will change and a bunch of big business will crash and burn.

P.P.S. There were A LOT of horse shoe makers in the 1920s… Did we give them big loans to continue making horseshoes while Henry Ford was cranking out some new fangled cars?

So it’s time to introduce you to three new blogs.

I am a little apprehensive about two of them, but am confident about the third for reasons I shall now disclose.

The Good Life by Nathan McLean. Now Nathan is another children’s pastor here at Hillsong who has many good intentions about blogging but has issues following through. Although he has no problems following through in other areas.

He has just had his first baby and loving being a father. Hopefully this little pump will encourage him to put down thoughts on his blog. (of course I may just need to email him is login details for the 7th time)

Vogelpedia by Mike Vogel. Mike is a U.S. Maryland native who made his way over here to our Bible College three years ago and has since become an invaluable leader in our ministry. He runs the Voltage ministry (pre-teen) in our City Campus and is just the epitome of a great follower, which makes him a brilliant leader! I am hopeful about his blog, mainly because he is almost as competitive as Nathan and will make sure he wipes the floor in the regularity and quality of blog posts after this announcement (won’t you Mike)

Kathryn Joy by Kathryn Macdowall. I have a little more confidence in recommending this blog as Kathryn has probably tripled my boys blogging in just a few weeks. She is our Hills Campus administrator and curriculum writing guru, and very single… (see I am trying Kathryn — just putting it out there).

So here are three new blogs for your reading pleasure and hopefully just enough impetus to enable some brilliant thoughts to emerge from within their capable minds!

Have you ever dropped some dreams?

Maybe you realised that you didn’t want them as bad as you thought?

I started dropping a few as I approached 30. Albeit they were things that I had wanted since I was young enough to watch Fraggle Rock and Macgyver on TV… like being an international spy or living in a tree house.

But a few of them I consciously let go.

Like becoming a world renowned Jazz musician (I have a Diploma in Jazz performance from Christchurch Institute of Technology). It just would be too much of a departure from where my life has headed and even though I get to use my musical gifts a LOT, it just ain’t gonna happen. And to tell the truth I don’t want it that bad any more.

But I hope that in your life that there are NO dreams that you have simply given up on because they look out of reach and impossible. If you still want it deep down then never give up on it!

So as I hit 31 years old today <nudge nudge — 4 Jan –> and feel slightly reflective and a little disturbed at the grey in my rather scraggly beard here is David Wakerley signing off and tremendously blessed that God has given me so many of the dreams in my heart I had to get new ones!

Happy Birthday.