So here are a few blog posts I have loved recently.

The UP Plan – From Rob Bradbury: “As family pastor I want to see all of our kids grow UP into strong Christians who love God with the lot.”

Read These Seven Books, and You’ll be a Better Writer – From Don Miller: In the last few weeks Don’s blog has become one of my favourites.

2010 Kids Ministry diovan generic equivalent Blog Madness (Final Round) – I was out in the second round, but make sure you vote in the last round!

Preaching with the help of a mind map – From Ryan Frank: It reiterated an idea I read about a few years ago, using mind maps, which I have found invaluable.

Enjoy.

I was getting kinda overwhelmed by just how many ‘streams’ there are in Christianity today.

Here I am in my part of the world in Australia with a bunch of leaders/Churches I relate to, and then online where I am swimming with a bunch of awesome and slightly geeky children’s pastors who may be completely different denomination/tribe/stream but united through our calling to children…

And then there are massive streams I am vaguely aware of, from massive Churches in South America and Korea to House Church movements in China and India.

There are at least 12 Christian TV networks I know of showing Churches with 24/7 prayer going on, huge conferences and a vast array of preachers from all over the globe impacting thousands of people.

The kingdom of God is WIDE.

Just when you think you are doing all right in an area, you see someone else doing 1000 times better… it’s like being the fastest kid in your primary school, then getting to High School and all of a sudden becoming average overnight…

Its enough to keep a man humble (I hope).

There will always be someone better than you at what you do, but only you can do what God has called you to do.

Sure, pop your head up and check out the other lane, the other diovan generic availability river… but you will never accomplish what God has for you by wishing you were swimming somewhere else – swim in the stream, run your race, dog paddle in the pool God has for you!

After many years or trying I have achieved the impossible! A perfect score on the Wii Fit Soccer Heading game!

I can only give thanks to my creator who has given me superior balancing skills! (Superior that is… to a new born gazelle).

diovan generic alternatives title=”Wii Fit Soccer” src=”http://www.davidwakerley.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DSC04983.jpg” alt=”" width=”503″ height=”378″ />

I shall now retire undefeated!

Ha!

diovan buy class=”size-full wp-image-1184 aligncenter” title=”I Hate Sandcastles” src=”http://www.davidwakerley.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/i-hate-sandcastles.jpg” alt=”" width=”461″ height=”315″ />

Love it.

A while back we were looking into how to do our Early Childhood Praise and Worship better. One of our awesome team Matt who also works in our Bible College suggested getting a hold of some Cuban Box Drums or cajón’s.

They were perfect and have added a fantastic dimension to the praise and worship we do with our little ones. They are capable of sounding like a whole drum kit with a skilled player. Any drummer/percussionist should pick this up pretty quickly.

So our team on a weekend service would typically look like an acoustic guitarist or two, cajón, maybe someone with an ‘egg‘ and a bunch of singers. They circulate through our rooms (depending on our different campuses) leading our kids in worship with our ‘Cubbyhouse’ (1-2 years) diovan 800 mg and ‘Ark’ (3-5 years).

So you have an instrument that this age finds fascinating (you sit on it and hit it),  supports the music brilliantly and is super portable!

They start from less than $100 on amazon but I would suggest moving up to a slightly higher price bracket to get quality!

The kind of music we do with our little ones is a mixture of some songs we have written and a bunch of bridges and choruses from our songs… eg. they

couldn’t sing the whole song ‘Tell the World‘, but the chorus is great! We don’t really use backing tracks with this age group a lot, but then again we haven’t ever done an Early Childhood kids album

So there you go, get one and try it out, you won’t regret it!

Pastor Brian just blogged about the unfurling and unveiling and unwrapping and furthering…ing of our Campus in New York City.

Today, I wanted to let you know of the most recent developments. I am excited to share with you that Carl and Laura Lentz and their young family, are moving to New York City in the second diovan 5 mg half of this year, with the intention of becoming a key part of the Hillsong leadership team.

Carl was in my year at Hillsong Bible College and is one of the most passionate young men I have ever met. I am excited for the future of this campus!

Read the full post here.

There are a number of phrases you don’t want to hear as a leader. I heard one of them last weekend.

“My friend put in a new leaders application and she hasn’t heard anything”.

Ouch.

If there is one thing you want to get right is making a process of becoming one of our team easy. One of your goals as a leader is too eliminate these utterances through a process known as communication — Don’t say much, but say it often!

Some other deadly sentences include, but are not limited to:

“No I didn’t get into a service this weekend, dilantin price I just served”

“But this has been happening for ages”

“I didn’t have my team leaders phone number”

“My tee-shirt is in the wash”

“There was a team meeting this week?”

“Yes there was a lot of blood, but it didn’t look too serious” (okay, that one has never happened to me)

Are there any phrases you don’t like to hear as a leader?

dilantin prescription online />

Over at Ministry-To-Children.com there is a great comp going on.

2010 Kids Ministry Blog Madness

Vote for Your Favorite Kidmin Blogger

Here’s How It Works – Listed on the site are the top 64 children’s ministry blogs arranged in a four division bracket-style tournament. (I guess in the U.S. sports are divided into four main divisions, which is cool… so my blog is in the West Division).

Sunday 21 March 2010 is when round #1 will close and the top picks in each division will advance.

So I have to call in some favours… especially for those volunteers and pastors at Hillsong Church you need to jump on over there and click the vote button in the appropriate spot.

Click here for the comp.

About 9 minutes ago Jamie Doyle posted this tweet:

“has it occurred to anyone that CM is about the here and now as well as the future?” dilantin no prescription target=”_blank”>Jamie Doyle

I love thinking about the future, I love to speculate where our culture is going, where the challenges and opportunities will be.

I know of a lot of futurists whose immense intellect is focused on what might be. But I don’t just want to be so caught up in the future that I miss the present… today… the now.

In fact my new question for you and leaders I might meet is not “what is the future of children’s ministry?”, but “what is the now of children’s ministry?”.

Hi, I’m Dave and I’m a nowist.

After the awesome Napkin conference last week myself and Nathan Mclean made our way around the US to visit a few friends and Churches.

We made it to Free Chapel in Georgia after battling through a blizzard… okay it was a little snow, but more than I have seen in long time! (Ah New Zealand, you have a wintery place in my soul).

But making it to the Church we hung out with youth pastor Clayton Baird (graduate of Hillsong Bible College) who showed us around their flippin’ awesome campus.

One dilantin generic safe of the coolest things about Kidpak (their children’s ministry) is KP7, the kids worship band!

I love seeing music for kids that is reaching them where they are at!

Take today’s hottest sounds like the music from Fall Out Boy, The Killers, All American Rejects, The Hives, Switchfoot, Cold Play, Nickelback, U2, The Black Eyed Peas (and even a little guitar hero)…

Mix them all together and what do you get…

KP7 – NOISE

You need to check these guys out, their latest album Noise was just released, you can preview the tracks here, or on iTunes.