[Kid Inspiration]

This one snuck up on me! Rob Bradbury from Planet Shakers in Melbourne Australia. He and his team have started a podcast and a blog!

Check it out at: childrensministry1234.com

I have mentioned Rob in the past on the blog, for a nominal fee, ’cause he is a brilliant leader in Children’s Ministry in Australia!!

He oversees Kids R Us which is the kids department of Australian Christian Churches.

I’m not sure why he hasn’t told me about this… the only reason I can think of is that he was try to test me and my geekness… ‘how long would it take Wakerley to find my blog…’

Yeah that’s it.

Regardless, check out the podcast on iTunes (search for planet kids) and add the blog to your reading list.

Oh, his children’s ministry website is at affordable cheap propecia target=”_blank”>planetkids.com.au Nice site with a great layout… the main page has three options… Parents | Kids | Leaders. Which is a awesome simple way to layout your website.

What a fancy title… ‘Engaging with Trends’… let me subtitle even fancier…

Engaging with Trends
“Why using relevant pop culture elements can help
you create a ministry that kids refuse to miss.”

I started two new elements in our weekend services last weekend. It got dozens of kids excited, engaged and begging to attend church.

We have a bunch of ‘stations’ setup before we start the service so the kids can hang out and interact with the leaders before we start.

Craft stations, Air Hockey, Playstations, Xbox etc.

Well I added two new stations last weekend.

1. Nintendo DS Station
2. Tazo Station

The biggest selling portable gaming system in the world is the Nintendo DS… Especially with kids.

And one of the coolest things to do is collect tazos… especially Footy Tazo’s. It is so popular advocare vitamin online various schools have banned them from being traded at school!! (You know something is engaging kids when they ban it!!)

Listen, you may not live in Australia and have NRL or AFL Tazo’s, but I would place money on the fact that your kids are trading some kind of sports collector cards!

So I create an area where kids can play each other on their DS’s (over Wi-Fi) and trade tazo’s… it is amazing the kids that come out of their shell when you start trading with them.

Of course as a leader you don’t just create an area for kids and not get involved yourself… so I am now the owner of a Nintendo DS with Diddy Kong Racing and have a huge pile of NRL Tazo’s (research I tell my wife!).

As a minister to kids you do not bring in your KIDS toys… you bring in YOUR toys!

I don’t tell the kids that I have bought a DS for my little boy Brooklyn, I tell them it’s mine! (And it is… Brooklyn is allowed no where near it! – he’s 1)

Your mission is to find out this weekend:

1. How many of your kids have a DS
2. What cards are they collecting

OK…

This is not a post about technology (none of your kids may have a Nintendo), it is about getting into your kids world!

So you can bet at the beginning of next years footy season I will have a whole corner devoted to Rugby League and will be finding out the most popular games so I can buy it and practice enough to whip all my kids at it!!!

FOR AUSSIES: Go onto ebay and search for ‘Tazo‘, you can buy a whole set without having to go through the hassle of collecting them in chip packets. While you’re there, buy a second hand DS!

I am:

• Building credibility with kids
• Building a bridge to speak into their lives
• Creating a cool environment to participate in
• Staying young
• Creating topics I can talk to kids about
• Redeeming technology
• Bringing ‘new and fresh’ elements into our services
• Having fun!
• Finding excuses to buy stuff
• Training my hand-eye coordination
• Supporting Australian sport
• Creating opportunities for introvert kids to be admired (who has the most cards/highest score is the ‘man!’)

It’s a win-win situation!

NOTE: Don’t get too attached to your collecting cards… make a point to give away your best and rarest to your kids. I don’t care about collecting the set… only helping my kids to get every card.

I think I stole this from Jim Wideman’s Blog… but I just had to post something on this because the last entry was written while Jesus was still turning water into milk.

“It doesn’t take leadership to change something that not’s working. It does take leadership to change something that’s going good and make it great.” Willie George

So true!

The test of leadership is to take a Ford and turn it into a Ferrari. advair diskus prices

So I had not really heard of John Piper until recently when I started to check out the Desiring God website. They also have a ministry targeted to children.

They make excellent use of the net and apparently the website contains all Piper’s sermons and articles since he started in ministry. I love seeing a dude giving away all his stuff!!!

Messages (audio and written) and books are all over this site.

They have a great blog which is where I found out about the Children Desiring God conference, that was just held in April. And has begun my fascination with John’s writing and speaking.

He talks about kids A LOT.

Just search for children on the site and it brings up over a thousand results of message and articles that reference kids…

So…

To the conference.

Check out the sessions from the conference blogged in great detail! You can listen to John in Session One delivering the message.

Conference Session One

Conference Session Two

Conference Session Three

Conference Session Four

Conference Session Five

I love seeing ministries just giving away stuff… going beyond a ‘podcast’ advair diskus generic or free samples… they literally give away the farm…

For an idea to spread it needs to get out to the people. Your idea could be the exactly the right thing the world needs, but if no one ever hears it… it’s just a good idea.

John Piper is taking his ideas to the world.

One of his articles had a great impact on me recently taking a passage from Psalm 78 and building a message about God’s plan to pass on the word to children.

Check out Johnny boy! You could learn a lot (I did)!

Kids really add buy carisoprodol do learn from their culture!

Check out the video below…

Creativity is something everyone possesses.

If you don’t feel you are a creative person, someone probably told you that and it stuck. Or maybe you even heard someone else told they weren’t an artist, or had a good voice and you thought, “Man, I’m not even as good as them! I must suck!”

Creativity is tenuous. Much like self esteem it can be obliterated with a single negative word.

So here is the word of the Lord into thy life: ‘Thou art creative”.

Feel better?

The hose is turned on. The water is flowing, you just had a kink that was killing the flow.

Here’s the thing now: you may have to clear a little deadwood.

Chuck Jones, the great Warner Brothers animation director, once recalled that one of his art instructors once greeted the class by saying “All of you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them the better it will be for everyone.”

I have written countless bad songs in my life. Only a few are good enough to be presented to children.

There is a significant song in the journey of Beci (that would be my wife) and I that stands out.

I’m Really Happy – From our first Hillsong Kids album “Jesus is my Superhero”.

We had written some seriously lame tunes before this song came along. Finally we both felt we had made a breakthrough and it was one of the first songs to be locked in for the album.

I would like to say that creativity and excellence comes easier now, but there are still deserts between the oasis of great songs (not sure of the plural of oasis – oasi?).

So GET IT OUT!

Clean the pipes.

Unkink the hose.

Keep writing.

Keep singing.

Keep composing.

Keep believing that the ‘Best is yet to come’.

(Thanks Brian).

adalat no prescription color=”#330000″>Religion does seem to be good for young children. The religious attendance of parents and a cohesive religious environment in the home yields significant benefits for children’s behavioral, emotional, and cognitive development, and such outcomes are most pronounced when both partners attend services frequently.”

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study by researchers at Mississippi State University

Article from Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox — Church is good for children.

That’s the message of a new study that says young children of churchgoing parents fare better behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively than do children of parents who never attend church. In fact, the more often the parents attend, the better off the kids are.

Nice.

When I started blogging in November of 2004 there was not much in the way of blogging going on that had anything with ministry to children. I actually blogged only twice that month, but that has since grown to 340 posts, but since then millions of blogs have been added and the list of blogs relating to serving children on this earth has grown.

Technorati lists 1,150 blogs that discuss Youth Ministry, and 232 blogs that discuss children’s ministry. Both those number are lower if we count only those blogs that are strongly focussed on ministry to youth/children.

I now actively follow 50 blogs that relate to CM… some of them loosely related, some fully engaged conversation about how to reach children for Jesus Christ.

But I have been pretty pumped to see the rise in recent times of quality blogging exploding like a coke bottle full of mentos… like an out of control object lesson involving baking soda…

So here are my top ten blogs, some of these are new, some are ancient (more than a year old):

• Jim Wideman’s Blog – The legend, the man, the blog… Brother Jim joins the blogosphere. It seems like Jim has exploded online in the last month or so, first by starting a Podcast, then joining Kidology and posting voraciously and now to top it all off a BLOG! Jim is the Children’s Pastor at Church on the Move and a veteran… the ‘Camp Dad’ of children’s ministry. Generous both with his time and words I love seeing a dude stick around for so long. Staying and building the local church.
• Just Pudge – Just like the aforementioned coke, Pudge Huckaby exploded with some of the best written posts on ministry I have read in ages! Pudge is the Elementary School Pastor at Newspring Churches Children’s Ministry ‘The Majestic‘ (love that name!). After an initial flurry of brilliance, the blog is taking a break, but I fully expect Pudge to return to his former glory and join the pantheon of greatness that he is destined to become a part of!
• Children’s Ministry and Culture – The blog of Larry Shallenberger and Keith Johnson, this sucker has been around almost as long as my own blog. Both are authors of a number of books and contribute to CM Mag. They have great insight into the culture of children and are particularly bright individuals prone to finding obscure research and applying it to work with children and then causing me to think long and deeply about it.
• Karl Bastian (the Kidologist) – Karl… where does one start. The creator of Kidology.org, possibly… okay not possibly… hands down the best forum online to get answers from your peers around the world. The blog is a mixture of personal entries (beautiful adoption story), and a bizarre fascination with Mountain Dew and almost beats me out in the oldness stakes, but not quite (March 2005).
• The Remix of Children’s Ministry – The Children’s Pastor of Horizon Community Church in Ohio, US. Matt is not the most prolific blogger but has some very nice things to say about me, so I thought I should give him a shout-out But seriously when he speaks, I listen.
• Phil Vischer -The creator of the Veggies. Not really a CM focussed blog, but Phil has VERY cool things to say about the media industry and is very intelligent.
• Multi-Site Kids – Tammy Melchien serves as the Executive Director of Kids’ City, the Children’s Ministry of Community Christian Church. CCC is a multi-site church with 8 locations in the Chicagoland area. She has great insight on how to duplicate ministries and blogs very candidly and openly about it.
• P2 – Family Pastor of Ridge Stone Church in Canton, Ga. Another old man in the blog world (Started June 2005), and doing cool things in a relatively new church plant.
• Children’s Ministry by Design – Stephen Posey is one of the Children’s Pastors at Church On The Move in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s great to see not only Jim blogging, but his staff getting into it as well! A baby blog started in March 07 but STACKS of great content already!
• Glen Woods – Currently the volunteer Children’s Pastor of Portland Open Bible Church. actos sales Another brainy dude who is writing about the intersection of theology and culture in the practice of children’s ministry… I like that… theology and culture.

So there you have it. I have a bunch of other favourites, but they have all been punished because they don’t write enough

The message is clear… if you are reading this and don’t have a blog. Get one… and start writing.

UPDATE: Corrected link to Matt McKee’s blog.

If you are in Victoria or even close to Vic — Rob Bradbury has an event going that you need to get to!

REV 2007 – RX3

Friday, 4 May 2007 to Saturday, 5 May 2007 REV is a two day state training opportunity for all children’s pastors and leaders to grow in their ministry to children. Commencing on Friday night and concluding on Saturday, Rev 2007 – RX3 is looking to be a powerful two days of ministry.

It will give a fresh vision actos prices for your ministry and inspire you with ideas on how to better reach the children in your community.

But don’t just bring yourself, bring your team!

It truly promises to be two days of fun, information, inspiration, and impartation.

Pastor Rob Bradbury, the Kids R Us National & State Director, is looking forward to partnering with you and your team to do all we can to reach this generation for Jesus Christ.

God is wanting to do something big in the children’s ministries across Victoria, and He wants your team to be apart of the adventure!

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.

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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 actos prescriptions 2005 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 actos prescriptions 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 actos mg 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 actos generic equivalent 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 actos 6o mg 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

Quotables from Phil Baker

Snakes on a Plane.

There are snakes on our journey through life we need to be aware of:

1. Sloth -
2. Solo – Going it alone
3. Self-reliance
4. Speed – microwave maturity

Wisdom:

• I actos 45 mg reckon 80% of my theology is correct – I just don’t know which 80%
• God specializes in using ordinary people.
• God takes the water of our life and turns it into wine
• The irony that God uses a bush to speak is totally lost on Moses