[Kid Inspiration]

Two things:

1. I am neck deep in kids album preparations. We are recording the album on the 4th October along with a huge Kidsfest event — and right now are working on the songs and filming a bunch of stuff for the DVD, which will be a LOT different that the first two!

It’s seasons like this I wish I drank coffee.

2. Zap Reader – Try this out. Got a long blog post you want to read, but not the time to read it? Paste the text into this cool little tool and speed read your way through it!

Dave signing off abilify prescription assistance – coming soon, a sneak preview of the kids album!

At my church I currently Pastor 5 – 11 year olds.  We have 5 services across a weekend and at each of these I oversee two seperate programs…one for 5-7 years (Fun House) and another for 8-11 years (All Stars).

Obviously I can’t be at two places at once and cannot personally run 10 programs so to take our ministry forward I have a Key Team of 14 people who oversee either a service each or a specific area of our ministry such as New People or Pastoral Care.

 The one thing however that caught my attention last week was the type of people I am building on.  Naturally when you are looking for someone to step up and carry the extra load of your children’s ministry you look for someone with a passion for children but also someone who has enough free time to come in to the office and make things happen mid week.  If this is the case then I would say you are closing your eyes to the very people that God has placed in your church who can take your ministry forward!  That’s right, the biggest leadership lesson I have learnt in my 4 years of ministry is abilify 40 mg DON’T NOT ASK PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY ARE BUSY!!!

Out of all my services the four that are run by business owners who work more then most and also have families are the four services I never have to worry about. 

So my challenge to the Chilrdren’s Leaders and Pastors out there is this – Find the most successful business person you know that is also passionate about chiuldren, sell the vision that you have for your ministry to them, get them passionate about the cause and give them an area to own, then sit back and watch the benefits in your ministry.

 Note: This can only be done by a secure leader as this type of person will question any process that doesn’t work and ask 1 million questions all in the quest to make your ministry better!  Only take this challenge if you want things to move forward and are prepared to grow!

The above photo is a screen shot from the video footage taken at Kidsong World. I did not take ANY photos at all this year… This is one of the night rallies in the Acer Arena. I am smack bang in the middle under the God’s Army Banner. Yeah thats it, the flesh coloured blob.

Well we had a spectacular conference over two thousand kids ranging from 3 years old to year 5 at school (age 10-11). If you can’t imagine what that looks like… the average VBS runs from about 9 till midday for five days… Kidsong World runs from 8:00am until 3:30pm for four days… and then we run ten night rallies… two per night of the conference! (Don’t forget the weekend services that happen on either side of the conference either, 7 in our city campus alone!)

So my hat is firmly off to the more than 400 hundred full-time and part-time volunteers that make this thing happen! And the week was the BEST running EVER by a huge margin.

Apart from the fact that this was the smoothest running conference ever, God did some amazing things in kids lives this year – lot’s of testimonies and kids thanking God for doing great things in their lives and their families lives.

We have a thing we call ‘Ask God’ and ‘Thank God’s’ in every rally we do. The kids write down, before the program starts, anything they want to thank or ask God for. Then we pray over them during the rally and follow-up as necessary. Well an interesting theme this year was the amount of times kids wanted us to pray that: 1. Their parents would stop fighting, or get back together if they were divorced, and 2. That parents or relatives would stop smoking.

I don’t know if it was because I kept talking about it from the front and that bought more of those prayer requests out, but kids were seriously asking for answers to serious situations!

I will post some of the awesome thank God’s when I get them from the office, I am writing this with Brooklyn (now five months old) sitting on my lap smearing baby saliva over any part of me he can reach. And trying to have a conversation with a pen he is holding 40 mg prozac (predominately in his mouth).

So adieu, good night, I bid thee a fond farewell.

As Susan pointed out in my last posts comments, I have not mentioned a single thing about the amazing conference that just happened last week.

Thousands of kids…

Smoothest running conference ever…

Volunteers completely excited and blessed…

Huge God moments with volunteers and leaders…

Some pretty funny moments that either involve breaking things and/or high pitched voices…

So I will HAVE to post something soon. It was a pretty spectacular 40 mg paxil week for everyone involved.

Here is short promo video for Kidsong World:

40 mg lexapro

So tomorrow Hillsong Conference begins in Sydney here. That means the kids conference Kidsong World also begins…

Kidsong World

So I may go a little quiet in the next few days… have no fear I shall return, and may even post 40 mg doxycycline something during the week… who knows?

Very excited today!

Unexpectedly “Jesus is my Superhero” has been nominated for Children’s Music Album of the Year at the GMA Awards in April this year! The nominations came out this morning and our first ever kids album is in the running for the equivalent of the Grammys in the Christian world.
This is a big deal – it is the only Hillsong Music album nominated this year!

There are six albums in the running, and Superhero is the only one produced by a local church, not a record label.

Anyway, definately a surprise, and I may just have to be in Nashville in April for the ceremony

Well, tomorrow is our All Stars Kids Summer Camp!

It is our biggest ever camp so far!!! Lots of kids and leaders.
We go to the Northern Beaches of Sydney, and hang out for three days, two nights.
Will post photos on return!

Here we go… new camera, same bad photography… but that’s all right, Jesus still loves me.

Forresters Beach, in the beautiful central coast NSW.

Reading a book. Not sure what it was, for the sake of appearing spritual – it was the Bible.

The pool at the Forresters Resort, would have taken a photo from the pool, but camera instruction manual suggested not.

Beci at Moo-ers. It’s a steak reastaurant — hence the cows…

On everything!

If you don’t subscribe to Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox… then steer your browser in this direction Pastors.com

You get it every week in your inbox and it is an excellent read!

There is an article in this weeks edition from Craig Jutila.

Leading a dynamic team takes energy, enthusiasm, and the ability to empower others. It has been said that a leader is someone with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head. As you lead an effective and dynamic team, there are seven observations worth remembering. They will keep you on the right path and give you success with those you serve. read on

My wife and I are taking a short break this week… (back to work on Friday). Not much blogging will be happening from these fingers… but I did just get a digital camera for my birthday (4th Jan… send money). So maybe I will put up some photos from beautiful Australia…

UPDATE: I am getting some great feedback from my FREE ‘Think Different” Report.

Check it out if you haven’t yet!!!

Well, it has been quite a number of days since my last post.

But I hope to make it up to you:

“Think Different – Your Ministry in 2006″, A Children’s Ministry Manifesto is now ready for release.

I was a little hesitant to release it in its current form, I thought it might come across a too ‘forceful’. But my wife Beci had a read through (fixed the grammer and spelling) and has given the okay.

Disclaimer: Don’t read it if you are easily offended… thanks. I mean it’s not like I filled the pages with profanity, but I just believe that kids lives are too precious to waste words.

I am making this report free to download, so if you have a blog, or a website please feel free to spread the word.

Here is the link to find out more: http://kidinspiration.com/different/

God Bless and Enjoy.

P.S. Oh and I am only keeping it online until the end of JAN 2006. So be quick!

P.P.S. Post comments below about the ebook, reviews, love offerings, appreciation etc.

CHANGE.

I have totally changed the way I use the web from only about a few months ago. I used to search a lot, randomly surfing for interesting stuff…

But I changed.

Now I log on I almost always go straight (after checking email) to checking for any new posts on the blogs I read. I use bloglines, which allows me to check all the blogs in one place.

Most of the interesting stuff I read is recommended in these blogs.

Change happens.

I am in the middle of a manifesto about change and your childrens ministry in 2006.

Coming soon to this blog…

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“Whats that noise Bill?”

“It’s the winds of change Mildred, the winds of change”

Dave.

Now I don’t know if just missed this film and site completely, but check out:
http://www.kids-with-cameras.org

Where was I when the film won an Academy Award?

Anyway, I am ordering the DVD… report coming soon.

About Kids with Cameras:

Kids with Cameras’ upcoming priority is to further empower the children of Calcutta’s red light district by creating a school and campus specifically for them. Existing schools in Calcutta are hesitant to admit children like those featured in Born into Brothels, simply because of where they are born and raised. In the rare cases that schools do accept them, the children are often further stigmatized and limited in reaching their full potential. Our mission is to create a safe and nurturing environment, to provide the highest quality education available in the world and to support the children all the way through to university.

Are you having church on Christmas day?

Here We Go Again–CONTROVERSY!

This potentially church splitting issue is even on CNN — how will the church recover from this negative publicity!! What will we do — can we go on, will the church survive…

Some megachurches closing on Christmas

We run a 5 Star Leadership Program for kids in years 4 and 5. And last Saturday night they took over… running the whole shebang. MCing, Preaching, Running Games, Doing sound etc, etc.

 

A Giant Connect 4 Competition.

 

Kirra Preaching up a Storm

 

Tayla Speaking the Word!

 

Caleb MC’ing!

 

Me and Caleb talking about stuff!

It was a huge success and the kids loved running everything – get a group of your kids to try this… very rewarding (You will also be surprised with what the kids preach about!).