[Kid Inspiration]

Here are some simple but powerful ways to keep people around and loving what they do.

• After recruiting volunteers, find or develop opportunities for them to get involved right away.
• Have clear goals and expectations of what volunteer will do – write a job description (Read the “One Minute Manager” by by Kenneth Blanchard, Spencer Johnson for more infomation on thi spowerful technique).
• BE FLEXIBLE - have volunteer projects on weekends & weekdays, morning and evenings. When you meet with new leaders the first time, don’t just talk about weekend services, always mention midweek projects and roles… create a culture of serving throughout the week).
• Make sure volunteers understand the importance of the task they are doing, and how it fits into the overall ministry.
• Never allow people to feel that you wasted their time or that they weren’t really needed.
• Provide food & refreshments after projects (The power of pizza cannot be underestimated).
• Keep up on and celebrate birthdays of committed volunteers.
• Provide a structure so that those who want to can take on roles of greater responsibility.
• Give honest and sincere praise, say “Thank you”, make people glad they came and participated.
• Recognize volunteers in meetings… make a goal to mention the outstanding work that one volunteer has done each meeting.
• Have parties, retreats, picnics, and other “off-duty” events.
• Give volunteers titles- Coordinator, Assistant Coordinator, Lead Organizer, etc (Make them fun titles… Disney has imagineers!).

Figure what the always is. Then do something else.

Toothpaste always comes in a squeezable tube.
Business travelers always use a travel agent.
Politicians always have their staff screen their calls.
Children’s ministries always have a bus ministry.

Figure out what the always is, then do exactly the opposite. Do the never.

Thanks to this from Seth Godin

Well I though I might post a quick confession I use to keep passionate about my calling and leadership.

Five quick things, that if combined with faith will cause YOU to stay committed to what you are doing. Also includes a BRILLIANT quote at the end. I honestly LOVE this quote… and it is from a Orchestra conductor… HOW MUCH MORE should we, as believers and leaders of children believe and live out the quote.

Check it out below!

As a leader I am PASSIONATE!

1. Passion demands enthusiasm! :: I am a Dispenser of Enthusiasm
   1. Ps 69:9 zeal for your house consumes me.b.Rom 12:10,11 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritua fervor, serving the Lord.
2. Passion Demands Truth :: I am a transparent leader.
   1. Jn 17:15-19 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
   2. Ex 18:21 But select capable men from all the people–men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain
3. Passion demands People :: People stuff is my ONLY stuff
   1. GAL 5:13,14 You, my brothers, werecalled to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature;rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a singlecommand: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
   2. b. 1 Pe 4:10 Each one should use whatevergift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
4. Passion demands Fixation:: Everything I do is with all my being.
   1. a. Phil 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
   2. b. Luke 10:27 He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and withall your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”
5. Passion demands Obsession :: I keep my eye on what is important.
   1. Heb 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecterof our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
   2. Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

I set as the goal the maximum capacity that people have. I settle for no less. I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings. - Benjamin Zander, Boston Philharmonic.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke to our key leaders and talked about transitions we needed to make as a team to move forward this year. Here is an outline of the
five areas that I spoke about:

Five Transitions we need to make to get to where we need to go

1. From problems to opportunities - The future is bright, and to be as truly effective then we must see solutions not problems. Don’t ever bring up a ‘problem or issue’ unless you have one or two solutions to fix the problem.

2. From ‘week to week’ to ‘year to year’ – A big picture perspective keeps momentum and motivation high. Just look back at where we were a year ago, there has been huge growth and change. Don’t just lead from a ‘week to week’ perspective but step back… regularly, and make sure your team can see what you can see… change!

3. From connect group leader to mentor [Our small groups for kids - Ed.] – Our leaders aren’t just filling a spot but creating an environment for kids to grow, learn and get questions answered.

4. From pyramid to net - Leadership structure is not about putting people under you in order to build yourself up. As our influence grows it may appear that way, but as more people get involved in your world your responsibility grows. Flatten the pyramid… it’s about spreading your net keep the net tight and less things will drop.

5. From status quo to innovation - I am not interested in anything we have done in the past. Innovation is about doing things we have not done before – if it ain’t broke… break it! Incrementalism is the enemy of innovation… don’t just add a little bit of improvement upon little bit of improvement. If change is going to happen, make it big!

Just saw this posted on the Fast Company Blog:

You can’t build anything great in life if you’re worried about failure. When you worry about failure, you put your energy in the wrong place. You end up focusing on escape routes and contingency plans instead of success. And you kill the passion and drive you need to bring your creative ideas to life.

1. In your mind, paint a clear picture of something big you’d like to make happen.
2. Describe the details. Where are you? Who’s there? What are you all doing?
3. Continue to fill in the picture with more and more detail.
4. Notice how fears of failure slowly dissipate and courses of action start to emerge.
5. Take a risk and follow one or more of those courses.

Love it… Love it… Love it…

Just get a picture of something… Describe!! and then describe some more!!

Try this with one thing you are facing!

(more…)

I aim right here in the next couple of paragraphs to enable you to get a new perspective on your service in the kingdom of God. I believe it will propel the blessing and influence you currently have! Get these words into your spirit!

Briefly…

Think… if you will… about your ministry situation.

Your senior minister/pastor/shepherd has created your ministry platform. Whether he has been leading for 2 or 20 years align yourself with his vision and slot right in there with his heart for people. Please, for the sake of everyone that has not heard the good news, support him 100%!

Got that…

Your senior minister in effect… having created this platform for ministry…
given away the ministry to the children of your community to YOU.

Now if you are leader in the ministry team, or pastor/leader overseeing the ministry… he trusts YOU.

Pastor — Don’t hold onto the ministry, you have been given this gift, do not withhold it… GIVE IT AWAY to your leaders. Let them know you trust them and believe in them wholeheartedly to ‘do the work of the ministry’.
(That’s your job!)

Leaders — Hey, if its good enough for your senior pastor, if its good enough for your children’s pastor, then its good enough for you…

‘Well who do I give it away to?’ I hear you say… ‘I mean i’m not on staff, I don’t work at the church, I don’t have a team of people’…

We MUST give away the ministry to our children. A child who has discovered how to serve her LORD and saviour Jesus is a powerful testimony. God delights… he delights in the heart of children. COME ON, don’t hog it all for yourself… give away the ministry to our kids.

Hang on…

It’s messy…
It’s frustrating…
It’s more work…

Hold it…

It pleases God…
It changes lives…
It impacts families…

What does it look like in your context? ummm? dunno?

God knows… and he’s happy to tell you.

What does it look like in our context? A year 4 and 5 leadership program, worship leading kids, praying kids, kids starting bible groups in schools…

Not every day, not every kid, but more each year…

There is nothing that blesses my heart more than servant hearts beating strong and loud in our children.

Mark Twain had a bad habit of using profanity in his speech. Twains wife was as refined and cultured as her husband was raw and coarse. Her husband’s uncouth manner of speaking offended her sensibilities, and she tried many ways of curing him of his bad habit. In desperation, she tried the shock technique. “Maybe if he hears what he sounds like and I become a sounding board, he’ll be so shocked at what he hears, he’ll change his ways.” So when he came home one afternoon, she met him at the front door with a stream of obscenities, throwing back at him every bad word she could remember coming from his lips.
The classical curser listened quietly until she finished, and then said: “My dear, you have the words, but not the music.”

A historians job is to tell the truth about the past.
A dentists job is to tell you the truth about your root canal
A theologians job is to tell you the truth about God…

A leaders job is to rise to the occasion, to imagine the best possible future,
and to tell you the truth about how to get there.

Put aside vision for a moment… vision is vital to your success (“Where there is no vision, the people perish” Proverbs 29:18), but what leaders are judged most on is the music to their words.

“I have a dream” - 30 years later Martin Luther Kings voice remains.
George Bush is ridiculed most… not for his vision, but for his voice. Think of all the ‘Bushisms’ you have heard, better yet do a search for some at Google!
Mohammed Ali – “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”,
Ali’s voice not just his sport remains!

What we must do for our teams and leaders, is not just fill them with vision, but help them find their voice – think of your team boldly and confidently speaking — music in their words as they proclaim the very truths God has placed on their hearts. Do they speak of underprivileged, homeless, street children? Do you get tired about hearing how the children need more of the word of God? Does your leader constantly remind you that ‘we need more personal contact’ with the kids?

Raise them up, let them speak, give away the ministry to them! Help them find their voice and spur them to action… believe me when a passion is unearthed, you won’t be pleading for leaders to come back after one year.

One of our key team found her voice over a year ago… she lives and breathes underprivileged kids! I certainly don’t have to remind her of the Saturday morning program we run for these children. She has found her voice and nothing is going to take her away from the ministry that God has placed in her hands.

Lets create an atmosphere where leaders are constantly growing and discovering
their voices!

Are you a leadership wimp? If you are “feeble or ineffective” in any leadership function, the answer may be yes.

The good news is that leaders are rarely wimps in all aspects of their job, peak performance expert Dave Anderson writes on his website, www.LearnToLead.com “Normally, there is just an area or two where a leader must tighten up and toughen up to increase his or her overall leadership effectiveness,” he says.

In an article titled “How to Face and Fix the Top Five Sins of Leadership Wimps,” Anderson suggests that wimpy leaders are prone to several destructive attitudes and actions, including:

Blaming outside conditions for a lack of results. No, you can’t control the weather, the economy, the competition or the time of year. But “even in the worst of times, you can still control your attitude, your work ethic, where you spend your time, with whom you spend it, your character choices and your devotion to daily disciplines,” says Anderson, author of Up Your Business: Seven Strategies to Fix, Build or Stretch Your Organization.

Being too dependent on themselves. “If you think you’re indispensable to your organization, I have great news for you: Relax, you’re not that good!” Anderson writes. “The greatest measure of your leadership is not how [your people] perform while you’re breathing down their necks; it’s how well they do in your absence.”

Making “easy, cheap, popular and convenient decisions.” “If you lack the emotional strength to make the tough calls, resign your position immediately and go find something you’re cut out to do�because you’re not fit to lead,” Anderson says.

More information here: Wimpy Leaders

Back when Walt’s two daughters were young, he took them to an amusement park in the Los Angeles area on Sat mornings. His girls loved it, and he did too. Walt was checking out the merry-go-round. As he approached it he saw a blur of bright images racing around with the lively music playing. But when he got closer and the carousel stopped, he could see that his eye had been fooled. The horses were shabby, cracked and only the ones on the outside went up and down. This disappointment led to the vision of a park where the illusion didn’t evaporate. The vision became Disneyland and the rest is history.

Children can come into our church services each week, and the blur of activity can disguise the chipped paint of their hurting worlds. Our window of opportunity may only be those one or two hours of time on a weekend.

I am constantly searching for the one powerful, impacting moment with each child that connects with them and sticks in their mind. There is a lot that fights for attention, our local Sunday paper has more information in it than someone living in the 17th century would have had access to in their entire lifetime.

We maybe can on our own provide a few memorable moments during a child’s time with us… I remember watching Star Trek 4 when Captain Kirk and crew went back in time to the 80′s in my ‘Sunday School’ growing up and maybe a couple of other moments. BUT I am believing in that everything I am a part of I am partnering with the Holy Spirit to provide God moments that will be with children forever. Whoever or however they happen… I really couldn’t care less, I just pray that somehow Christ will be revealed to them and I am part of a team creating moments that last forever in the minds and hearts of our kids.

- David Wakerley

Here are some notes from a message I presented at the 2004 Hillsong conference for Children’s Pastors and Leaders in a workshop for song writing.

Two current theories of song writing

[Engagement]
Parents are looking for education, entertainment that will engage their kids, think how much you covet that game or method of doing your children’s program that REALLY engages your kids. Whenever I play a game that works with the kids I run it into the ground! Every second week the game comes out until it ends it usefulness. Think of how much parents are looking for that for their children.

==> High Five, Wiggles, Jump 5, Muppets… All engage children.

==> Children this week staring at the stage not knowing the songs but moving almost unconsciously to the actions happening on stage.

==> Sydney entertainment centre full of adults not their for themselves but they have found something that engages their children.

==> Actions! That is engagement in one word.

==> Current education system is not accomplishing this at all. It is preparing children for a world that no longer exists. The church can take this opportunity and because it is a small ship turn it around fast! Children asked if they are artists, decreases year by year where by year 6-7 it is almost embarrassing to put up your hand and admit it. EVERY CHILD IS AN ARTIST!

==> Thoughts on education: Imagine a learning experience so vastly different from school that fosters creativity and harnesses a child’s learning power so they come out know much more about Christ that algebra.

[Break through theory]

I had always wanted to write songs growing up and playing instruments and being in bands. All the songs I wrote were okay, but I never thought WOW that’s a great song.

They were all influenced by my past and preference of music. I am a big Jazz head and never liked pop music. So I had to consciously get past that barrier and instead of writing for my personal preference, write instead for the target market. I looked at the kids and targeted everything I wrote at them

That guided every song I wrote, it took a lot of time to get over that, possibly three years of being immersed in a culture and style of music.
The breakthrough song for us was I’m Really Happy. It came together quite easily and at last I felt that we had written a song that the kids would respond to.

I never finished songs, I would always just have ideas on paper that never seemed to get finished. So I got over that

The Demo
The quality of the song will shine through. 10 Year old Britney who wrote two songs on Superhero…
we saw the potential in Brittany’s songs from her demo singing into a tape machine with no backing.

Collaborate
I will often get a guitarist to take the chords I have written and play them on the guitar to see if there is a better way. Example of I’m Really Happy, I went to a guitarist and he suggested a change to the chorus. Because I am a pianist there are often subtle chord changes that will make the song sound a lot better with a guitar.

Backing Tracks
Tracks are a great way to do Praise and Worship with kids, they may even respond better to it than a live band. I wouldn’t way it out loud, but again responding to the culture, it can have as much impact on the kids that a live band has.

Don’t be hamstrung by…

Building your repertoire:
1. Listening to different genres.
2. Learning styles – what makes country music, country music? Likewise Jazz or Rock.
3. Start with the culture.
4. Increase your vocabulary, if you know three chords, learn four.

Here is your new job description, your main role in the life of your ministry team. Enthusiasm and passion are some of the most important traits to leading a team, and your role as leader, especially in a weekend service role. You are the “Dispenser of Enthusiasm”.

Here is your new job description, your main role in the life of your ministry team. Enthusiasm and passion are some of the most important traits to leading a team, and your role as leader, especially in a weekend service role. You are the “Dispenser of Enthusiasm”.

Feeding Enthusiasm

“One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life.”
-Edward B. Butler

“Like the chicken and the egg, enthusiasm and success seem to go together.
We suspect, however, that enthusiasm comes first. If you hope to succeed at anything in this world, polish up your enthusiasm and hang on to it.”
-John Luther

“No one keeps up his enthusiasm automatically. Enthusiasm must be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new efforts, new vision. It is one’s own fault if his enthusiasm is gone; he has failed to feed it.”
-Papyrus

Say it to yourself 21 times before your weekend service, live each moment with your team to infect them with the Encouragement virus.

I forthwith present a review of “Postmodern Children’s Ministry” by Ivy Beckwith… Well its not really a review so much as the main points that really stood to me somewhat kinda… a bit…

I have been insterested in Postmodernism in relation to Ministry ever since hearing Leonard Sweet speak at a conference. He since has become one of my favourite authors and the topic of Postmodernism one of my favourites. So it was with interest that I saw Ivy Beckwith’s book at Koorong in Sydney. I am no book reviewer, so I will mostly focus on key points that really stood out to me.

Key Points:

1. The Foundation of Faith.
“Often the work that happens in the church nursery is seen as little more than baby-sitting. No wonder it’s hard to find committed volunteers! The cargivers in our church nurseries need to know that they are doing much more than helping parents”. (Pg. 45)

- It’s leadership 101… Your team NEEDS to know that they are serving a cause much bigger than themselves. If not retention rates will plummet and you will find yourselves with new leaders each year.

2. Evangelizing Children.
“The school-age years are the time that many churches and parachurch organizations advocate the aggressive evangelization of children… Unfortunately, once the prayer is prayed, parents and religious education leaders often breaethe a sigh of relief. “Whew! That one’s taken care of.”… But parents and churches whoe are truly interested in the positive soul care of the child will not be as concerned about this one-time experience as they will about the ongoin immersion of the child in the things of God and Jesus.”; (Pg. 62)

- Very good point. In our transient culture we may have only a small window of opportunity to impact a child’s life. And so we should seek for that open heart to receive salvation. But for those children who are with us for a significant period of time my goal is to see life change in their attitude and foundations in scripture. Results are found not in the moment of salvation, but often in the moment of transformation, when you see a child respond differently to the way they once would have. It took me two years with one child in our children’s ministry to see a change in their participation in worship. Just last weekend for the first time thay truly connected with Christ in worship.

3. The family factor.
“Family is everything to a child. Family is the first palce a child forms and experiences relationships. It is a child’s first experience of community. Family is where a child learns language and motor skills and where she develops her first view and understanding of the world. Family is the first place a child experiences love, intimacy, forgiveness, and physical care. Conversely, family can also be the place where a child experiences her first emotional violence, neglect, indifference, and physical hurt”;. (Pg. 101)

- Our ministry MUST include the family, otherwise our effectiveness is stunted. Every parent wants the best for their child, they are interested and motivated to see their spiritual development progress. Somehow, show your parents what you do… impress upon them every single time they come across your ministry that THEIR CHILDREN MATTER! Your hour and a half… or whatever a week cannot compare to their living breathing relationship with their kids. Love their kids and commicate that love to the parents.

David Wakerley

We (the church) – have the answer, we may not be perfect or even close but we know someone who is perfect.

We have the answer!

I may feel inadequate when a child misbehaves or is going through a tough time.

I may feel like I have nothing to give – but we do – do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded (Heb 10:35)

We actually have the answer!