[Kid Inspiration]

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

K… kindness, kids, karate, King Kong…

K is for Kidology – Kidology is the study of kids! The Apostle Paul said he became all things to all men so that they might be reached. If you know the work of Karl Bastian, aka “The Kidologist” you know what I’m talking about. Karl founded Kidology.org and blogs at Kidologist.com and I am going to borrow his phrase for this entry.

Studying human behaviour is a fascinating insight for all pastors and leaders who want to understand just what makes people tick. What helps them to change and grow beyond their current circumstance. You don’t need to be a counsellor to use information like this to help others. A lot can be accomplished in a single conversation if you know what you’re doing.

You and I are immigrants into the world of kids. We are strangers in a foreign land seeking to understand the natives.

Have a sit down with your kids sometime and ask them about their world, find out what their interests are and what their accomplishments are… you will be surprised. When you bring toys to Church, bring your own. Buy a Nintendo DS for yourself, not your kids. Swap Wii games, trade football cards, give away your old stuffed toys. In short, kids love to see that you are interested in what they are interested in.

I am pretty comfortable conversing with a 7 year old, it no longer terrifies me, but there was a time where it seemed we spoke different languages. I needed to study this strange creature in its natural habitat, I needed to understand its strange ways and in time it grew to trust me.

Become a student of children and remember… you used to be one.

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

J… Jokes, Jiminy Cricket, juice, Jesus, jiraffes?…

J is for Journey - (Yes I know Jesus starts with J) Our kids have a lifetime of faith to discover. Salvation is not a one-time event but rather a lifetime journey. Sure we make a big deal about the ‘event’ of making a choice to receive salvation and redemption, but there is so much more to it than that.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18)

I think with children, one of the the important things to remember it that phrase ‘being saved‘, we have been saved, are being saved and will be saved.

Jesus has of course accomplished salvation on the cross (2 Timothy 1:9), and we will eventually be saved from the presence of sin (1 Peter 1:5), but there is a long time in between that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

I used to get pretty frustrated with kids who just didn’t cope well in our programs, you know the ones who perhaps should be on a slightly higher dosage of medication. But as I have aged and mellowed out , I have realised that we need to take a long view of a child’s life.

I met last weekend a 14 year old I hadn’t seen for about 2-3 years when he was in our programs. He admitted to me that he was a ‘bit of a punk‘ when he was in Hillsong Kids, which I did seem to recall. But this is a young man who is still ‘being saved’, and I am looking forward to see him start serving and helping in our pre-teen ministry.

I am taking a long term view of his life for sure.

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

I… Igloo, ignoramus, ice age, itinerant…

I is for Inclusive - This year at our annual Hillsong Conference, we made our most concerted effort to include children with special needs. It held, and still holds many challenges but I believe that God has called the Church to lead the way in making sure the most vulnerable people in our communities have a place, and in many cases that is children with neurological and physical disabilities.

Don’t put it in the too hard basket, don’t relegate it as someone else’s job. Prayerfully consider just what you need to be doing in this important area.

I am not a expert by any means, but I have a couple of experts on our team. The best resource I know of is a new blog called The Inclusive Church. It’s written by Amy Fenton Lee… in her words:

I am not a credentialed professional from the education or medical field. I am not the parent of a child with special needs. I am not on staff at a church.  I AM a children’s ministry volunteer, the daughter of a church pastor, a writer, and a passionate Christian who believes that the bride of Christ, the church, is still the most effective instrument for developing and discipling Christ followers. And out of my desire to equip churches, this blog was born.  This is the passion that fuels every post.

I don’t know Amy personally, but there is a lot of great content developing at the blog, so check it out.

Special needs issues are affecting churches of every size. Congregations with a regular attendance of 80 and 8000 are both impacted as children with neurological and physical disabilities seek inclusion.

Amen!

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

G… granny, gigantic, gross, gravity…

G is for Growth – When I was a school child we had a backyard… this was the countryside in New Zealand… everyone had a backyard. One day I shall take my son outside of Sydney and show him this mythical square of land called the ‘backyard’.

And on this backyard we had a garden, and for a brief period of time I grew my own vegetables. Notice the use of the word brief… it was a school project and like most projects was abandoned upon getting a C+.

But the thing I realised in this project was healthy plants grow. Because not many of mine did.

So many of the parables of Jesus were about seeds, planting etc. because he was part of an agrarian culture (thank you Bible college). As a farmer you don’t spend your time measuring the height of your crop each day, you just make sure that they get everything they need to grow. Sun, water, insecticide and whatever else helps a seed sprout.

Your job as leader is to make sure everything is healthy, because healthy things grow.

Even if you have reached every single family and individual in your community, if your Church is healthy the growth in the lives of the people will be evident.

We will often talk as a team about the kids in our ministry, comparing them to when they first started coming to Hillsong Kids compared to now and it is often amazing the growth that has taken place, because we work hard to ensure it is a healthy environment.

Just today in our Sunday 12pm service, I helped a first time 6 year old visitor who was clinging onto Mum and wailing about not wanting to leave her, come into our program and have a great time. I can’t wait to look back at the growth in his life over the next few months!

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

F… fun, fanatic, friends, forgetful, friar Frank…

F is for Fun – Hey you, yeah the fun police! Listen up… only 4% of the kids in the state of NSW in Australia have any extended contact with Church. Most of the families I want to reach and help in this community have no reference point to our ‘Christian’ sub culture. They don’t know the rules of religion, they don’t get the subtleties of pre-millennial vs. post-millennial rapture discussions, nor do they care. If you ever dare to try to talk/debate with me about how the ‘Church’ needs to stop being ‘edutainment’ and get back to getting deep into the word… listen… you wanna ‘get deep’… go and share your faith, go and serve someone who desperately needs a little help in this life… that’s deep!

Bottom line is this – Your efforts to take away laughter from the gathering of the Church community is taking away the very thing you are striving to obtain — real, passionate, engaged learning happens best… no wait… happens ONLY in an environment where there are smiles. Give me a child who has just laughed until they pee’d their pants (metaphorically) and I will show you a child who has given me permission to speak into their lives. I will show you a child who has put aside the pressures (and in some cases pain) of a 21st century, busy, urban, city life and has the space to take on board the word of God I am about to present to them.

If it ain’t fun, they ain’t learnin’

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

E… Education, entertainment, Eric, eternal, effervescant…

E is for Encouragement – (I recently wrote a post at the official Hillsong Blog ‘Collected’ about this topic – have a read, but I want to talk about it here as it relates to kids).

I firmly believe that one word of encouragement to a child can literally set in motion the call of God on their life. I still remember the words both positive and negative that we spoken to me as a child about what I was capable of. You as a leader occupy an important place in the mind of a child, you’re not as present as a parent but you are around enough to have a big influence on the kids you minister to, in short, you can be a hero or a zero. Take the opportunity to speak words of life over their future every chance you get.

Research written about in the book NurtureShock has shown that some forms of praise can actually hold children back. Avoid praising children about their natural talent and giftings. eg. “You’re so brainy”, rather praise and encourage their efforts and hard work.

Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. (Location 376 Kindle Edition)

There is a lot more to be said on this topic, but try it this weekend in your services at Church – watch how many times you encourage kids about innate ability rather than the attempt they have made.

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

D… Doctrine, dynamic, Donald Duck, delusion, darts…

D is for Delegate – I have seen it over and over in our team and in myself. You find yourself with a new volunteer who has a lot of potential to carry great responsibility. But after a few weeks they have faded into the background and either settled or possibly disappeared. Not every leader is going to hop on your ‘bus’, but I find to often brilliant leaders are sitting in the back row when they could be helping you navigate!

The missing ingredient is often authority. You have been great in delegating responsibility, but like a lot of leaders cling onto the authority either because you like to ‘be the boss’ or you don’t trust anyone to ‘do it’ as good as you!

Hey – it used to be that you weren’t as good as you are now and the only reason you are where you are today is because someone took a chance on you.

Heres a simple little procedure to help someone reach their maximum potential:

1. Give them a simple task (very time specific) and follow up on it extremely diligently knowing that in the future you won’t have to be so thorough
2. Thank the person in a big way and ask if there is any way they think we (the team) could do it better.
3. Repeat a few times adding in the important ingredient - authority.
4. If they rise to the challenge they become a leader – simple as that.

(There is a lot more to it than this but you get the idea… simple right?)

Final thoughts from Jim Wideman and his blog series Delegate or die:

Delegation is not an option for those who want to succeed in ministry. But to succeed you must take inventory of where you are. Start small and go from there. I try to recruit my team one worker at a time. Ask yourself and your volunteers, “What do I need to do differently?” What volunteers do you see potential in? Commit to coach volunteers and let them learn by doing. What are you waiting on? Delegate or Die!

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

C… Christ, cooking, craft, cookies, camping…

C is for Culture – Whether we want to accept it, ignore it, or use it–the reality is that our kids are growing up under the influence of a media-saturated culture.

If we refuse to engage young people in biblical discussions about what they’re watching and hearing, we make it easy for them to compartmentalize their faith and put it aside when they move beyond the church walls.

Through discussions that reveal either the gospel’s presence or absence in popular culture, we help young people develop a biblical filter that shines the light of Jesus’ truth on media messages, encourages them to live authentically at school and church, and engages the Holy Spirit’s discernment in their lives.

Knowledge of kids’ culture also enhances our efforts as missionaries within that culture.

I like to USE culture, when you use something you have power over it, you take away fear. I certainly don’t want my kids to be afraid of any forms of media. Book burnings should be left in the past lest they turn into iPad burnings!

Now in an effort to drum up comments… Harry Potter – discuss

(please don’t)

P.S. Hillsong Church now has an official Blog! VIsit Hillsong Collected and read my first post at the site - The Dispenser of Enthusiasm.

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

B… bread, bridge, bands, beginning, Barnabas, Beyonce…

B is for Bible - The potential for an image to convey emotion is very powerful. If I wrote on a wall – “The boy is sad”, any number of images could spring to mind but you probably won’t be overtly moved. If I instead place an image of a African child in despair over the famine he is experiencing… that ‘sad boy’ is far more powerful emotionally.

We need to be aware that it just might be the case that this current generation value images more than the written word, abstract more than the concrete. That’s scary for us logical, linear ‘oldies’ who grew up with ‘books’… but here is the awesome part… Jesus had it all covered way back in the first Century, he taught in pictures, in images, in metaphor. He took the prevalent culture and used it to bring understanding.

In a Image Based culture one of our highest callings is to develop children who love learning, not just kids who are learned. The way WE treat the Bible can have a big impact on that outcome.

The Bible is not a book! That’s JUST the way we have been reading the word of God for a few hundred years. In fact a Bible is useless unless the words have left the book and made their way into the hearts and minds of people. I am not bothered how my son chooses to interact with the BIble… in digital or paper versions it doesn’t really matter, my concern is that he chooses to.

I have given myself a challenge for the next 26 days – post the complete A-Z of Ministry to Children.

This will be neither comprehensive nor incomprehensible… it should fall somewhere in the middle I hope. So let’s start at the very beginning… a very good place to start.

A is for Adults: George Barna’s research has shown that at a typical Protestant church, more than four out of every ten people ministered to during the week are children, yet seven out of every eight ministry dollars are spent on adults. My own research has shown that every 9 out of 10 nagging children will get what they want from a toy store 2 out of every 3 times*. Whatever the stats are, the reality is that without parents… without adults both to volunteer/lead/train/inspire we cannot reach our kids.

If you see adults as the solution, they can become the solution. If you see them as the problem, then they can only become bigger problems.

Family Pastor (usually an adult) is currently the fastest growing new ministry title in the U.S. and this will continue into the next decade, as churches strive to equip and empower parents and work together to reach a generation.

*(Not really, more like 3 out of 4).

There probably is a small window of opportunity for this fantastic tip!

If you remember a few years ago just before plasma and LCD TV’s became affordable the technology of the moment was all about rear projection TV’s. These beasts went for anything up to $10,000 and were the cutting edge of technology.

Fast forward to 2010, and these monstrosities have disappeared from electronic stores… gone like the old cathode ray TV’s — no one wants to buy them and now with flat screens taking over no one wants to own them!

A while ago I received an email from the online auction site graysonline.com.au (which all Australian kids pastors should be on — lots of bargains!). The RSL in Redfern was closing down and selling off everything — including a 50 inch rear projection TV which I procured for the princely sum of about $250! We have gone on at Hillsong Kids to buy one of these for our Brisbane and South West campus kids programs.

There are at least a couple dozen on ebay at any one time (a quick search of the US brings up 335 results — and plenty more on craigslist etc. I’m sure!). In some cases we have stopped using projectors all together and run all our media and words for praise and worship through these TV’s.

I have had a mixed relationship with projectors over the years (bulbs blowing and costing a bundle to replace — sometimes more than the cost of the projector in the first place).

This is not the solution for every room, but for example in our City campus with a smallish room for our Voltage (pre-teen) program we have banished the projector altogether. Instead plugged a DVD player and Computer into it (with a VGA to Composite convertor — cheap on ebay)

Here is what our boy BJ picked up today cheap as chips!

So strike while the iron is hot and pick up one of these monsters for your ministry!

There is pretty much one conference I attend each year that I have nothing to organise and that is Kidshaper. It is the national ACC children’s ministry conference in Melbourne Australia.

I get to just attend and enjoy it!

Except this year I had the honour of speaking as a keynote to the hundreds of awesome men and women of God who sow their lives into the kids of Australia and New Zealand and the world!

You can read a report from the official blog of Kidshaper CM1234

And follow Rob Bradbury (national grand poo-bah of Kids R Us) on twitter.

But from a personal perspective it was such a great few days receiving leadership and wisdom from Papa Smurf himself Jim Wideman and so many other leaders around this nation.

I really felt God speak to my heart about great steps forward both personally and for our church. It was a profound week and I love seeing the same faces each year knowing there are so many volunteers out there running ministries with a heart for God and kids.

If you are one of those people who perhaps is out there running your ministry as a volunteer without a big network of like minded people around you:

1. Find out who is close by you from Kids R Us… make contact and make yourself known. I know Rob and his team would love to support you.
2. Contribute – it’s the greatest way to connect. Write a nice comment on someone’s blog, reply to them on twitter. Connection is not all about the phone and face to face anymore. As you give you will receive. Send a resource to another Church, help them out. You may just find a lifetime ministry friend.
3. Come to Kidshaper next year and say hi.

Thanks Rob and team!

Just want to give a shout out to Pioneer Clubs – I have been reading the Mix It Up! blog since it started last November, great content that covers The Jonas Brothers to devotions about Lent.

But you have to watch the video “Window of Opportunity”a great way to cast vision for a ministry.

You can find out a lot from the core values of an organisation and I love these from the site:

We value…

…a God-honoring ministry. We seek to honor God in our curriculum, programs, customer relations, and all other aspects of ministry. As we honor God, we believe he will honor our work by fostering Christ-centered faith in the children we serve.

…the Scriptures as God’s inspired Word, his authority for all aspects of life; the core of everything we do; the tool we use to introduce children to Jesus Christ and disciple them. A primary goal of our curriculum is to help children use, understand, and apply the Bible in daily life.

…children as whole beings created in God’s image with individuality, uniqueness, dignity, and potential. Therefore, we will help create a safe environment where children can meet Christ and choose to live for him. Our materials effectively communicate God’s love for children.

…a holistic ministry for children, because authentic Christianity touches every aspect of life. Our curriculum and ministry are designed to help children grow physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

…excellence! We strive for constant improvement in every aspect of ministry. We design our curriculum to be educationally sound and our programs to be of the highest quality.

...relationships as God’s created design. We recognize the significance of children’s building healthy relationships with adults, peers, and children of other ages in the context of the family, local church and community.

…responsible stewardship. We recognize that all we have comes from God. He is the source and owner of all gifts and resources we have. We are merely managers with the responsibility to use wisely all that we have, to bring glory to God and expand the boundaries of his kingdom.

Just one question as we head into the weekend.

For most churches, the weekend is VERY important.

So do you know if you have kicked a goal this weekend?

How do you measure it?
What would you feel good about accomplishing?

Then assess if that is what your senior pastor/leadership would feel good about you doing…
If not (or even if you think you know), then find out what they think is a home run, and what are the things they would assume that you would be doing…

Don’t judge a weekend by your own filter. Get the right filter over what you are doing.

I am fascinated with this phrase: “Attention is the currency”.

Because I think that in this age it applies SO much to our kids.

I have a LOT of choices when I put my son to bed at night… so much else I could be doing rather than reading him a story or spending time with him. My father had a lot less choices, no mobile phone, only two channels of TV (this was the 80’s in New Zealand).

So more than ever our love is measured by time and attention.

So with the many distractions that our kids face, it is so easy to stand out in our culture. Even the bare minimum will make you stand out in the mind of a child!

Here are some very interesting thoughts from the blog of Tim Ferriss

So a dude by the name of Michael Chanley started a site called cmconnect.org

You can see his page on the site here http://www.cmconnect.org/profile/MichaelChanley

This site is part of the Ning.com network which simply according to them is an “online service to create, customize, and share a social network.”

Which is a fantastic way to start a site. They provide the technical expertise and support and you focus on the connections and building the network.

So far they have over 2,000 members which is great for such a niche site online!

This is turning into one of the great sites online to connect with others of same heart and focus. Kidology.org is the biggest one of these with 20,631 members in the forum (although, I am not sure how many of those post regularly… I know I am a slacker recently).

So here’s what you do, hop on over to cmconnect.org and create yourself a profile. invite me to be your friend! http://www.cmconnect.org/profile/DavidWakerley

Well done Michael!!