[Kid Inspiration]

So our church has a number of Youtube accounts now… one for United and one for rest of church life.

Check them out and subscribe so you can get updated on new videos being released.Here is the Hillsong Conference highlight video I linked to in the last post.

Amazing conference this year.

Visit this page for highlight videos!

After looking through my DVD’s last week I spotted something that I should have blogged about at least a year ago. Some most excellent praise and worship music for kids!

Citipointe is located in the great city of Brisbane and have services in Mansfield (Citipointe Brisbane) Coomera (Citipointe Gold Coast) and Inala (Citipointe West).

Check out their first Kids album All of My Days it is absolutely brilliant! I LOVE seeing churches give their best for children, and this church has done it. Great value with a DVD, CD and Bonus DVD you just need to order it from their site. The site says that they cannot process online international orders yet, but I had a test of the order link and it seems like you can!

I also saw Luke Harris, Citipointe’s children’s pastor lead worship with his team at last years Kidshaper conference in Melbourne, and apart from being passionate worshippers… they have a REALLY great group of leaders!

Go… buy… now…

P.S. Signing off from blog world until next weekend due to Hillsong Conference. See ya there (if ya there).

Kidsong World Promo… It’s going to be the best yet!!

And it starts in just over a week! In Sydney? Get your kids there!

DISCLAIMER: This post is not in any way directed at any person living or dead. The judges decision is final. No correspondence shall be entered into.

Time for a little Friday Night Rant.

My last post, the purpose of purpose drew a number of responses, (thanks to all who commented!) including one from Sam that got me fired up (not at Sam)… after I let it simmer for a day I have some thoughts on ‘family worship’.

This may be a long one.

I will try and be concise, as I am aware that pages and pages of text does cause ones eyes to glaze over.

Here is the statement we shall consider:

Parent – “I prefer to keep my kids in with us in the adult service so we can worship as a family”.

There are many ways in which people can ‘do church’; gather as a house church, spread over a city in a cell church… but the paradigm which most of us operate in, is the ‘modern church’ in various denominations (or non-denominations). So when I talk about ‘church’ that’s the paradigm I am talking about.

I am all for the whole family unit experiencing God together, but so often it comes out of a very set cultural perspective. This often shows up when adults talk about a church meeting as the ‘worship service’, as if there is any other kind of service?

Let’s begin:

1. Worship is a lifestyle, not a service attended once a week. As a family you worship in, and during, your day-to-day life. Being an example and training your children in the way they should go. So for a family to opt out of children’s ministry so they can ‘worship together’ during a service is a biblically defensible stance but probably misguided. You have been worshiping together the entire week, why not give your child an opportunity to ‘worship’ with their peers.
2. The house of God (and worship) is not just about receiving, it is about GIVING! Don’t give your kids a perspective of church that involves sitting without serving. Please don’t create a Mary only child (Mary and Martha Luke 10:38-42) who sits at the feet of Jesus and never does the washing up.
3. Whether your child goes to a Christian school or not, your child needs to build relationship within your church family. The church cannot give your child a thorough/solid/extensive knowledge of the word, in two hours a week (not the churches job mind you)… but give us a chance to teach them that the community of believers is THE place to develop faith and relationships that push you toward God.

Having children together with adults makes perfect sense in a house church, but look at the specific ministry paradigm you are in and judge accordingly. In my mind, the way that most of western Christianity (Europe, US, Australia, Great Britian, New Zealand etc.) structures church, leads in my mind for the need to create separate age specific meetings.

And I’m not saying that just ’cause its my job.

Maybe the children’s ministry at your church doesn’t really look like the above three points… hey… don’t bring me a problem unless you are willing to be part of the answer.

<and breathe>

So what is the purpose of your ministry to children?

We have our annual conference coming up in just two weeks at Acer Arena in Sydney. As well as Kidsong World we run the Children’s pastors and leaders stream. Nathan Mclean and I will be speaking in one of sessions with the leaders about curriculum and developing leadership.

In planning the sessions I am exploring the purpose of our ministry to kids… and more importantly HOW to outwork that purpose. One of my not-yet-conclusions is:

“I don’t think it’s just teaching kids the bible”.

The pharisees were the most versed in scripture, but their knowledge never translated into faith.

‘Scope and sequence’ is one of those phrases that simply strikes a chord of… apathy into my heart. It’s just hard to get excited about it. The ultimate goal should not be to get through the whole bible in two or three years… the goals should be to create life long learners passionate and excited to read the word of God. Cover all of the bible you can, but don’t make it the goal.

Kids need to enjoy and participate in the journey, not just wake up at the destination.

An hour and a half a week during your weekend services is never enough to cover the whole bible thoroughly. But it can be accomplished with the hundreds of hours a year that a parent has.

Provide an opportunity to experience God and connect with others this weekend.

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 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 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.

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’ 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 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).

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. 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 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.