I wrote an update post for our Hillsong Collected Blog recently.

It gives a short overview of what we did this year at our annual conference and includes our Happy 25th video!

Kidsong World 2011

A lot of noise has been made (in our little but colourful corner of the the internets) about the 2011 Ministry To Children Blog Madness competition.

I was up in one of the divisions in the first round (there are four) but owing to our Colour Women’s conference and all that was happening it just passed me by without much comment on my part.

Unlike the 2010 comp. where the prize was just winning, this year Tony Kummer put up an iPad as a first prize!

I couldn’t let the whole thing happen without saying how awesome that was, so kudos to Tony!

The four final blogs are all worthy of winning and I love reading all of them.

Sam Luce

Small Town Kidmin (Jared Massey)

Justyn Smith

Leader 2 Leader (Jim Wideman)

There is more diversity each year in our world of kidmin blogging and I am so happy to see that!

At our official Hillsong Blog ‘Collected’ I just had a post of mine go up. It’s a quite a strong piece about not outsourcing only what we can do as parents. And also a call to take Church seriously. I would love you to visit, have a read and at the least click the like button at the bottom. But at the most write a comment/response. It would be GREAT to get conversation going about this topic on Collected…. it would say so much to have the topic that is often a discussion on kids pastors blogs get some major recognition on our wider Church blog! Thanks in advance.

Here is the post:

I have outsourced my child’s swimming development.

You see, I’m just not an expert on the subject. I haven’t studied swim theory and I am completely unfamiliar with what it takes to learn how to become a swimmer even to the most basic of levels… which I would assume is ‘not drowning’. Click to read on!

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.

So here are a few blog posts I have loved recently.

The UP Plan – From Rob Bradbury: “As family pastor I want to see all of our kids grow UP into strong Christians who love God with the lot.”

Read These Seven Books, and You’ll be a Better Writer – From Don Miller: In the last few weeks Don’s blog has become one of my favourites.

2010 Kids Ministry diovan generic equivalent Blog Madness (Final Round) – I was out in the second round, but make sure you vote in the last round!

Preaching with the help of a mind map – From Ryan Frank: It reiterated an idea I read about a few years ago, using mind maps, which I have found invaluable.

Enjoy.

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Over at Ministry-To-Children.com there is a great comp going on.

2010 Kids Ministry Blog Madness

Vote for Your Favorite Kidmin Blogger

Here’s How It Works – Listed on the site are the top 64 children’s ministry blogs arranged in a four division bracket-style tournament. (I guess in the U.S. sports are divided into four main divisions, which is cool… so my blog is in the West Division).

Sunday 21 March 2010 is when round #1 will close and the top picks in each division will advance.

So I have to call in some favours… especially for those volunteers and pastors at Hillsong Church you need to jump on over there and click the vote button in the appropriate spot.

Click here for the comp.

On our Hillsong Kids Big website we added a news item with a fun Video blog, but to save you the chance of a repetitive strain injury I have embedded it here.

Aren’t I thoughtful…

Visit the Follow You Curriculum page here and check out all the bonus material we’ve just uploaded for you!

As always we value your feedback and questions, so please feel free to contact the BIG team anytime.

differin order

Today, being Thursday I posted a guest post at The Thursday Blog, which is the blog of a certain Funny Man Dan. He is currently in that season of life that exists between the due date and the depo provera generic baby actually appearing so asked me to post something for him.

Check it out:

A Tale of a womb and a man.

So yes, another life goal completed… to guest post at the blog of Funny Man Dan.

Under increasing international pressure and a well funded lobby group I need to tell you about one of the greatest new compare price metformin blogs online.

You may know Funny Man Dan from our Hillsong Kids DVD’s and as the HipHopAPotamus in Love Never Fails.

The fact is he is also a brilliant writer and a great friend who I have watched impact the lives of so many young people over the years.

So you need to read The Thursday Blog. Yep, he writes once a week on a Thursday.

Please stop by and leave a comment… he is completely obsessed with stats (like most new bloggers) so send some friends.

So after losing a whole bunch of blog posts due to some database weirdness and the backup that my webhost was about 2-3 days before but unfortunately  after the issue and my backup was from 8 Jan so about a month ago I went back into google reader (which obviously cache’s each blog) and pasted each post back into my site…

Phew, although I did feel a little lame about my rather scarce blogging pattern over summer highlighted by the realtively quick time it took to reconstruct my blog.

And I lost a whole HEAP clomid brand online of comments on each of those posts! If I lost one of yours I am truly sorry… it was your work!

So…

1. Backup your work regularly.

2. Backup your work regularly.

3. Regularly is like once a week for me.

The good to come out of this is I will endeavour to post some quality posts with increased frequency.

(write more good stuff)

Dave out.