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).

It’s conference season! Which is like a the buzz of a gnat (albeit a really groovy gnat with rhythm and dance skills), it takes discount zyrtec online all your focus!

Hillsong Conference is almost upon us, and my bloggin’ is suffering, but there is great news on the horizon.

1. You can be a part of Conference from anywhere in the world. hillsongconference.com/backstage Live streaming during the week and lots more. Look out for me, i’ll be showing up a couple times.

2. Some really cool announcements about the direction we are going in online as Hillsong Church. I am truly excited about these!

3. It’s better if you have three items on a list

Amen.

Hope you’re havin’ a great summer Northern Hemisphere, winter has not been kind to us here in Sydney, but I love this season anyway… it’s the meloncholic, hot chocolate drinkin’, mellowed out with candles side of me that loves winter.

Can’t really say more than that.

I am getting very excited

Oh yeah!

HILLSONG CONFERENCE 2009 OPENER

Forget about tradition for a moment. Don’t think ‘but that’s the way we’ve always done it’. Ignore the fact that your Church is probably comfortable with things the way they are.

I want to talk about your bad language.

• You call your kids spaces – Classrooms! – Huh? Do kids really want another day of school?
• Your ministry is called Sunday school! – Wah? Again, why another day of school?
• Kids Church!! – Wha?? Way to reinforce the myth that ministry to kids is separate to the rest of the Church
• Workers! - Man, when I think worker I imagine a coal mine and chimney sweeps.
• What about all the adults in Big Church – I know it’s cute… but seriously, this is not playhouse Disney
• A CRY ROOM?? – For the love of all that is holy!! You know words are powerful right? Why just not call it the unsettled and annoying baby room!

You are not building a Church in the 1950′s, most of us function in a post Christian world where a lot of children have not even heard of Jonah, Moses and all the other stories let alone have any connection to the Christian-speak you use. WOW – take the opportunity and reinvent yourself!!!!

You are also completely missing the cultural impact of branding, by using generic names you mark yourself and your ministry as boring and irrelevant!

Stop it!

A role of the leader is to communicate… sometimes you need to communicate CHANGE… this is one of those times.

In conclusion, corporations spend millions of dollars crafting just the right phrase to communicate their brand and product – why don’t you sit down and spend a few minutes choosing the words that communicate and reinforce the vision and mission of your Church.

Get rid of your BAD LANGUAGE and replace it with helpful/good/inspiring/innovate/interesting language.

So we have just launched new ministry tees this weekend at Hillsong Church.

So to all Hillsong Kids Leaders don’t forget to bring in your old tees leaders and trade them in, along with ten bucks if you can!

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Photo courtesy of @K4Kieran from our Hills Campus!

I am really happy with the design – and the three colours are just options for our leaders to choose from. If you look in the top right of the design you can see our name tags that are printed out from our Biometric (fingerprint) ESI (Electronic Sign In) kiosks. So there is actually a spot to put the name tag now — looks smart!

Thanks to Ricky on our communications staff who hooked us up and pointed us in the right direction for suppliers!

NOTE: If you are wondering why we get our leaders to bring in old tees, its mainly because we don’t them showing up in second hand clothing stores and we hope to recycle the old ones for some purpose like tee shirt games for kids and even giving them to one of our new campuses in Europe.

So you want to work for Hillsong Church, perhaps serve with Hillsong Kids at a high level?

I got this idea while reading Beat the Clock by Jim Wideman who filtered out speaking invitations to get rid of tyre kickers.

What kind of person am I looking for to be part of the team?

1. You better bleed/love/fight for the local church – Sure there are plenty of worthy causes out there, but our focus is Church, the one thing Jesus said he would build!
2. Your second mile better be well travelled – Above and beyond should be your local cafe, over-delivery should be your courier company.
3. I love great ideas, I hate great ideas poorly executed! – That is all.
4. You need to understand the devil is in the details – the comma in 1,000 is important! My first question might be “how did the event go?”, my second will be one of the following; “did the church van get returned clean?”, “did our volunteers feel appreciated?”, “how many kids exactly were there?”, “did it grow from last year?”, “what can we improve next time?” etc.
5. Are you committed to the vision of this house? – What’s in your hand right now at this moment in time is as important than what is in your heart for the future.
6. Sure you work hard, but can you holiday hard? – When you take a break… take a break… 8 months of leave owing is not a good sign.
7. I hope you believe that you are more important than the role you perform – Your well being matters, no workaholics/martyrs need apply.
8. Tell me HOW you manage your time – If you can’t clearly explain/define it we gotta problem.
9. The only way you can hope to survive and thrive is with God – Your job/role/task/mission will be more than you can handle, don’t come on expecting your talent/gifting is enough. Forget it, you will need God! (Although you will be a person who wouldn’t have it any other way).
10. Everyday will require you being creative – Everyone is creative, just because your 3rd grade teacher didn’t give you a gold star on your painting of your dog Pedro, and gives it to Tommy Wilkinson instead — doesn’t define your life. You are creative.
11. Expect to be inspected – Hey, if you’re not growing your volunteers probably aren’t.
12. You will have to pay the price – I’m not sure exactly what that will be, but on regular occasions there will come something that will touch your treasure (that’s where your heart is).
13. God will give you the desire of your heart – Tommy Barnett says hold on to a dream for five years, whatever you do — please dream big.
14. Please have a sense of humour – At some point I will make fun of your name or Funny Man Dan will live up to his name. The team that laughs together… will probably laugh at your expense.

I could go on… really I could.

Setting the bar high is very important in ministry. Don’t just accept warm bodies both on Church staff and volunteer teams – sell a vision, one that will require work, the kind of vision YOU would want to be part of.

Sure some of these will seem contradictory – that’s the point. Welcome to life (and life abundant)!

A while back we were looking into how to do our Early Childhood Praise and Worship better. One of our awesome team Matt who also works in our Bible College suggested getting a hold of some Cuban Box Drums or cajón’s.

They were perfect and have added a fantastic dimension to the praise and worship we do with our little ones. They are capable of sounding like a whole drum kit with a skilled player. Any drummer/percussionist should pick this up pretty quickly.

So our team on a weekend service would typically look like an acoustic guitarist or two, cajón, maybe someone with an ‘egg‘ and a bunch of singers. They circulate through our rooms (depending on our different campuses) leading our kids in worship with our ‘Cubbyhouse’ (1-2 years) diovan 800 mg and ‘Ark’ (3-5 years).

So you have an instrument that this age finds fascinating (you sit on it and hit it),  supports the music brilliantly and is super portable!

They start from less than $100 on amazon but I would suggest moving up to a slightly higher price bracket to get quality!

The kind of music we do with our little ones is a mixture of some songs we have written and a bunch of bridges and choruses from our songs… eg. they

couldn’t sing the whole song ‘Tell the World‘, but the chorus is great! We don’t really use backing tracks with this age group a lot, but then again we haven’t ever done an Early Childhood kids album

So there you go, get one and try it out, you won’t regret it!

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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.

Each year about this time (actually around the time of Super Bowl), we at Hillsong Church have our Superbowl event – Vision Sunday.

Pastor Brian presents to our whole church where he feels the Church is heading. Realigns us around purpose and points us toward Jesus our hope and future.

This year was the first time that the vision has been presented globally to all our family of Hillsong Churches, so it being Monday morning here in Australia that vision will have been presented and generated a lot of passion and excitement all over the world.

I am pretty sure the video will be put up online soon and will update this post when it is. UPDATE: http://www.myhillsong.com/visionsunday

The great thing about this year is that we focussed on people and their stories in a big way. It’s not so much about the big announcements (although a campus in New York is exciting), but more about becoming the kind of Church we need to be to impact this world.

Our Church has always been about connecting, equipping and diflucan prescriptions serving people and in 2010 the opportunity to do just that will be greater than ever before.

So I am excited because every person that calls Hillsong Church home is called to greater participation in seeing the Kingdom of God advanced.

(It is cool seeing the New York link at the top of our website).

(It doesn’t link yet, but when it does)!!

It may be that Settlers of Catan is the best game of all time, but I appreciated this post from Trevin Wax about low expectations.

Last summer, my parents introduced me and my wife to a European board game called The Settlers of Catan. This award-winning game has become wildly popular, especially among college students.

But Settlers is hard to play. The game is expensive. The rules are complicated. Each game requires more than an desyrel 75 mg hour.

To do well, you must master the art of trade, strategic planning, anticipation of loss, and clever surprise. The game is difficult, but people can’t get enough of it.

Read On!

It’s new music Tuesday! Which didn’t exist at this blog until I just wrote those words.

My Bro Nick is a brilliant graphic designer who works for a Church in Christchurch NZ called Majestic… (quick trivia, I was dedicated there in 1978, although it was in a different location).

I would link to his twitter here, but he seemingly likes to read more that tweet!

Anyway, with the help of Nathan Phillips (now back in NZ) who was with us in Hillsong for a couple of albums, notably Tell The World (2007) they have produced their first album- In The Future, and you can download it for FREE.

I love it!

depakote prescription prices alt=”Majestic Youth In the Future” width=”300″ height=”292″ />

It’s really cool, so you need to download it right now.

Here is part two of my little series on using media with kids. Part one is here.

I have seen many moments of beauty and love often perpetrated by apparent pre-followers of Jesus (‘pre’ as in God desires that all should receive salvation).

Now how can someone show compassion and love but yet not be a ‘Christian’. The truth is that love is not exclusively the domain of the follower of Jesus, BUT God IS love and so all acts of love emanate from God.

All beauty comes from God. There is no beauty that does not come from the Father through Christ, Himself the embodiment cymbalta order online of all beauty. St Augustine, Confessions

I firmly believe that all beauty comes from God. There is no second source for kindness and goodness, so no matter who is doing the act they are, and can only be inspired by God. That goes for the depiction of the loving sacrifice of a father for a son, the compassion of a warrior for an enemy, the integrity of a businessman in the face of corruption.

But no matter how brilliant movies are and how beautiful the moment, it is often in the context of a lifestyle contrary to the word of God — opposite to His Kingdom.

So the sacrifice of a father is surrounded by revenge, or unfaithfulness. The love of a couple results in immorality and adultery. No matter how moving the story lines and how teachable the moments the world view of the story teller is important and affects the story.

As a parent you would most likely be wary of movies promoting a Hindu or Muslim view of the world, but we are used to watching media that represents the family unit as dysfunctional and completely incompetent. Or enjoying with our family a movie about High School Students obsessed with relationships and being ‘fabulous’.

Could you imagine a world where the media we watch reinforces the teachings of Jesus and sets up ideals that our kids aspire to… and… doesn’t… suck.

It is a rare movie that accomplishes this without being preachy and cringe-worthy.

Find the song, the movie, the media that does this well and show your kids!

P.S. One of the most important skills the 21st Century kid needs is to be able to recognise and filter out this media (I did enjoy High School Musical), so I am not saying get rid of the TV and move into an Amish community, but what a blessing it is to consume media that doesn’t give you heartburn and indigestion on the way down.

P.P.S. The Church stopped creating culture and started consuming culture many decades/centuries ago. I have great hope this is the generation that will reverse this!

I had read about the HBO Movie ‘Taking Chance‘ on a blog written by a Marine serving in Iraq (One Marines View), and just watched it tonight.

I love a movie that reignites my love of Cinema! This is not a Summer action movie blockbuster… it is a very thoughful and moving tribute to a man who served his country.

Visit the site for more info on the actual movie, but the one word you can use to describe this film is ‘Honour’.

As the story unfolds of this young marines body being returned to his family what follows him is respect and honour. Every step along the way people are moved to respond in ways that place value on the life that has been given to protect them. And it surprised me by being a very powerful and moving film.

So get it and watch it

But what it did awaken me to was the fact that this world really would be a better place if we hounoured people. All people. Not just the ones percieved as heroes.

I am going to make sure my son gets to experience different cultures. From the honouring, to places where there is a complete lack of respect. So he can see for himself the outcomes and consequences. And also build into him a respect for the house of God where youth is celebrated, and wisdom and age is loved and appreciated.

Our churches really should be the most diverse places on earth. Contrary to the world where religion and ethnicity divides we build communities that by their very existence proves coreg cr price the nature and chrarcter of our God!

Just one question as we head into the weekend.

For most churches, the weekend is VERY important.

So clavamox price comparison 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.

So in every service in Hillsong Kids we have various upfront positions rostered for our primary school programs.

And I always forget who ends up doing what.

So if I write them down here:

1. It might just help me remember them
2. If I forget, they are online for posterity

THE THREE M’S

MC – Responsible for the running of the service, welcomes kids etc. They also do the offering.

Ministry – Does our ask God, thank God prayer requests. And any time of ministry/prayer with the children.

Message – Does the message. Every service someone will bring a message to the children. Some services it may be longer than others.

There are a lot of other roles in a service, but these are three of the main one’s in terms of upfront/platform citalopram online apotheke leaders.

Monday evening… going to to see Harry Connick Jr at the Syney Opera House tonight! Which caps off a great easter!!

Easter was at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre again this year! Which means the rooms for our school age kids has a magnificent view over the harbour… I SHOULD have taken a photo!!! Dang!

Below is a shot of Guy Sebastian performing at our Sunday night concert…

Had a great 6 services really speaking about what Jesus has done on the cross! Saw a number of families who I have not seen for a long time and was able to connect with the kids!

So a great weekend with a record number of kids attending!