[Kid Inspiration]

HT to TSK on this one.

Seth Godin & Tom Peters on blogging

I have tried to put into words the impact and point of blogging to many people over the years. These two influential business leaders put it brilliantly!

If you are leading anything like a ministry or team I want you to understand that you have a voice and a platform. You are called to steward that responsibility and privilege! If you don’t record and share what God is doing with and through you in this age of information I believe you are missing something quite profound.

Paul recorded his life and it turned into the New Testament.

That opportunity is not really open to us today, but who knows what could happen if you took steps to present your voice to the world? At least have enough respect for your calling to treat it as precious and important.

A book is simply a container for an idea (what makes a book a book?).

After you are gone, where will your ideas be contained? If you don’t do something about it… nowhere.

At the very least give your future generations the inspiration of discovering your story, your journey with God!

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

L… love, Lionel Richie, laughter, lost, lozenge…

L is for Longevity – After five years as a Children’s Pastor (in one Church), I started to feel like I was beginning to see some momentum building in the team. It wasn’t that amazing things weren’t happening and growth wasn’t going on, but I just hit that milestone and reflected on the things we were able to do that would have taken SO much longer in the past. I reflected on the fact that within the staff I had proven myself faithful and worked hard to build a trust. And the biggest secret to that? Just keep turning up.

My calling is NOT a career.

A common theme that appears throughout the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is the “10,000-Hour Rule” (basically to be good at something you have to do it a lot). Gladwell claims that greatness requires enormous time, using the source of The Beatles’ musical talents and Gates’ computer savvy as examples.

Your Dad would have called it good old-fashioned hard work.

For a moment, think about the leaders and pastors you admire, you aspire to be like. There is a very good chance that like me, they have served in one place for a long time.

What do you think Dory?

“Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming”.

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

H… hope, happiness, Harry, highjinks…

H is for House – There are two ‘houses’ in our lives, the ‘house’ of God and our own family. In a NT theology the house of God is the gathering of the Church, and there is always a tension between promoting a works based religion and a relationship with our saviour. Church attendance does not equal salvation, just like living in a garage doesn’t make you a car, just like eating a hamburger doesn’t make you Ronald MacDonald.

But then I began to see how little time we get with our kids as the Church and all the competing activities there are in the life of a family.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:20).

All of the examples I want to follow when it comes to family life just have so much in common, they are passionate about passing faith on to their kids AND live a life of service to their local Church.

If a family would simply model a life of dedicated service, our calling as pastors to children would be infinitely easier and far more powerful, impacting, fruitful and significant!

Just watch this very recent video of Benny Hinn talking about how he neglected his family. The home and the family NEED to work together.

If I lose my family in my pursuit of ‘ministry’, I have lost everything!

A Special Message from Pastor Benny Hinn

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!

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.

I was getting kinda overwhelmed by just how many ‘streams’ there are in Christianity today.

Here I am in my part of the world in Australia with a bunch of leaders/Churches I relate to, and then online where I am swimming with a bunch of awesome and slightly geeky children’s pastors who may be completely different denomination/tribe/stream but united through our calling to children…

And then there are massive streams I am vaguely aware of, from massive Churches in South America and Korea to House Church movements in China and India.

There are at least 12 Christian TV networks I know of showing Churches with 24/7 prayer going on, huge conferences and a vast array of preachers from all over the globe impacting thousands of people.

The kingdom of God is WIDE.

Just when you think you are doing all right in an area, you see someone else doing 1000 times better… it’s like being the fastest kid in your primary school, then getting to High School and all of a sudden becoming average overnight…

Its enough to keep a man humble (I hope).

There will always be someone better than you at what you do, but only you can do what God has called you to do.

Sure, pop your head up and check out the other lane, the other diovan generic availability river… but you will never accomplish what God has for you by wishing you were swimming somewhere else – swim in the stream, run your race, dog paddle in the pool God has for you!

I am excited!

And not just because it’s Fri and a full weekend in Church is ahead of me with loads of opportunities to be a blessing.

Not just because I’m sitting here at home on my computer looking out at a beautiful afternoon listening to my son play Wii Fit.

But because there are new things on the horizon.

I’m excited to see new projects coming, to see new initiatives and new seasons.

It gives me a hope for the future.

I’ll bet that it’s the same for you.

And if you and I feel the same then why should detrol la order it be any different for those we lead.

So next year for your teams and leaders, even if they are staying in the same role and serving with the same kids give them fresh vision that gives the expectation of a new season ahead. Because it IS a new season. In my experience God elevates and promotes in a moment and you can’t plan for it, but you can prepare!

Prepare your people.

It’s what leaders do.

And when opportunity arises, in the fullness of time… there will be people around you ready to rebuild the wall. (So we built the wall…for the people had a mind to work. Neh 4:6)

From Erwin MacManus via coreg 12.5 mg target=”_blank”>Tony Morgan:

There has never been one ordinary child born on this planet

Here endeths my Sunday.

More than anything else, I want to finish well. So many times when asking a young person the vision they have for their life, what they would love to do they talk about the task, the job, the mission they can see themselves doing. compazine 10 mg I just want to finish my ‘race’ with a wife and family that loves me, knowing that to the best of ability I lived with faith, hope and love (1 Cor 13:13). What I ‘Do’ accomplishing this goal is up to God.

As I sit here Friday before a big weekend (our family services), and KIDSFEST next Wed where we record “Follow You”, our new kids album!

It’s a perfect time to assess, dream and strategise about the future. I always have my best ideas in an incredibly busy/creative times…

Here are some thoughts from a staff meeting or something recently… I didn’t make a note in my notes

Leadership is a moral calling

• Leadership cipro sale is not what I do it’s who I am
• Leadership is a decision to be

Can others SEE your progress… is it evident to all? (1 Tim 4:9-16)

1. Lead in speech – The tongue is a powerful instrument of leadership… It makes words!
2. Lead in life – What word describes your life? (Col 1:10)
3. Lead in love – Be the best lover you can be (does not require Viagra)
4. Lead in faith – We should never live in doubt, always in faith
5. Lead in purity – Draw the line, and keep a marker handy, you will have to keep it from being erased.

Dave out.

Here are a few great posts I read recently:

Notes from Reggie Joiner

• A lot of kids leave church experience rich but relationally poor
• What is the purpose of kids applying what they learn? So they can see God and others can see God in them.
• No one is more strategically positioned to experience all levels of spiritual growth in a child than a small group leader.
• The reason volunteer leaders are not committed to children is because we’re not asking them to be committed to cipro cheap children. We give them outs every way possible.
• How do we partner with parents? By casting vision to parents and getting parents so bought in that they cast the vision at home.

Speaking the truth in Love

Mark Driscoll with some helpful words about using our words to speak the truth in love.

4 Assumptions during the busy season

Here’s 4 assumptions I asked our teams to make during the next 4 months of ministry…

Enjoy.

I have three questions for you today.

And I’m not giving you the answers.

They relate to you as a leader and more importantly someone who is shaping the world view of a generation.

1. Why do I need to know all the answers?

Lost creator and Cloverfield producer J.J. Abrams has a “mystery box” from New York’s Tannen’s Magic store. This is what he says about it: It’s a cardboard box with a question mark printed on it. It’s one of those things you buy for $15 and they advertise that it has at least $20 worth of stuff inside.

He’s never opened it.

“I love the fact that it has this mysterious value as long as I don’t open it.” – J.J. Abrams

Our job is cialis softtabs prescription to instill into children a sense of wonder and mystery about God. (Romans 11:25; 16:25, 1 Cor 15:51, Eph 1:9) He can never be completely comprehended, but he reveals himself to us.

Knowable, yet completely unknowable.

Mystery.

2. Why is the part of church life that should be the easiest to build is the hardest?

Community should be easy. Why do we have to work so hard to be relevant?

A group of people connecting around a common goal and purpose.

I think it may be about moving people out of comfort into discomfort. During the aftermath of a tragedy no one complains about the air conditioning – you just want to stay alive and will connect with whoever you can to do so. And that is the most uncomfortable you could ever be.

Community

3. Have I ignored beauty because it was from a non-approved source?

Beautiful art can come from other religions… even Hollywood.

All beauty comes from God.

No matter the human source, they are acknowledging the creator (without even knowing it sometimes).

Beauty

A person like this is interesting.

I like helping kids become interesting.

“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” –  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

NOTE: These are some fairly unrelated thoughts. If you find them confusing, I probably will in the morning.

“It is time to become culturally aware, intellectually sound, and spiritually alert. I am interested in asking who has a song not about bringing art into the safety of the church but about taking it into the streets — and into the refugee camps, prisons and hovels? Where are the laments and the dirges as we stand beside those who are suffering? How do we ‘groan’ with all of creation about this polluted planet? And where are the victory marches and the parades on the streets — or the rooftops — that declare the goodness of God with joyous shouts and a sense of play?” – Betty Spackman, A Profound Weakness

The great psychologist Alfred Adler said …

“There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.”

Einstein was considered an “unteachable” fool by his early teachers.

Was he? And was it the pressure put on him to prove to the world that he was not that allowed him to rise to such greatness?

I love this quote – it kind of lines up with something I read about leadership. Leaders are neither born nor made… they are summoned. Circumstance calls you to respond, the ones that do… are leaders.

You may not know how you ended up working with kids, but the fact is… what you do with the opportunity defines who you are.

I wonder …

Are YOU going to let the world wear you down with it’s jealous label for you?

Or will you allow yourself to be steel-cast into something beautiful and and unbreakable by the pressure it offers?

Stand back and take a look…

How will people write about this time in history? From when I left school in 1995 to now the internet has practically invented itself. I remember signing up for a hotmail account in 1996… I have had that same email address for almost ten years!!!

Its amazing how the impermanence of the internet can be more permanent that the physical world — one email address in a decade but… countless physical addresses in two countries!!

I truly believe that this moment in history is a matchless opportunity that we cannot fail to grasp.

Why the heck would we not live in a constant state of wonder and amazement… To view the Kingdom of God here on earth as anything less is tragic. Why live in a haze of negativity — it won’t change the future. Look again at your world see the opportunity not the familiar old faces of routine.

Familiarity is a killer — of dreams, of passion, of wonder, of excitement, of the promise of God for your life.

I remember thinking — around the time of that first hotmail address — that the future was as bright as 300,000 firefly’s covered in kerosene and set alight with 56,000 fireworks.

Do I still think like that? Not as much as I used to — Not as much as I would like to.

The light on the horizon is the dawn NOT the dusk!

From Wired Magazine:
The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That’s 100 pages per person alive.

How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world’s population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone’s 10-year plan.

Why aren’t we more amazed by this fullness? Kings of old would have gone to war to win such abilities. Only small children would have dreamed such a magic window could be real. I have reviewed the expectations of waking adults and wise experts, and I can affirm that this comprehensive wealth of material, available on demand and free of charge, was not in anyone’s scenario. Ten years ago, anyone silly enough to trumpet the above list as a vision of the near future would have been confronted by the evidence: There wasn’t enough money in all the investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of the Web at this scale was impossible.

But if we have learned anything in the past decade, it is the plausibility of the impossible.

The plausibility of the impossible!!

Surely the children of God can write about the plausibility of the impossiblities. My life today exists in the impossible of 1995, but the plausible 2005. I choose to be amazed and grateful at the plan of God for my life.

Let’s live like Jesus is coming back tomorrow, but imagine a world that exists for your childrens, childrens, grand-children.

The light on the horizon is the dawn NOT the dusk!

Bless Ya.

According to an article published by Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s online research and business analysis journal, Paul learned an important lesson while working at GE under former CEO Jack Welch.

Welch loved international trips,” Paul told his audience at the Wharton conference. “Whenever he came back from one, he told people he would get out of the elevator at the office and say to himself: ‘This is my first day at GE as CEO. The previous guy was a real dud. So how can I do better than he did?’ He understood that as a leader you always have to be reinventing yourself; you have to have some tool that helps you abandon past behavior and look with fresh eyes at your task.”

This is an excerpt from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell’s newsletter…

I am going to try that this Tuesday… “This is my first day as Children’s Pastor of Hillsong Church… The previous guy was a real dud. So how can I do better than he did?”

Wow… I can already think of a couple of things [grins]