[Kid Inspiration]

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 am heavily indebted to Rags and his post – How Leaders Should Spend Their Time

And by indebted I mean I am simply ripping him off and reposting it.

I am going to talk to our team about this and do a little bit of self-checking in this area… becuase owing to the current season I am getting a lot of ‘doing’ done. (Ha… doing done, I crack me up)

The cymbalta on-line prescriptions leader should spend their time:

• 1/3 Reflecting – The leader do the necessary reflection, thinking, reading, learning and planning

• 1/3 Doing – The leader do the laborious work of doing after planning

• 1/3 Developing – The leader spends time training and developing others

Anyway, have a look at your life and evaluate your balance!

Every few months cymbalta generic a new version of the famous “Shift Happens” video is released, with startling stats and eye opening facts, and bowel moving predictions… here is the latest:

The latest version of the “Shift happens” videos updated for autumn 2009, developed by XPLANE in partnership with The Economist. This Did You Know video focuses on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

Youtube Link: Shift Happens

I would love to highlight one of the main reasons we use media with our kids during weekend services.

When I grew up in New Zealand there were only two TV channels, the appropriately named One and Two, so my friends and I watched the same TV programs:

Macgyver and Knight Rider

(I cried when Kitt ended up in the acid pool and they had to remake him. Episode 314 Junk Yard Dog).

It united us as kids and has given us a common language and reference.

This has all changed with the stunning width and breadth of media available today. Our media choices are used to differentiate and separate us into tribes/groups. Are you an emo kid, do you like Hip/Hop, or are you a fan of ?

One of the many reasons we use media in our services is to create a shared experience.

No matter which campus I go to, which of our extension services I attend there will be children who I share a common language with… not about just Disney or Nickelodeon but with our crestor online target=”_blank”>curriculum and the Big Message videos. We could talk about Funny Man Dan and his latest exploits or some song they saw last week and as the media is created to point towards our theme and (hopefully) toward Jesus the relevance to their lives should immediately obvious.

And just like today as the mist of time clouds my eyes as I think about Macgyver diffusing a bomb with a toothpick, or Michael Knight foiling an international plot I hope that our kids today will remember with fondness and hopefully understanding what they experienced as a child.

(This may turn into a series methinks)

See you in Las Vegas!

Napkin Conference

View: Conference Promo

Love this post from Wayne Stocks brilliant random thoughts blog, which is what you call your blog before you realise there are approx. 18.7 million with the same title.
(Man, I really know how to build up and tear down in one sentence)

Anyway read it today!

8 Reasons to Get Involved in coreg generic Children’s Ministry from Psalm 78

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!

I really tried to think of something clever to title this post with, but all that came to mind was that above… I apologise and promise that it won’t happen again for at least a week.

I am excted though about coming to the big ole US and speaking at the Napkin Conference in Las Vegas Feb 2010.

I met compare zocor prices target=”_blank”>Justyn Smith last year whe he came over with his Pastor Benny Perez who was speaking at Church. Benny is just one of those leaders who just has miracles follow him around and he spoke a great message to our Church. One of the miracles following him was Justyn who I met briefly and connected with as a young dude excited about reaching kids for Christ!

So I am truly honoured to come and be a part of this conference and already feel like God is putting a message in my heart for y’all.

So please come along and bring your team I would love to meet as many bloggers/twitterers as I can.

C Ya in Vegas Baby!

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 compare cialis online 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.

Now that we have three main campuses we don’t get to see each others room setups. So last kids staff meeting we had a fun competition. But I will let Kathryn MacDaddy tell you the rest of the story:

We had a competition between our Hillsong Kids staff called “Pimp my Set up”… The idea was that we each take 5 photos of our age groups room set up and we present them to the team. We then choose 3 finalists and vote on the winner. And I WON!! Yeah Baby..I WON IT!!! My prize was a gift card for the movies, which I will enjoy every second of!!! clomid lowest price target=”_blank”>Read On

Great clomid for sale little article I stumbled over while researching on leadership.

Why I Believe in the Next Generation By Marty Cauley

I believe in the next generation for five reasons: ingenuity empowers them; injustice enrages them; challenges enthrall them; culture equips them; and hope inspires them. The future they face is not as bright as the one they should have inherited; but I know that they will rise to the challenge!

Love his thoughts on young people in leadership.

P.S. As far as the site goes… design matters. The site ain’t the prettiest at the ball… and there was no RSS feed. A great example of great content being hamstrung by design and old school ways (4 years ago) of distributing it. — Jus’ saying.

(Maybe some of the next generation Marty is talking about should get their hands on the site).

Just heard the first episode of a new podcast called CM Edge from Henry Zonio

Love it! I really feel like the voices are clomid discount purchase growing in support of our current generation of children!

More and more people speaking, many more listening!

Loving it — check it out: cmedge.com

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.

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 clavamox 375 mg 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

I haven’t written one of these posts in a while, but I think to start out 2009 it would be great to write about some new blogs and not so new blogs on the internets.

The last time I wrote something like this was in May 2007: The State of the CM Blogosphere

So today I write the State of the CM Blogosphere Jan 2009, or “Blogs of most excellent repute”

I will try and write about new blogs here rather than the ones listed in the last report. But if I really feel like there is consistent goodness coming from those blogs I will be forced by sheer respect to mention them. It is worth at this point to mention two resources: church.alltop.com, A list of some very influential Church blogs and from Church Relevance: The Top Church Blogs

I cannot even remember how I got the number of 232 blogs that discuss children’s ministry in my old post, I even went onto Technorati to figure it out, but the site was slow so I gave up. I do follow 121 blogs that relate to ministry to children, although only a very small amount of those update regulary.

I do need to talk about the rise of twitter this last year, but that will be kept for another post!

So, here are a few of the top blogs that I love reading at the beginning of 2009!

• Just Pudge – Still in the game, probably one of the most engaging blogs still to read, who has taken a cue from his senior pastor Perry Noble who writes an enormously readable blog. It was great to meet the children’s pastor of Newspring Cherie Duffy when she was over here in October who doesn’t blog but does twitter.
• Justyn claritin without prescription Smith – From ‘The Church‘ in South Las Vegas. Started strong and hopefully will keep going because I think he has a lot to say! I met him last year when he was over here in Sydney with his pastor Benny Perez to speak and is a fantastic young pastor to children!
• Jim Wideman – Just a great guy starting out in ministry, a great fresh new pastor with a LOT of wisdom and a huge future ahead of him (at least thats what it seems like ). I will be meeting him this year when he makes it over to Australia with his daughter Yancy to speak at kidshaper conference.
• Rob Bradbury – Rob and his team from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne blog about a lot of cool stuff… now because it’s not just Rob, I think it’s frequency of posts could increase. And they do need to remove the annoying Captcha for commenting (hint, hint) But Rob is really my hero in ministry in Australia. And you should get the K Magazine issue that features him on the cover with a fantastic article about their relatively new church plant.
• JC’s Thompson – A blogger since Sept 2007, the Elementary Production Director for the Children’s Ministry at Brookwood Church in Simpsonville, SC (I copy and pasted this from his site). I love the way he thinks so read this post to get an idea of what ticks in his brain. Looking forward to reading more!
• Kenny Conley – Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. Love the practical stuff that has been coming from Kenny recently… the photos for portable church and makeover stuff. I do learn visually so it has been great for me to see all those photos!
• Jonathan Fietzer – The Assistant Children’s Pastor at World Outreach and Bible Training Center in Milwaukee, WI. Jonathan has a very fancy site, and lots of great posts!
• Karl Bastian – Karl has a new blog look and is fulltime on kidology.org, by far still the best place to get answers and support when you need them from incredibly generous people. He writes a great blog with a fantastic mix of personal and minstry.

etc.

etc.

Lots more that I could write about, but pasting all those links in takes a lot of time and my wrists are beginning to hurt.

TIPS: If you are starting to think about maybe writing a blog, then please do it. One of the greatest things I have found is that making my thoughts public is a great accountablility system. Keeps me learning and giving and making time just to think (VERY important for any form of creativity). And make sure to mix the ministry with your personal life, if we have learnt one thing from Pixar movies is that story matters. I want to know YOUR story, not just your thoughts.

Cover of K Mag.

Earlier this year I was invited to be a part of a fantastic new venture… K!

K! Magazine is sweeping children’s ministries around the globe. Each issue is jam-packed with practical articles, great ideas, claritin 10 mg and the best tips for ministering to 21st century kids and their families.

There are very few magazines of this calibre about ministry to kids in the world!!

So here is what you should do…

Go to www.thekmagazine.com and then click on the “Bulk Subscription” link to learn more about bulk subscriptions and rates… buy some for your whole team!!

In this months edition you can read what I wrote about Private Devotion and Public Passion – Training kids to worship God Monday through Saturday.

And in the next – The Air They Breathe.

I write with my wife Beci about the journey of Hillsong Kids Praise and Worship!

Check it out now.