As I write this, I am less than 100 hours from an event that has quickly become a summer tradition in my life. I call it “Go Dark Week.” It is a week where I unplug from all the technology that pervades our daily lives. From 12:00 AM August 14th until 12:00 AM August 21st, I will:
Welcome back to the series where we are examining those activities and pursuits in our day-to-day lives which we can not afford to sacrifice in order to make time for other pursuits. Thus far, we have introduced the series and talked about both prayer and time in the Word as activities which we cannot afford to forsake. That brings us to our third Non-Negotiable – church.
In My Testimony, I talk about the general distrust I has of the church prior to accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. The history of atrocities and abuses committed in the name of the church is undeniable. Furthermore, there is no doubt that such abuses and atrocities continue today in so called churches around the world. All of that to illustrate that I did not come from a place where the church was prominent in my life. Indeed, my relationship with the church has been an area where God has worked mightily in my own life. I have gone from a true skeptic of organized religion to such an extent that God worked through a very atypical church to draw me to himself in the first place to someone who has become a member of a local church and a proponent of regular church attendance. My love for Jesus has manifested itself in a love for his church. That said, it is still easy to miss church, or not get involved enough, or make excuses not to participate – something which we can really not afford to do.
I like reading. I really do, and part of that love of reading has transferred into a love for blogs – particularly for those related to children’s ministries. For well over a year now, I have been compiling a monthly listing of blog articles for Dad in the Middle known as The Children’s Ministry Blog Patrol. In that recurring post, I pull from the hundreds of blogs I follow to compile and categorize a list of the month’s best children’s ministry related posts. One section of the The Children’s Ministry Blog Patrol each month is dedicated to articles for and about volunteers. Even then, there are not generally that many posts in that area. That is one of the reasons we decided to start Kidmin1124 in the first place. I don’t intend to start a Volunteer Blog Patrol here on Kidmin1124, but there are occasionally articles related to volunteers that I thought would be useful to the readers of this blog. Here are some great posts related to Volunteers and Volunteering which have been posted this summer (including May).
Posts from around the blogosphere
Hey Mr. (or Ms.) Children’s Pastor! Do you have problems recruiting people to serve in your children’s ministry? Do you have problems retaining people once they volunteer? What can you do to find and retain volunteers? In the end, it all boils down to one very important question – What is it that your volunteers want?
1. Vision. Your volunteers want a vision that they can buy into. They want you to have a plan and a goal. They want to know that you have a destination in mind that your entire children’s ministry is pointing towards. Your volunteers want to know your vision, and the good ones really want to buy into and support that vision. Don’t fall head first into the trap of just assigning duties to your volunteers. Make them a part of your vision. Make your vision their visions, and you will see them soar!
Welcome to our continuing discussion of the The Non-Negotiables – those things in our lives which must be given the place of first priority and be closely guarded. These are the things which we must plan for, make time to do, and guard against interruption and skipping. In previous installments, we have Introduced the idea of Non-Negotiables and examined the importance of Prayer. Today, we will be discussing the next Non-Negotiable which is near and dear to my heart, and that is the Bible. I love my Bible. Ever since I became a Christian and read it for the very first time, I’ve been hooked. I’ve written about 100 phrases which describe God’s Word…. I’ve written about Psalm 119 – The Word of God, and I started a series featuring 25 Reasons I Believe the Bible. I’ve written about 10 Way to Get Kids Excited About the Bible and cited hundreds, if not thousands, of Bible verses in my articles. And, I’ve done it all because I love my Bible. I do not worship my Bible, but I worship the one my Bible tells me about.
All that to say – I love my Bible. Even so, there are times when I struggle to make sure that I read it every day. There are times when several days slip away, and I realize that I haven’t read my Bible at all. It’s like Paul writes in Romans 8: (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, we started a new series here on Kidmin1124 called The Non-Neogtiables. In this series, we will look at certain activities and undertakings that can not be sacrificed in our attempt to “find” more hours in the day. During any given day, our time is consumed with so many things including ministry, family, work, chores, relationships, and more. None of these things are bad, but they all take time. When we are prioritizing all the things that must get done each day, these items must be placed at (or near) the top of the list. Bold them. Highlight them. Write them in red ink. Whatever it takes, you have to make sure that these items get done, or the remainder of your list will be rendered completely meaningless.
The first Non-Negotiable we’re going to discuss is prayer. Every day should be bathed in prayer. Frankly, every day should start with prayer, end with prayer, and be punctuated by times of prayer as often as possible. Before we jump write in to talking about prayer though, I feel like I should be a little bit transparent with those of you reading this. I chose prayer as the first non-negotiable, not because I feel like I have mastered it, but because I realize how far short I fall in this area. All too often, I find myself praying something to the effect of: (more…)
It’s only a week away. Next Thursday, June 15, 2010 marks the start of the CM Expo in Lexington, Kentucky. Unlike most conferences, I was able to get a couple of days off of work to go to this one. Plus, it only a three hour drive or so from my house, so travel is not an issue. For those who don’t know CM Expo is a two day event featuring a slew of children’s ministry vendors. Unlike traditional conferences, CM Expo focuses primarily on vendors and networking. There are a variety of Sit Ins (40 minutes discussions) and Scoops (20 minute presentations) scheduled throughout the two days.
I am very excited about getting to meet people in person that I have talked to on Twitter, Facebook, Dad in the Middle and here in Kidmin1124. The following is my list of people to meet at the conference that I know are going to be there (in no particular order): (more…)
Kidmin1124.com is officially 15 days old today. The cake is ready and the balloons are all blown up. The party hats are all lined up in cyberspace, and we’re having a party! Well, not really, that would be silly at best and premature at the very least. We really appreciate the positive response that we have gotten in the first fifteen days, and we are even more excited about the possibilities that we feel this site holds for being a blessing to the kidmin community.
For the vast majority of you, we hope that you have liked what you’ve seen so far and will continue to check in and join the conversation here on Kidmin1124. However, for a select few, we hope that you can help us out in a whole different way. At Kidmin1124, we are a collection of children’s ministry volunteers and bi-vocational children’s ministers writing about issues and experiences from our perspective as they relate to children’s ministry. We come from a variety of backgrounds, cover a a large age spectrum, serve in different positions in children’s ministry, and attend a variety of different types of churches. There are however, two things we all share in common. (more…)
One of the problems that we often face as volunteers in children’s ministry is maintaining focus in our “day jobs.” When you are passionate about something, it is hard not to focus on it and hard not to get sidetracked about it. Think back to the first time you really fell in love. How much time did you spend thinking about your new love? How much of your day was consumed dreaming about what the future might hold? If you are parent, do you remember the first days back to work after your child was born? How often did you stare at their picture wishing you were home? How much of your time was spent contemplating/worrying about their future? How many times did you call home just to see how they were doing? This tendency towards distraction is consistent in anything that we are passionate about.
When I am not very intentional about it, it is very easy for me to let my passion for children’s ministry distract me when I should be focusing on my day job. Since I spend a chunk of my day working with computers, it would be quite easy to allow my mind to wander, to dream about children’s ministry, to think about the lesson for the coming weekend and more. On a more concrete level, things like e-mail, conferences, online research and more can easily interfere with your “day job.” Instead, I much be very intentional about focusing on what I should be doing at that particular moment.
As volunteers and/or bi-vocational children’s ministers who are passionate about reaching kids for God, there is one constant battle that we all face. It is something that we all battle with every day. That thing is TIME. More specifically, it finding time to accomplish all of the things we have to accomplish and those things we want to accomplish. Although Kidmin1124 is only 10 days old, this issue has already been prevalent in the articles featured here. I think that is because it is a universal problem. God only gives us a certain number of hours in each week, and between our commitment to our ministries and our other responsibilities outside the church, there never seems to be enough time. This issue is certainly not unique to volunteers and bi-vocational ministers, but it is certainly prevalent and perhaps compounded by other fulltime jobs and responsibilities.
So, what are we to do about it? Well, today marks the beginning of a new series here on Kidmin1124, our first series, which I have titled “The Non-Negotiables.” This is not a series general about time management. I am sure we will see plenty of that here on this site in the days and weeks to come, but that is not the purpose of this series. If you’re looking for good resources on time management (especially from a children’s ministry perspective, I suggest you check out Brother Jim Wideman’s book Beat the Clock
