Every year when Yosemite Summit rolls around, I am never ready for it.
And that is exactly why I do it.
I have projects that are not where I want them. Deadlines I’m behind on, so many to do’s unchecked they are overwhelming at times, countless more items floating in my head that need to get on a to do list. Even more dreams and ideas of things I’d like to do. The reality is, I’ll never be “ready” for a week off of work to just relax, refresh, renew and re-create. I am too driven by my life Mission and Calling. But I am also driven by disappointment. We all have this ideal in our mind and hearts of the way life is supposed to be – and when life turns out differently and we don’t get want we want (the core of sin is selfishness) we bury it in busyness, and as Christians we can bury it in Christian service and “Godly” busyness – whereas the rest the world may attempt to hide it in entertainment, the accumulation of power, wealth or pleasure – if not outright debauchery. (Some do seek to redeem it through a life well lived, though those are rare.) I have this ideal in my mind of the type of man, husband, and dad I want to be – and I just can’t get there. And I’m not just talking the deep stuff, its the simple stuff too, like an organized garage or getting the landscaping in the back yard finished. Hanging out with my dad more or reading all the books stacked in my office. So much to do and not enough time to do it in. I have a Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt that says,
“God put me on this earth to accomplish a set number of things. Right now I am so far behind, I will never die.”
But the reality is, I am haunted by what I will left undone that I wanted to do, and what I did instead.
So I go to Yosemite Summit to STOP – stop everything – and Think. Listen. Reflect. Refocus. Reconsider. Recalibrate. Reconsider.
Have you ever just wanted to scream, “I need everything to just STOP ALREADY!” Well, that’s what Yosemite Summit is. The world freezes for several days. Everything stops. Nothing matters for a few days. You aren’t so important anymore. People can get along without you, and guess what? The world survives! And everything is OK when you get back. Sure, there is some pile up, but its manageable.
That’s why I created Yosemite Summit. Because first and foremost I need it. It’s for me. I know that sounds selfish, but it is the truth. But it’s so good and I need it so much, I decided NOT to be selfish about it, and decided I’d invite just a few guys to come with me. First of all, because part of me wishes someone had invited me to something like this a long time ago when I didn’t know I needed it. But mostly because its just too amazing a time to keep to myself.
I hope you will create your own Summit. Don’t wait until you are ready. You never will be. Just put it on the calendar, and promise yourself you won’t cancel it no matter what happens. And when the time comes, just go. Pick a place you love. Invite some others to go with you. And just do it. You know you need it. Freeze the world for a few days. Honestly, we’ll be fine without you. And we might like you better when you get back.
This will be my last blog post until June. Until then… try to survive!
CHECK OUT THE GUYS I’VE SHARED THIS EXPERIENCE WITH THE PAST THREE YEARS AND CLICK ON THE PICTURE FOR A REPORT, HIGHLIGHT PHOTOS AND VIDEO:
Wouldn’t it be great to start getting reports from parents that children in your church were starting to have Quiet Times all on their own?
Imagine hearing that your students were carving out special places in their closets, lofts, or backyards club houses and scheduling when they were going to meet with God!
It has happened to me many times over! I’ve even had kids draw me pictures of their “top secret” places where they meet with God.
And you must know, these meetings have life-long, even eternal results!
But they don’t happen without INTENTIONAL and PRACTICAL training!
I urge you to make this next installment of DiscipleTown a part of your disciple-making strategy and work it into your educational plan for Kid’s Church.
During this unit, your kids will learn tried-and-true techniques for enjoying a personal “Quiet-Time” with God so that they can learn how to deepen their friendship with God. Next, they will learn how to enjoy His company throughout the day and how to call on Him in times of need. Meeting with God is something we can do in a focused “Quiet Time,” but it is also something we can do anytime we want to experience the presence and power of God in our daily lives.
That’s what this weekend is all about. It’s about the Grace God showed us by looking past our short-comings, our failures, and our imperfections… and loving us anyway.
It’s about wanting us to be Family in spite of us. It’s about Him DYING to make us Family, even though we were wrapped up in ourselves and our needs.
We’ve all got people in our lives (and families) and drive us nuts and who are wrapped up in themselves. People who have let us down. People who don’t deserve a second chance. People who don’t deserve forgiveness. People who are a “lost cause.”
Christ was demonstrating for us what He expects of us by what He did for us. While WE were a lost cause, beyond hope, undeserving, selfish and wrapped up in OURselves – He died for us, and then did the biggest “come back” in His-Story to redeem us.
We have no excuse to hold anyone at arm’s length or hold a grudge. Those who have truly experienced Grace, find it so much easier and natural to extend Grace – for they have been to the foot of the Cross and begged for it.
This Easter, look around for who you can be Jesus to… someone perhaps you’ve overlooked, forgotten, or even given a cold shoulder too… and welcome them back.
After all, it’s what Jesus did for you and me on the first Good Friday and Easter not so long ago. (In God’s eternal timing)
Children get enough discouragement from adults telling them constantly what they are doing is wrong or needs to be better. They need to hear more often how they are loved, forgiven and believed in. They need to be encouraged and reminded that while their behavior may not always be good, their value and worth is good beyond description! They are good kids in God’s eyes because He made them and whatever God made IS good! After all, every day of creation God finished by saying, “It is good.”
As we shepherd the children in our ministries it is critical that we focus on their hearts more than their behavior. When we see bad behavior, our impulse needs to be not to correct the behavior, but to mold the heart that determined the behavior. There are plenty of techniques out there that can shape children’s behavior, but if we only succeed in changing behavior, we will have only created little Pharisees who know how to behave at church. But it will be unlikely that we will impact much how they behave at home and even less how they behave at school and after they outgrow children’s ministry. But if we reach their hearts we will have truly succeeded in making disciples!
Don’t focus on changing kids behavior… focus on changing kids hearts… and their behavior will mysterious change. It the same approach Jesus is using on you, by the way.
What am I giving my son for Easter? Of course he will get up and wonder where we have hidden his Easter Basket – and we will play our annual “Hot and Cold” game, just as my father and mother played with me and my sisters.
“Your so cold your toes are gonna freeze and fall off!”
“Getting warmer!”
“Getting HOT!”
“OUCH! You’d better put your shoes on you’re so hot!”
“Oh, My! You need a pot holder you’re so HOT!”
Soon the basket full of candy and goodies has been discovered, only to be told, “Oh, no! We gotta get ready for church! Hurry up! Where has the time gone!”
But along with the candy and little toys, there was always a gift of spiritual significance. Something to return some meaning to all the secular hoopla and manages to sneak into our Christian holidays now-a-days. And this year, I am so excited that DiscipleLand has JUST the thing for young learners! It’s a brand new Bible Story Book – but it’s more than just a beautiful re-telling of Bible stories, it a parenting tool that helps intentional parents talk to their kids about the character traits our our Amazing God! And that is just what I want to do with my son. So I can’t wait to put the My Awesome God Bible into his Easter Basket in a few weeks.
You can order it on Kidology.org or on DiscipleLand.com and use discount code “Kidologist” and save $3. (An extra buck!) Either way is fine with me! I’m just glad YOUR KIDS are going to have such a wonderful way to be learning 200 stories and with them more about our Amazing God!
I am SO excited to have the GO FISH VBS KITS on Kidology.org that I’m gonna give a 100% REFUND to one of the first ten orders of EACH of their VBS Kits! Not only do I LOVE their music, but I love the strong emphasis their VBS materials place on Scripture!
You already SAVE $25 just by being a Kidology Member, and now you might just get it free!
Whether you go with their first unit Backstage with the Bible or the brand new release, Kickin’ it Old School – or just order both – I’m gonna give a refund to one of the first ten orders of each! After we sell ten of either VBS, we will randomly select from the first ten orders and do a 100% refund and let the winner know who won via e-mail! So order right away!
WHAT IF YOU’VE ALREADY ORDERED YOUR VBS? Some of you have already picked and are half-way done planning your VBS programs! (You super admins, you!) Well, then, use these for an Awesome Kids Church unit instead!
PLUS!Kidology Has EXCLUSIVE Buy One Get One Free Offer!
DiscipleLand, the publishers of DiscipleTown, are coming out with the most beautiful preschool Bible this Spring – BUT RIGHT NOW – you can get exclusively from Kidology.org a gorgeous Easter Story Book for your children at an amazing BUY ONE SET OF TEN and get a SECOND SET FREE!
This special offer won’t last long – and it is unique to Kidology.org due to my special relationship with DiscipleLand as the author of DiscipleTown.
DOWNLOAD A SAMPLE PDF and then hurry over to the Kidology.org Store while supplies last!
You will get TWENTY 16-Page books for the SAME PRICE as TEN over on Discipland.com! (compare)
You’ll want to give one of these beautiful books to every one of your children on Easter Sunday Morning! VISITORS COME ON EASTER SUNDAY! This bibllically rich book tells the Story of Easter and shares the Gospel Message!
Object Lessons on Steroids! That’s how I described Kidz Blitz when I first saw it at my church back in 1999 at the very first Kid U conference! Children’s Pastors have been using object lessons for as long as… well, since Jesus used them! But it was Roger Fields who decided to take them and blow them up ten times bigger. (Sometimes literally!)
Roger Fields, the creator of Kidz Blitz, is a pioneer of Children’s Ministry. In fact – he was one of the first workshoop presenters I heard at my first CPC waaaay back in 1995 at my first CPC. I loved this guy’s passion and unique approach to ministry and knew right away he was a guy to watch, learn from, and one who would always approach ministry differently than everyone else. He isn’t afraid to try new things – whatever it takes to reach kids. (He was the one who brought leaders the Children’s Ministry Conference Cruise in 2001-2002 and is the creator of CMX!)
Famous for his “T.P. Blower” – Roger is a guy who knows how to “BRING THE FUN” to a kids outreach event!
Here is me “BRINGING THE T.P.” to Roger at CPC:
Kidz Blitz has been a sponsor at more than one Kidology Conference and here is a glimpse into what happened to one of our attendees at the event, to give you a small taste of the fun we had:
If you are looking for the most OUTRAGEOUS and CRAZY and OFF THE WALL event that KIDS and FAMILIES will absolutely LOVE and be talking about for the rest of the year… then KIDZ BLITZ is the event you need to bring to your church!
But it’s not just the fun – it’s the Message too! Roger and his other regional reps use high energy and audience participation and large group repetition to teach kids simple but important Truths about God and the Gospel, so its fun, but with a purpose. It is the perfect outreach or community bridge building event. If you’ve done events that you were kinda embarrassed to invite your neighbors too – it’s time you brought Kidz Blitz to your church and packed out the place!
This is DA MAN who can BRING YOU THE FUN and ENERGIZE your next OUTREACH EVENT!
Here at Kidology we are bursting with pride over discovering Marty Martin’s article in the latest issue of CM Magazine! Marty is the Kidology to Go director, our roaming Kidmin Training Ministry!
Enjoy the article – and mention this blog post and get $50 off a Kidology to Go event booked during January or February in Southern California, Arizona or South New Mexico or Nevada – check out the schedule for more info!
We hope you enjoy Marty’s article – but better yet, we hope you’ll book Marty and his family at YOUR CHURCH!
PLUS, you can now book Rob Biagi for a Friday evening Family Concert the evening before the training event. Contact Marty for complete details!
If you aren’t a subscriber to Children’s Ministry Magazine (in which I have a column, Age Level Insights, ages 6-9) you truly are robbing yourself! In this issue alone my good friends Jamie Doyle and Gordon West contributed!
O.K. – I’ll be honest. There WAS one thing I hated about being a children’s pastor. I avoided it like the black plague. It was pure evil. Satan, I thought, must have come up with the idea. It was a plot to keep me from ministering to kids, sharing the Gospel, doing visitation, and equipping and encouraging my volunteers.
Database Management.
And it wasn’t my fault! The church’s database stunk too! If they couldn’t even keep theirs up to date, what hope did I have?! So I’d create my own, I thought. I bought every software sold on the market. Even programmed my own once. (that was a nightmare!) For seasons at a time, I didn’t bother, or I’d let it look I was keeping track of the kids – but God knew I didn’t have a clue who had really been there or not. Don’t worry – I made sure the person who dropped off the kid picked up the kid and that we had a “never alone” policy in place. Sunday morning security was a priority. But beyond keeping the kids safe on Sunday – my data was usually a mess! Please tell me, I’m not the only CP guilty of data confusion!
If only KidCheck had existed when I was a full time children’s pastor!
AND I KNOW HOW THEY DID IT TOO!
They got a hold of 1.21 jigawatts and a Delorean and traveled back in time and read my mind!
MANY a time as I sat for hours typing in data or asking some poor sap of a volunteer to do it I thought to myself,
Why am I doing this? This makes no sense! We should be having our parents and volunteers fill this in themselves at home online! And when it changes, they should update it. Who knows better how to spell all these names, when these kids where born, what they want to be called, when they move, and if they even still attend our church.
Well. If you have a sinful nature like me, and are wiling to admit you hate your current database system and are spending countless hours hacking at a computer or fussing with equipment when you could be doing ministry – or you are devoting precious volunteer talent to a database when they could be invested in building or leading a ministry – then you owe it to yourself, and to your ministry to take a look at KIDCHECK, and be prepared to be blown away.
I just KNOW they have a time traveling machine there at KidCheck, because they have built in EVERY feature I ever wanted and that NO OTHER check-in system ever included all in one easy-to-set-up package!
You might just get your sanctification back under control!
KidCheck is a web-based check-in system that is EASY to use, user-controlled and maintained plus it is scalable for both small and large ministries.
and is incredibly affordable!
It has everything you’d ever want in a check-in system from reports to alerts to forms to ease of use – it practically does it all for you with onscreen videos to walk people through the process at church AND (more importantly) at home. It even works for multi-site churches too!
I am SO excited to have the GO FISH VBS KITS on Kidology.org that I’m gonna give a 100% REFUND to one of the first ten orders of 
