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Category: Leadership

CM Leaders Conference is a Must

The 1st CM Leaders Conference, hosted by INCM, is coming to a close. It was a fantastic time of challenge, inspiration and fellowship for leaders in children’s ministry. I highly recommend it to leaders for their own enrichment – in addition to CPC, and INCM is offering a bundle on registration that makes the cost of this conference close to a meal out with a colleague if you attend both next year, so you have no reason to miss it. I especially enjoyed meeting folks from Kidology that I’ve never crossed paths with before and getting to ‘break bread’ with my ‘kidmin peeps’ at meal times. The conversations were fun but at times intentionally focused on issues we were facing in our ministries. Opportunities to encourage or equip one on one were memorable. The comradore on Twitter via the hashtag #CMLeaders was at times hysterical. I appreciated that there was both speakers who were well known and experienced, but some who may be less known, but equally qualified and with much to share and great challenges and insights, even if conference speaking isn’t a career for them. The blend was well thought through. There were some helpful resource providers, but…

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More Than Just a Coach

Just one of many thank you letters I receive from our Kidology Coaching graduates: Dear Karl, I want to thank you for organizing the Kidology Coaching program. It has helped me tremendously and I have learned both ministry and life skills through the material and my coach. I joined Kidology and the coaching program about three years ago. When I first joined I was in a position where I was leading a Children’s Ministry with NO experience and feeling very overwhelmed. When I started there were only between 15 and 20 kids. I originally was looking for a coach to give me some direction and advice. As I sit here three years later, I realize that I have achieved both of these through Kidology Coaching. However, I have gained so much more. Barney has become family to me. He is more than a coach, and the life skills he has taught me have given me guardrails and guidance that are priceless. He has instilled confidence in me when I was drowning in fear. He has helped me form good boundaries with family members. He has been patient with me when I struggled to keep in contact and on task. He…

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A Kidmin House of Cards

One of my favorite iPad Apps for passing idle time (like on the airplane right now) is CardTower. I get to build a “real” house of cards with playing cards, and it is amazingly realistic for being on an iPad (plus its free!) I can grab either two cards from the top of the pile to form a triangle or just one to drop a flat one, but the physics are amazing! The best thing is that there are unlimited ‘undos,’ which I really need. I try to be disciplined and only do one redo, but I watch the entire thing collaspe, and then just undo the last card I placed. Or… I go back to a time when it was sturder and build from there. But don’t be fooled, that doesn’t make the game easy. It still took me a while to build this six level tower. One Hint: See my little stack on the lower right side? If you want to make minor adjustments to slipping cards or even nudge in a flat card in the middle, grab a solo card from the top, use it to make adjustments, like you would with your hand in real life,…

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How Much Can You Stack?

My son and I have a favorite game that I have owned for years. It’s simply called Chairs. The goal of the game is to to take turns stacking some colorful plastic chairs in fun, random arrangements until the tower finally collapses under the weight of the unbalanced collection of chairs. Of course, part of the strategy is to place your chair in a way that makes it more difficult for the other player(s) to place theirs! We laugh and laugh as the tower crashes down. At the same time, we want to see how many chairs we can add, hoping we can make it even higher than the previous game. Oh, how nervous we are as we try to add chair after chair to our wobbly tower, wondering if we can somehow defy gravity and fate – always having more chairs than the laws of physics will allow us to stack. We have never been able to stack all the chairs that came with the game. Either we aren’t very good stackers, or the game creators were generous (or cruel) in the amount of chairs they provided with the game. We keep on trying to build a tower with…

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Keepin’ It Simple

On Kidmin Talk this week, my focus is Secrets to Keepin’ it S.I.M.P.L.E. in Ministry. Every show focuses on a “Kidmin Keyword.” This week brings us to the letter “S.” There are a host of great “S” words – silliness! strategy! servant leadership! and of course, Star Wars! (LOL) But when it comes to children’s ministry – we are pushed and pulled in so many directions, I think we constantly need to be reminded to “keep it simple.” This doesn’t mean to abandon excellence or quality, but it means to not do more than God is asking us to do, and to focus on the basics and do those well, before we add more. Keeping it S.I.M.P.L.E. STAFFING Tips on how to staff your ministry; building a leadership team; recruiting volunteers; building a substitute strategy; and Karl’s “Secret Ace” streategy! (shhhh, don’t tell anyone!) INFRASTRUCTURE Evaluating your program plan. This is the framework of your ministry. Ask a lot of “Why’s” – don’t assume every ministry should accomplish every ministry goal. They shouldn’t and can’t! And don’t be calendar-drive, be ministry driven. A blank calendar is O.K., if ministry is taking place! MEETINGS Evaluate your meetings! WHY do you meet?…

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