Home Archive by category "Leadership" (Page 19)

Category: Leadership

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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Reinventing Yourself

At CPC last month, I did a workshop titled “10 Steps to a Ministry Reboot.” You can listen to it and get my notes for a limited time here: www.kidology.org/cpc12 In short, it was 10 basic areas of ministry / tips you need to address in order to both keep your sanity and have a well functioning ministry. Some of the tips are a little shocking to newer administrators. Like “Don’t Recruit” and “Stop Leading.” In other words, you should only recruit a leadership team, and they should do the rest of the recruiting (under your guidance), and don’t lead any ministries yourself. Equip leaders who lead under your leadership. It’s a workshop that often saves the sanity and ministry of those who hear it. In response, I got the following e-mail today: Hi Karl, ….Last week I had the opportunity to attend CPC in San Diego.  I attended your breakout:  “Ten Steps to a CM Reboot…”  I appreciated the things you shared.  I am currently on a sabbatical that my church has blessed me with and this is exactly where I am at right now… I am at a point in my life where I need to re-invent myself…

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