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Category: Leadership

When the Kids take over Kids Church

Over on Kidology.org there is a discussion about kids leading kids church, as well as one asking for samples of different children’s church services. So, I decided to kill to forum birds with one stone, er, one post! I’ve led over 1000 children’s church services and all of them have been run by kids. As described in my Kids Church Book (available as a download) I use what I call my K.C. Krew, and they help not only run Kids Church, but plan and prepare as well. In addition to all they do every week, from set up to running sound, acting is skits, doing puppets, taking the offering, leading games, to the take down – at least once a year I would guide them through a process of writing their own lesson.  I’d start with telling them how I come up with topics, how I study the Bible, how I choose the activities and write the various components of the lesson. It is a great opportunity for them to understand what happens even deeper behind the scenes and to be trained to do it themselves. Well, one year, they BLEW ME AWAY! After discussion and prayer, we decided to…

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Yosemite Summit 2009 Report and Video

Don’t miss the video at the end of this post! I’m still feeling the effects of Yosemite Summit 2009. It is difficult to describe this event to someone who has not gone; it is truly a wonderful trip on so many fronts. But it is my prayer that some descriptions, some pictures, quotes from the guys and a video might help you get a glimpse of the unique experience Yosemite Summit is for the guys who take the time away from ministry to invest in their walk with God and a few other good men who share their passion for children’s ministry. After the neat group of guys God brought together for the first Summit, I honestly was a little worried that the second year might feel different, but again God brought together a group of men who all got along great and seemingly instantly we were like old friends. I now get to pray the same for 2010! There is simply no way to describe the grandeur of the vistas at Yosemite National Park. Pictures can’t even come close to capturing the awe of looking out from one vista to another across the sprawling valley below. It is like…

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Shepherd or Sheepherder?

Remember? Remember when you first got in to children’s ministry? Remember the calling God gave you? The burden you had for children? The awesome responsibility you accepted? The urgency you felt? Back when it was about reaching lost kids and discipling those who had accepted Christ? Remember when the stories were about changed lives and your conversations were mostly about the kids rather than the problems? Remember when you spent a ridiculous amount of time on some minor, but fun aspect of the ministry just so you could see the faces of the kids light up when they arrived? Remember when you didn’t even notice how exhausted you were? What changed? You went into children’s ministry because you wanted to be a shepherd of children – and all too soon you became more sheepherder than shepherd. Just getting the kids where they need to be and hoping to have a reasonable adult-to-child ratio became a weekly battle. Managing volunteers, appeasing parents, buying supplies, keeping the senior pastor as well as the janitor happy, answering voice mail, e-mail and snail mail and countless meetings gradually took over. Before you knew it, being a minister gave way to being an administrator. And…

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My Last Lecture?

About six months ago I picked up a book at Costco that looked like a good read, The Last Lecture. It was written by Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. CMU had a tradition of having professors share what they believed was most important in life – what they would share if they could only offer one “last lecture.” By the time Randy was scheduled to give his “last lecture” they had renamed the series to Journeys and were unaware that it would indeed be his last lecture. I’m now in Colorado enjoying some vacation time that God sovereignly planned months ago when He knew that this past week I would end up in the hospital to have a stent placed in my heart. I’ve shared some personal reflections on facing my own mortality, and as I was packing for our trip out here saw The Last Lecture sitting on my desk, and grabbed it to read. Tonight I joined nearly ten million others who have watched the video (below) of his presentation and it was really good. You can watch it here on YouTube yourself (76 minutes long) as well as another talk he did later on…

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A Children’s Workers Passage

Getting worn out in ministry? Discouraged? Here is a little known passage of Scripture to encourage you, or that you can reprint to encourage others. (found in my archives tonight) Sometimes it is fun to paraphrase Scripture a little to shed fresh light on the message it contains, as I did once to encourage my leadership team by posting this passage: There was a children’s worker all alone; she had neither partner nor team member. There was no end to her toil, yet her eyes were not content with her ministry. “For whom and I toiling?” she asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless – a miserable ministry! Two are better than one, more than two even better! because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his team members can help him up. But pity the children’s worker who calls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two or more work together, they will keep encouraged! But how can one keep encouraged alone? Though one may be overwhelmed, a team can help each other. A cord of many strands is not quickly broken! Ecclesiastes 4:8-12 N.C.M.P.…

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