Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
Simplicity May 18th, 2010
I’m going to try to get back into blogging again. I’ve decided my main problem in the past, is that blogging was just too complicated. Posts took too long to write, (mostly because they were too long) then I needed to find a picture, add a summary and so on. I’m going to give this another go and try to make it a little simpler. God’s doing some great things in my life right now, and He’s been teaching me a lot. So I’ve loaded my scaled down wordpress theme and I’m looking forward to telling you about all that’s going on.
Posted in Blog, Random, Uncategorized | Comments (1)
Helping Kids Fall In Love With Jesus September 29th, 2009
When I was a kid I loved the Chronicles of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis. I still love the books, but when I was young they completely captivated me. Long before I could read on my own, my mom used to read to me. Whenever we would go on long car trips she would choose books to read to my brother, sister and me. (these were the days before in car DVD players) She read all types of books but the Chronicles of Narnia were always my favorite.
In fourth grade my teacher, Mrs. Vincent, read us the book “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.” As she read, I recognized a lot of the names and characters. After a few days I realized that this was one of the books that my mom had read to me when I was little. Better yet, I figured out that this was the first of seven books in a series. The next time our class went to the library I checked out the second book in the series. I read the entire book that same day. The next day I got to school early so I could check out the third book. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Vincent noticed my interest in the books, and because I was “a little less than well-behaved” in fourth grade, (sorry Mrs. Vincent) she eventually made a deal with me. If I would finish all my work for the day I could read for whatever time I had left. Most days I had finished all my work before lunch because I couldn’t wait to get back to reading. It wasn’t long before I had read the entire series. Then I read them again–and again–and again.
There was so much that I loved about The Chronicles of Narnia. There was action, adventure, sword fights and talking animals. But above everything else there was one character that stood out. Aslan. Aslan was the great lion, the son of the emperor beyond the sea. He was the central character in every story and things always got better when Aslan arrived. The way C.S. Lewis wrote about and described Aslan made him come alive. As I read the books over and over I fell in love with the character of Aslan. He was so amazing, strong and gentle, wild and kind, powerful yet humble. One of my favorite quotes in the Chronicles of Narnia comes when someone asks about Aslan, “Is he quite safe?” The answer, “Of course he’s not safe, but he’s good.” As I read the books I actually got excited every time Aslan was about to show up in the story. I was so enthralled with the character that I began collecting lions. (not real lions… mostly stuffed and ceramic) There was just something about Aslan that I wanted to be closer to.
As I grew older, I learned something about C.S. Lewis that you probably already know. Not only was C.S. Lewis a great writer, he was a great theologian. Most of his books were for adults but somewhere along the line he decided to write a series for children and I’m so glad he did. What I began to see over time is that the character of Aslan was based on Jesus. Everything I had grown to love about the fictional character of Aslan was true of the very real Jesus. What I didn’t realize when I was young, is that through the writings of C.S. Lewis I wasn’t falling in love with Aslan, I was falling in love with Jesus. Over the years my love for Jesus has only grown deeper but it began because C.S. Lewis wrote about Jesus in way that went past my intellect and penetrated my heart.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. How do we do this for the kids we lead? I think sometimes we’re pretty good at teaching kids about Jesus, but how do we help them fall in love with Jesus? What are we doing for kids that helps them see Jesus in a way that is so compelling that all they want to do is be closer to Him. How do we penetrate their hearts so they get excited at just the thought of who Jesus is and what he’s done for them? I obviously don’t have all the answers to these questions. Maybe you’ve got some ideas. I’d love to hear from you. What I do know is, I’m not content to just tell kids about Jesus. I want to introduce kids to Jesus in a way that helps them fall in love with Jesus the way C.S. Lewis did for me.
Tags: C.S. Lewis, children's books, Children's Ministry, christian living, christianity, creative, journey, life, me, Resources
Posted in Blog, Children's Ministry, Thinking Out Loud | Comments (0)
Need more volunteers? September 15th, 2009
Now that I have a little more time on my hands, (You can see why here.) I’m going to try and finish a couple of blog topics I started earlier. First up… recruiting
Everyone who serves in children’s ministry has one thing in common. We need more volunteers. I’ve heard of the elusive “waiting list” to serve in children’s ministry, and I’m sure it exists somewhere, but I’ve never seen it. What I’ve seen more often is that as soon as we enlist more volunteers, God sends more kids. In truth, this is where I want to be, first because it means the kingdom is growing and second because it keeps us looking to God to provide for us.
Last year we recruited over 200 new volunteers in BrookwoodKiDs, Now, not all of them made it through the application process, but that’s how many new applications we received. We’re on pace to receive about that many applications again this year. Before you get too impressed, we are still way short on the volunteers we need. We combine groups every week and some of our ratios are not pretty. We have a long way to go and a lot to learn. That said, we’re making progress, and there are a couple of things we’ve done to that are helping us get there. So over my next few posts I want to share what we’re learning and I’d love to hear what’s working for you as well.
Tags: Children, Children's Ministry, enlistment, Leadership, ministry, Recruiting, team, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Blog, Volunteers | Comments (0)
Big News September 14th, 2009
I have big news I wanted to pass along to everybody. I’m moving on from Brookwood Church. This isn’t a good place to get into all the “what” and “whys,” but if you’re interested you can contact me and I’ll let you know more. I do want to take a minute and say a few things though.
First, I completely support Brookwood Church. Brookwood is a great church and even though they’re going through a rough patch right now, I know that God is going to continue to do incredible things in and through Brookwood.
Second, I love and respect Perry Duggar. Perry has never been anything but good to me. I cannot begin to quantify all that he has taught me, or how he has invested in my life. Perry is one of the most humble and authentic men I know. That’s one of the main things that drew me to Brookwood in the first place and one of the things I’ll miss most.
Third, I will deeply miss the children’s team at Brookwood. I believe they are the finest collection of children’s pastors anywhere. I was blessed to lead such an amazing group of people. We put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears together and I will treasure every moment with you guys for the rest of my life. I love you and I’m proud of who you’ve become. Furthermore, I believe in this team and I believe they are going to continue to raise the bar in children’s ministry for a long tome to come. Hang on Brookwood, these guys are going to do big things.
Finally, I’m going to miss our awesome volunteers. No matter what challenge we threw at you, you rose to the occasion. I am so proud of you. I always said our goal was not to give kids great programming but to connect them with great people. You are great people! I’m so glad that the kids at Brookwood have people like you to invest in their lives.
So, what’s next for me?
I don’t know.
A long time ago I submitted myself to God’s leading and to serving Him in ministry. So, I’m on His plan and His timing. Truth is, I can’t think of a better place to be.
Oh yeah, a couple more things…
I still have several blog posts that I wrote (or started) while a Brookwood. So, rather than change everything I’m going to post them as is. Hopefully that won’t confuse anybody. Also, if you know anyone looking for a children’s pastor you can send them here. There’s a link to my resume in the top right corner.
Tags: Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, journey, life, me, ministry, team
Posted in Blog | Comments (1)
Basic Training August 26th, 2009
Guess what… nedgable (or “nedjible”) isn’t dead. Even though it has been quite a while since I’ve posted a blog. Between Adventure Week and writing our fall curriculum I’ve been pretty busy. I’m still busy but Gina McClain has coaxed me out of hiding.
I had the chance to meet her at Orange and she encouraged me to keep blogging. She said I ought to just check out what people are talking about on cmconnect.org and post my thoughts. We’ll I’ve ignored that advice for about 6 months now but then I read something she posted about training volunteers on cmconnect. Turns out, we just accidentally stumbled upon what I think is going to be a great idea for volunteer training. So here goes…
We have several things we do to help train our volunteers. All our new volunteers train with a master teacher for 4 to 6 weeks before they begin. We’re working to have coaches who move from group to group to provide on the job training. And we have a once a year, half-day mini conference that we call the children’s ministry summit.
In past years our summit was mostly logistical training and motivation. This year we decided to take it a step further. Our children’s team dug in and developed 8 different workshops to train our volunteers. During our summit we let our volunteers choose two of theses workshops in addition to one logistical training in their ministry area. The results were incredible, our volunteers were so grateful for the training they received and they all wanted more.
Now, I realize this is nothing groundbreaking so far, and if you’re expecting something profound you may want to stop now.
Still reading… ok.
We’ve also found a good deal of success with holding parent meetings and volunteer orientation, called BrookwoodKiDs 101(this is another post) concurrently with our worship services (9:00, 10:30 and 11:59). What we’re finding is that volunteers (and parents) don’t want to come out to meetings or events outside our regular service times. But they will take advantage of an opportunity while they’re already here on Sunday. So we found a room and now we offer orientation once a month and parent classes about every other month.
Now since we’ve already developed our workshops, it’s easy to teach them over and over. So we’re planning to add these workshops to our Sunday morning rotation, about one workshop a month. What we’ll ask of our volunteers is that they attend four workshops per year, two at the summit and two on Sundays. Outside the summit that’s only one every six months. And it’s on Sunday while they’re already here so it’s convenient.
The end result is that the average volunteer will get about 4 hours of ministry training per year. Very motivated volunteers could get a lot more. We’re thinking we could develop different tracks for new and experienced volunteers. We can even hand off some of these workshops to volunteers and develop even more training topics.
This all kind of happened by accident but I’m really excited about the possibilities. I’d love to hear what’s working for you.
Posted in Blog, Children's Ministry, Leadership, Volunteers | Comments (2)
Tweet-ups, 3am web shows and the Orange Conference April 29th, 2009
Had a great night last night. A lot of that is thanks to a couple young guys that I work with at Brookwood Church, JC and Josh. They’ve been using blogs and social media to connect with people for years. So, after watching them for a couple of months I decided to join twitter about a year ago and I started blogging about 3 months ago.
The result of all this is that last night I got to meet an incredible group of children and student pastors that I may have never met if it weren’t for social media. We’re in Atlanta for the Orange Conference and last night we joined about 50-60 folks at the Varsity for a “tweet-up.” Not sure I would have known what that was a year ago but I’m glad I do now.
I’ve been attending conferences for years. I usually float in and out. Hang out with my team, learn some great stuff, and that’s about it. But now, coming to the Orange Conference feels more like a reunion. I get to see these guys that I’ve been talking to and sharing ideas with for months. We live literally in every corner of the country but if you were at the varsity last night you’d have probably thought we had all worked together for years. Most off us we’re meeting for the first time but there were inside jokes, shared stories, great ministry conversations, it was great.
So I’m thankful to our young guys for helping me enter the twitter/blogosphere. But in the light of day, I kinda of wonder if I staying up till 3am as they hosted a spontaneous live web show was the smartest move for me. I may be too old to be that cool. That said, I’m looking forward to a great day with my team but caffeine is a priority this morning so I’ll log off for now.
Posted in Blog, Children's Ministry, Thinking Out Loud | Comments (0)
5 things you might not know about me… April 22nd, 2009
Inspired by Pudge and JC here are 5 things you might not know about me…
1. I attended the University of South Carolina on a Tuba scholarship and majored in Tuba performance.
2. I learned to tie my shoes online… when I was 31 (really, check this site out you may have been tying your shoes wrong all your life)
3. A couple of my more colorful hobbies are balloon art and origami.
4. I once attended a wedding where Hulk Hogan was the best man and Howard Stern attended. (it was kinda weird to see Howard Stern sitting 5 pews ahead of me in church)
5. My wife danced in the pregame show of the Superbowl when it was in Atlanta. (that’s technically not about me… but it’s cool)
Ok, that’s enough about me let’s hear from you. Leave a comment or if you have your own blog post 5 things we might not know about you.
Tags: 5 things, Jessica Gable, me, shoe tying, super bowl, tuba, USC
Posted in Blog, Random | Comments (1)
Child Dedications March 16th, 2009
Last week Kenny Conley wrote a series of posts about Parent/Child Dedications. You should check out what he wrote he’s got some great thoughts.
Here’s part of my response to his post.
First let me say that I have wonderful staff. Patti Jo Mackey and Jenni Bowman are the main reasons our dedications are successful. Here’s what they do. About a month before dedication we have a dedication class for parents. This class is required and I think it is the most essential ingredient in our process. At the class Patti Jo helps families understand the significance and meaning of dedication as well as helping them lay a strong spiritual foundation for their kids. Also in the class we introduce several elements that we will use in the dedication. We have parents choose a life verse and dedication sponsors for their child (just someone who is important to the family and commits to pray for the child). We also give them a template to write a letter to their child.
We hold our dedication as a special service on Sunday afternoon where participants can invite their family and friends. We have special music, I present a brief challenge to parents then we have the families come up. Rather than just a cattle call we have families come up one at a time with their sponsors. Their sponsors read the child’s life verse then the parents read a portion of the letter they have written to the child. (If they can without crying. Some have their sponsor read the letter.) After each family has been introduced and read their letter, we close with vows from the parents and the audience, and I pray over the families. After the service we have a photographer and a nice reception.
This format is great for us. We have time to build into families. It’s personal and meaningful, mainly because families have put thought into what their doing and they come prepared. This format is also practical. We’ve had dedications with as many as 20 children and the service lasts a little less than an hour.
Here are a few things about our dedication I wanted to highlight:
Parent Class
Let me say again, the dedication class is the key to a successful Parent/Child Dedication. It’s also one of the best opportunities you’ll ever have to build into the lives of parents. Parents are highly motivated when their children are young. You’ll have a much higher percentage of parents attend a dedication class than you will most other forms of parent classes. If you want minister to parents you’ve got to bring you “A” game to the dedication class.
Dedication Letter
One of the best elements in our dedications is the parent letter. I learned this from Walter Draughon, a pastor I served with at FBC in St. Petersburg Florida. As part of his wedding services he had the couple write letters to one another and then he used those letters in the service. He brought the same concept to the Parent/Child Dedication. Walter introduced me to this idea and I’ve been using it ever since. When my daughter was dedicated my wife and I both wrote a letter for her dedication, and for us, it was the most special and personal part of the dedication. I can’t tell you how many families feel the same way. At Brookwood, it’s been a key to help make our dedications personal instead of a just being a “dog and pony” show. Nothing expresses the spirit of child dedication better than the parents’ own words. Plus, after the dedication, parents have a tangible and poignant reminder of the commitment they made that they can share with their kids for years to come.
Dedication Book
In preparation for the dedication we ask parents to: provide a picture of their child and a family picture, chose a life verse for their child, select dedication sponsors and write a letter to their child. It’s a lot to do but the parents’ preparation for the dedication is one of the most important ingredients in making the dedication significant. To help parents prepare, we created a dedication book that’s kind of like a memory book. We give parents the book during the dedication class and it walks them through dedication preparation. The book has a duel benefit. It’s a great keepsake for parents and it’s great for helping us get all the info and elements we need for the dedication in a timelier manner. Here’s a .pdf of the dedication book if you’re interested.
Hope this has been helpful for you and thanks again to Kenny for opening the dialog.
Tags: blog love, Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Child Dedications, Children, Children's Ministry, creative, Family Ministry, Parent Child Dedication, Parent Ministry, Resources
Posted in Blog, Children's Ministry | Comments (9)
Start Right March 16th, 2009
So, you’re thinking about starting a blog? Do you know about: hosting, urls, domain names, plugins, permalinks, php, .htaccess, apachee, index.php, seo, site redirects, mod_rewrites, widgets, ftp, chmod or the difference between 0644 and 0777 (besides 133 ☺) Well, I do, but I’d suggest that you not. Here’s the thing I started this blog a few weeks ago on a whim. Problem is, I hadn’t taken a lot of time to learn the basics. I just bought a domain name slapped it in an old web-host and got going. Fast forward a few weeks, and I’ve spent more hours trying to fix things on the blog than I have witting.
First, I didn’t have a good web host. Then I installed my blog in a sub-domain. This led to a site redirect. So when I tried to improve my seo (search engine optimization) I realized my permalinks were “ugly” but I couldn’t change them ☹ because my .htacces file was in the sub-domain not the root and then…. Sorry about that, I’ll get to the point.
If you want to start blogging, take your time and start right. Spend a little time researching the process. There’s a lot of good information out there and if you take a couple of days to check it out you might save yourself several weeks of heaches and a lot of details you’ll wish you never knew.
BTW… Isn’t this that why children’s ministry is so important. If we can help kids get started right, with a strong spiritual foundation. We can save them from years of frustration and confusion. Then, maybe, they can spend more time living for Jesus instead of fixing problems caused by careless mistakes.
Just a thought ☺
Tags: blogging, Children's Ministry, christianity, life, web hosting
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The Reinvention of VBS March 9th, 2009
I was blessed to grow up with VBS and it was always a highlight of my summers. So, about 15 years ago when I began children’s ministry it was a natural part of my ministry plan. Over the years I’ve been a part of some incredible VBS programs. Kids loved coming, they brought their friends and we had a great opportunity to share Jesus with kids in a creative way. But several years ago I began to see a shift. Even though the quality of our VBS program was getting better and better, and kids and parents loved what we were doing, attendance began to drop off.
As I began to talk to parents and volunteers and ask questions I discovered the problem. The two main VBS formats don’t work well for today’s families. (I believe they are working well in places but not overall) The most popular format has been a 9 am to noon program. As our culture shifts the number of single-parent homes and dual-income families is on the rise. A morning program is impractical for these families and they now make up a majority of our target audience.
Many churches have moved to an evening program to allow these families to attend. It also makes recruiting easier. And I expect the latter is the main reason for the rise of evening VBS programs. At face value this sounds like a good solution. The drawback is that with an evening program most of the people who come are already committed to your church. After a day of work, picking up the kids, fixing dinner and cleaning up, most families don’t want to get back out. And the evidence is that they don’t.
When I started at Brookwood a couple of years ago we had a choice to make. We could either ditch summer programming and pass up an opportunity or find a new way to do VBS. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, we decided to reinvent VBS.
In our reinvention we began with the need. Most families need some type of daytime childcare in the summer. So whatever we did would need to have a full day option. The core of VBS; the large group program, Bible teaching, crafts, recreation, etc… were still very viable, so we decided to keep that. In order to make it feasible and have enough help we would need a combination of volunteer and paid leaders. Finally, for a program of this scale to be affordable for a church there would have to be a cost to the participant.
What we ended up with was “Adventure Week.” Here’s how it works
Schedule
We decided to offer the best of both worlds. Our base program runs from 9 am to 2 pm. This portion of the day looks a lot like a seriously amped up VBS with extended large group programming, sites that run 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes and the addition of a hot lunch. We also have an outside program come in for one of our sites. Last year we had “Mad Science” this year we’ve invited “Wildlife Wonders.” For those who need a full day option we offer early and after care. Early care runs from 7:30 am to 9 am and after care runs from 2 pm to 6 pm. Early and after care have their own programming that is an extension of the main program, though they are more laid back.
Leadership
Our children’s ministry team and volunteers lead the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week. I was worried at first that the additional two hours would be a hindrance to volunteers, but we didn’t experience that. Early and after care are led by paid staff. For us, many of these guys were part of our childcare staff augmented with older teens.
Cost
Everyone attends the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week for a cost of $50. Early care is an additional $25 and after care is additional $50. So, if a child attends the full day the cost is $125. In our area that’s $10 less than YMCA day camp. We give most of our volunteers a 25% discount. Other volunteers with a larger role get a 50% or 100% discount. We don’t make any money from Adventure Week. Registration covers about 75% of our cost with the remaining 25% coming from our children’s ministry budget.
Of course, when we introduced a cost nobody complained. (and if you’ll buy that… ) Truth is, we had some complaints (oddly enough someone from another church who had no intention of attending Adventure Week called to “set us straight.”) but most people realized that the cost was a bargain for what they were getting. My experience has been, that it’s usually only “church people” who expect to get stuff for free. Most of our community expects to pay for things.
Result
Our first year of Adventure Week was an incredible success. We planned to start small without much promotion and registration still sold out. We had plenty of leaders and the program was incredible. The feedback from parents and volunteers was overwhelmingly positive. About 25% of our attendees took advantage of our full day option. This year we’re increasing our capacity by 50%. We’d do more but we don’t want to outpace our volunteer leadership. Registration opened last week and it appears we’ll sell out again this year.
I realize that this is not groundbreaking, but it’s working for us. I know there are lots of other successful summer ministry ideas out there. I’d love to hear what’s working for you. So, take a minute and leave a comment to let us know how you’re reaching kids over the summer.
Tags: Adventure Week, Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children, Children's Ministry, ministry, Swamp Stomp, VBS, Volunteers
Posted in Adventure Week, Blog, Children's Ministry | Comments (0)