Posts Tagged ‘ministry’
How’s your vision? September 24th, 2009
I’m continuing a series of post on what I’ve been learning about recruiting volunteers for children’s ministry. You can check out the earlier posts below.
“Help we need more volunteers!”
“How not to recruit”
A couple of weeks ago Rick Warren posted a tweet that went something like this,
“You don’t have a giving problem, you have a vision problem. People don’t give to need they give to vision.”
I’m not sure you could say that any better and with the situation many churches are facing in the current economy, his advice is even more relevant. As I was thinking about this tweet it occurred to me, the same thing is true with volunteers.
“You don’t have a volunteer problem you have a vision problem.”
If you want people to volunteer for children’s ministry you have got to lead with vision. Vision – not a mission statement. A mission statement is a goal, and it’s good to have a goal, but it’s your goal or your ministry’s goal. It’s relevant to you and your current volunteers because it provides direction, but vision is different.
Vision is your ability to see the future. To look beyond what’s happening right now in your ministry and see what could be. Before anyone else can see this future you have to see it so clearly that you can almost touch it and taste it. This type of vision will capture people’s attention and inspire them to action.
We talk a lot in children’s ministry circles about how parents are willing to get so involved in sports or school but not in church. Why is that? Vision! Every time my daughter get’s into her little ballet outfit or dances in a recital, I can vividly see her all grown up and flying across a stage in front of hundreds of people. Every time she puts on her backpack and steps out of the car for school, I imagine her successful future. Because of this, I’m willing to give my time and talent (and money) to help her succeed in these areas.
I think the truth is, sports, schools, dance – the reason they get parents attention – is because they’re telling a better story than we are. They present a brighter more tangible, more visible future.
If you want people to volunteer in children’s ministry, or any ministry, you can’t lead with the need, you can’t lead with your goals or even the “opportunity.” If you want people to join you in ministry you’ve got to tell a compelling, tactile, visible story that presents a future that people desperately want to see become reality.
I hear children’s pastor say from time to time, “I’m trying to discover God’s vision,” or “I don’t know what the vision is.” Of course you do! It’s what inspires you to do ministry week after week. It’s God’s call to ministry in you life. Think about it, children’s ministry is hard. It’s rewarding but there are many elements of children’s ministry that just stink (like diapers) but you do it – and continue to do it – and love it, despite all the hardship that goes along with the job. Why, because God has given you a desire and a vision of the future that compels you to keep moving. What you have to do is to dig into the picture, the vision, that God has given you and find a way to tell that story to others.
When you understand this your vision and your story becomes the heart of your recruiting. Tell your story over and over again to those around you and anyone else who will listen to you or even slows down near you. Keep telling your story until you’re sick of hearing it. Over time something amazing will start to happen. The people closest to you will start to see the picture and they’ll start telling the story… and it will spread. When this happens people will begin to show up, not in droves, but little by little. The difference in these people is that they are coming because they can see the same future you see and they want to see that future become a reality. Even better, people who respond to vision will be more committed to realizing the vision than the person who is just responding to a need or a goal.
So, what keeps you in ministry week after week? What’s your story? What’s your vision and how can you begin to share that with others so they can begin to see what God has already allowed you see.
Tags: Children, Children's Ministry, enlistment, Leadership, ministry, Recruiting, team, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Volunteers | Comments (1)
How not to recruit September 21st, 2009
I’m continuing a series of post on what I’ve been learning about recruiting volunteers for children’s ministry. You can check out the first post below.
“Help we need more volunteers!”
So, what are we doing to recruit volunteers? I’m glad you asked… but let me start with what we haven’t done.
We haven’t publicized our need. We haven’t asked for help from the pulpit or in the bulletin. We haven’t held any enlistment campaigns. We haven’t sent letters of flyers home to parents (we did do this once a couple of years ago but we probably won’t again). We haven’t made “cold calls” to people not serving. We haven’t required people to serve… ok, enough of that. I think you get the picture.
Is there anything wrong with these approaches? No, they’re fine and sometimes necessary, but there are a couple of dangers that accompany these types of widespread approaches.
1. You look desperate.
“But, I am desperate” Yeah, I know… me too, but we can’t appear that way. Who wants to climb aboard a sinking ship or get involved with a ministry that appears needy? People want to be a part of a winning team and if they think you’re floundering they’ll avoid you like the plague. If you want to publicize something don’t start with the need, start with your wins. Tell people what’s going great. Then let them know that they could be a part of it… if they want to.
2. People respond out of guilt.
Most of the time the people who respond to public appeals for volunteers respond out of guilt. This might seem fine at first, but trust me, you don’t want these people. Not that they’re not good people, but if they only signed on to your ministry because they felt obligated, then they’re probably not going to be happy or satisfied in their service. People who don’t enjoy what they doing in ministry are like time bombs. They are going to blow up and walk out. The only question is when and how many people are they going to take out with them.
To make sure we have people that aren’t responding out of guilt we give people lots of “outs” in our application process. We’re constantly telling volunteers that our goal is not to fill the holes but to help them find a place in ministry that they love. If that happens to be outside of children’s ministry, all the better. A lot of times people ask us, “Where is your greatest need?” We refuse to answer that question, because our need is not the key factor. What’s important is what are they good at and what will they enjoy doing. If they don’t know what that is, we’ll help them discover it, but our goal is that every volunteer loves their ministry and is equipped to do it well. We never want anyone who is guilted into serving
These are some of the things we’ve found that don’t work. But what is working… that’s still to come.
Tags: Children, Children's Ministry, enlistment, Leadership, ministry, Recruiting, team, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Leadership, Volunteers | Comments (1)
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)
Out of the “Church” Box April 8th, 2009
One of the volunteers in our children’s ministry is the CEO of a large company. I had the opportunity to meet with him yesterday to talk about the children’s ministry at our church. I thought I was meeting with him to help him understand what we’re trying to do in children’s ministry…
That’s not exactly how it went down.
Instead he spent an hour and a half telling me why our children’s ministry wasn’t as effective as it could be. Now, You have to know this guy to appreciate him. He’s not a jerk. Most guys who try to tell you what your doing wrong are just complaining or trying to grab power. But this guy loves God, loves our church, loves our pastor and I know he wants what’s best for us.
Even though I knew all this I was still a little defensive. Yeah, this guy knows a lot, but he doesn’t know anything about leading a children’s ministry. I tried to do what I know I’m supposed to do in this situation and just listen and have an open mind. But I have to admit I’m not very good at that, so instead I went with the “healthy debate” approach.
At one point as we were “discussing” small group environments I mentioned something about Northpoint church. The response I got from this guy was interesting,
“Who the h— Is Northpoint?”
The thing is, he wasn’t being argumentative, he really didn’t know. At that’s when I realized something, most of my volunteers don’t know who Northpoint is either, and they don’t care to. I think it’s easy for us to get caught in the church box. If you’re in ministry it’s where you spend most of your time. We go to church conferences, read ministry blogs, buy “church leadership” books. We become experts in field that doesn’t always relate to the people we’re leading. Just because I know what I’m doing it doesn’t mean my volunteers know what I’m doing. I think it’s possible that we become blind to this because when we start spouting off all our “church knowledge” to our volunteers they just assume we’re right and back off.
Fortunately, the guy I was talking to isn’t the type to “back off.” He didn’t have all the answers. Some of his ideas we’re way off. But he did have a very different perspective and he asked some questions in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. At the end of the day talking to this guy who knew nothing about ministry helped me learn a lot about how to do ministry.
I’ll wrap this up with a few of questions for you. How do get out of the “church box?” Who are you talking to that challenges your ideas and perceptions? Who has a completely different outlook on life that could challenge your status quo? If you don’t have someone like that I’d encourage you to seek them out.
Also let me hear from you. What are some of the ways you’ve found to get an outside view of church and ministry?
Tags: Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children's Ministry, Leadership, ministry, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Children's Ministry, Leadership | Comments (3)
Lead the Leader – Pt 1 April 6th, 2009
Last week I introduced a series of posts based on lessons I learned in a workshop I attended years ago. (apparently it was MANY years ago if you listen to some of those who commented on the post ☺) The workshop was called “Growing the Children’s Ministry You’ve Always Wanted” and it was presented by Gordon and Becky West. The principles I learned there have had a huge impact on my ministry and I wanted to pass them on in hopes that you will find them equally valuable.
First, an illustration. Take your best guess…
How much is an eight-foot piece of rebar worth. You know, plain old steel plugged into a mold and formed into a bar. Of course prices could vary, but usually it costs around $5. What if I took that same amount of steel and refined it a little more and formed it into horseshoes? Now it’s worth around $10.50. Ok, let’s take this a little further. Suppose I take the same amount of steel and form it into needles. If I did that it, it would be worth nearly $5000. Let’s take one final step. What if I took the same amount of steel contained in a $5 piece of rebar and formed it into fine Swiss watch mainsprings. In this case the steel would be worth nearly $250,000. That’s not an exaggeration!
Here’s the principle:
It’s not the material; it’s how the material is used that creates value.
Now a question:
How are you using your volunteers?
Are you investing in your people and doing everything you can to help them reach their full potential, or are you “plugging holes” with your volunteers? In the first five minutes of that workshop I realized why my children’s ministry was failing. It was because I thought I was a children’s minister. I mean, that was my title, right? However, the reality of children’s ministry is that if you want to grow the children’s ministry you’ve always wanted, you can’t be a children’s minister. You must be a volunteer minister.
If you have more than 10 kids in your ministry you’ve already got more kids than you can effectively minister to by yourself. Think about, Jesus chose to disciple only twelve men and He’s God. It would be pretty arrogant of me to think I could effectively disciple twenty, right? This means, if your children’s ministry is going to be effective, you’re going to have to invest most your your time not in working with kids but in developing volunteers.
There’s much more to come so stay tuned. For now, I’ll leave you with this. What are you doing to develop “watch spring” volunteers in your ministry?
Tags: Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children, Children's Ministry, Conferences, Gordon and Becky West, Leadership, ministry, Ministry 101, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Children's Ministry, Leadership, Volunteers | Comments (2)
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)
That’s how you know March 8th, 2009
I just finished watching the movie “Enchanted” with my daughter Brindley. I’ve probably watched this movie with her a dozen or more times. At the risk of cashing in one of my few remaining “man cards,” as well as my dignity, I have to admit, I love this movie!
I really do, especially the big musical number in the middle of the movie. I usually rewind the movie and watch this scene twice. The song is called “That’s How You Know” and it centers around the optimistic and naive heroine of the movie asking a very serious New York divorce lawyer if he’s doing enough to show his intended fiancé that he really loves her. Besides just being fun, the song always makes me consider, am I going out of my way to let my wife know that I love her? I love my wife more than I could ever express, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do everything I can (and then some) to try to show her how much I love her. How about you? Are you going out of your way to express love to those you care about?
This little song also reminded me of something we’re planning to teach our kids at Brookwood over Easter. We’re writing a series called “More Than A Story.” The basic idea is that the reason we find some stories so compelling, is that they capture or express an element of spiritual truth.
If you stop and think about it our God is the greatest lover of all, and He is the master of continually showing us how much He loves us. Maybe it’s a favorite song that stirs your soul, or a particularly amazing sunset that seems to be painted just for you. It could be a place that inspires you or holding your child in your arms. It often overwhelms me that God created such a vast and expansive world that still uniquely speaks His love to me as an individual. And, that’s how I know He loves me.
Tags: Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children's Ministry, christian living, christianity, creative, creative process, creative team, curriculum, life, ministry, music
Posted in Christian Life, Thinking Out Loud | Comments (0)
Snow Day and Sabbath March 3rd, 2009
Greenville, South Carolina has just recovered from a rare March blizzard. Ok, so it was just a few inches of snow, but it was still enough to shut down the city and knock out power to my house. So, I got to spend an impromptu day off at home with no electricity, no TV, no computer, no Internet, no… well you get the picture. It turned out to be a great day and it got me thinking that a snow day without power is probably a lot like what God intended the Sabbath to be. I’m not talking about some legalistic-based version of Sabbath but a day to just “unplug” and rest.
Here’s how the day went. I woke up early and spent a couple of hours reading while my wife and daughter slept in. (b.t.w. Ragamuffin Gospel = great book) Later that morning I played in the snow with my daughter. After playing in the snow for a while we decided to walk around the block and we got to chat with lots of our neighbors who were also out. When we got back I read some more, hung out with my wife and actually had time to take a nap. At the end of the day I felt rested, recharged and closer to God and my family.
To contrast, here’s how I probably would have spent the day with the power on. Wake up check my email and blog stats, (WooHoo three visits… thanks for reading mom) then a couple hours catching up on blogs, twitter, and facebook. After this I’d turn on the TV and probably end up watching re-runs of cooking shows, Mythbusters, How It’s Made, maybe some sports (if it’s fall, who actually watches basketball ☺) or whatever else was on. Before long the day would be over and I’d be left wondering where my “day off” went.
It’s always interesting to me how God finds new ways to get our attention. For me, it took a forced day off to show me what I was missing and I’m looking forward to building a lot more “unplugged” time into my life.
I’d love to hear from you. What does Sabbath look like for you and how do you “unplug?”
Tags: christian living, christianity, life, media, ministry, sabbath
Posted in Christian Life, Thinking Out Loud | Comments (0)