CMBrainTrust.com has Landed!

I am so excited to let you know about a new project a friend of mine, Randy Triplett has been working on, that has gone live today! Check out CHILDREN’S MINISTRY BRAIN TRUST the newest Children’s Ministry Website. CMBT provides a singular location for all knowledge and wisdom relating to Children’s Ministry. Everything they do within the Children’s Ministry Brain Trust is created with the specific purpose of assisting you in being the best Children’s Ministry Professional you can be.

CMBT can be defined as follows:

“A collective of children’s ministry experts sharing insights and best practices to assist in the wisdom and knowledge of all who are called to Children’s Ministry.”

Knowledge: this refers to all practical information that relates to Children’s Ministry. Sources of information include but are not limited to products, services, administration, leadership, teaching, recruiting, policies and procedures, resources, etc relating to Children’s Ministry.

Wisdom: this refers to wisdom gained by Children’s Ministry professionals who have been in the field for many years and are willing to share it freely, with those who could benefit from it.

CMBT’s Mission is to assist those who have dedicated themselves to seeing children accept Jesus as their personal savior and nurture their spiritual growth as outlined in the Holy Bible by creating the largest, daily useful and relevant, information database of knowledge and wisdom in the world.

 Plus this month all who register with CMBT are automatically entered in the Laptop giveaway.

Christ in the Chaos

(image originally uploaded to Flickr by pixel pro photography south africa)

Here are some thoughts I sent to the 4th and 5th grade leaders that I have the privilege of working with at MPPC:

I’m not sure where the week went… I don’t know about you, but every year I promise to slow down at Christmas (the other time is Easter). Then Christmas rushes on by like a bullet train, leaving me gasping for breath and my head spinning. I feel bad for not reflecting… for not having that “Silent Night” moment. As I’ve been writing the storyteller scripts for the Christmas lessons, I rediscovered something: there was nothing calm or “silent” about the circumstances before, during and after Jesus’ birth. From a scandalous pregnancy, to a 3-day journey on foot, to a baby born amongst the smell of hay and animal dung, to shepherds running through the town, to a busy temple where two people prophesied over him, to strange foreigners visiting from the East, to a flight to a foreign country avoiding a homicidal king…  and not to mention angels popping up here and there! God did not stop time and space when he showed up. He jumped into the fray (and dare I say made it even more chaotic). If he can do it back then, I’m pretty sure he can do it today. So, instead of beating myself up this year for not slowing down, I think I’ll take Jesus’ hand and jump into the craziness with him. And just maybe, along the way, he’ll open my eyes to see how he can use me to bless those around me in little and big ways.

Adjusting to a Digital Understanding of Biblical Literacy

I wrote an article for the September/October 2011 issue of Children’s Ministry Magazine entitled “There’s An App for That.” In it I talk about the implications of what the digital age does to our understanding of biblical literacy as well as how we can instill a love of reading the Bible in digital learners. You can download the article here. Even better, you can subscribe to Children’s Ministry Magazine here and receive a years worth of amazing material that will enrich your children’s ministry.

Just as a teaser, here are three of the points I make about helping kids read the Bible:

• Inspire children to hear and read the Bible as a whole
• Help children see the Bible as more than an instruction booklet
• Help children understand that the Bible has something to say about how they live from day to day

You’ll have to read the article if you want those points unpacked You can, then, hop on over to the Kidology forums where you can discuss the article and your thoughts about biblical literacy today. (If you aren’t already a member of Kidology, what are you waiting for?)

Speaking of things digital… I’m finishing up my presentation notes for a workshop that I am doing at Group’s Kidmin Conference in just over a week entitled, “Teaching Digital Learners.” I’m really looking forward to facilitating this workshop and the insights the participants and I will be learning from each other. If you haven’t registered for the Kidmin Conference, you might still be able to squeeze in. Online registration is closed, but you can call (859) 940-5847 to check on availability!

If you have registered, I look forward to meeting you there. In addition to the workshop, I’ll be part of the What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry conversations happening along with Amy Dolan, Matt McKee and Greg Baird. I’d love to chat, have coffee, or even share a meal with you and/or your team. Whether or not you plan on attending the “Teaching Digital Learners” workshop, I encourage you to hop on over to the Kidmin Conference discussion forum and join the conversation going on there about this topic. Your contributions will greatly add to the workshop.

Following Jesus?

http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/flash/player-licensed.swf

If you haven’t watched the above video, I think it’s a great way to reflect on Holy Week.

Then, if you’re interested in an awesome take on the events of Good Friday, take a listen to John Ortberg’s message about that Friday. I promise you, it’s worth it! As I listened to the message, I was overwhelmed by Jesus’ love for me.

What Are We Teaching About Worship?

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I’ve seen this video pop up on the Burnside Writers’ Blog and on the iMonk blog.

Now, I want to be careful here. I don’t want to bash the people in this video. I’m sure most of them were honestly trying to worship God. In the churches I grew up in, I remember going to gatherings which had elements like this (and I was uncomfortable then as well as now).

The question that still goes through my head when watching gatherings like this one is, “Why?”

Why do you think this is worship?
Why do you choose to worship in this way?
Why are you doing what you are doing?

My nine-year-old son was watching the video with me. I asked him, “What makes this different from what we do at camp, on Sundays?… We do actions to songs… Some of you dance around during the singing time…”

I love what he said. “I don’t get what they are saying. We sing songs about who God is and how much we love him, and we do actions and dance around not to get attention but for God. They look like they are just dancing around.”

Again, I’m not trying to pass judgement on the people in the video. There’s nothing wrong with dancing around and twirling your socks in the air. But I have a hard time seeing this as “worship.”

That begs the question, “Well, then, what is worship?”

The best definition I’ve found for worship comes from Teaching Kids Authentic Worship by Kathleen Chapman. She defines worship as “paying attention only to God.” She compares it to a boy playing a video game. The only thing he is paying attention to is that video game. He doesn’t hear anyone else, he doesn’t see anything else… his whole attention is focused on that game. In that instance, he is “worshipping” that game. The same goes for worshipping God. When we do something for God, paying attention to him while we do it, then we are doing that something as worship whether it’s singing, dancing, reading the Bible, taking out the trash… whatever. Worship is not about me, it’s about God. Worship doesn’t simply result in warm fuzzies, but results in action… in mission.

• How would you define worship?
• What do you teach kids worship is? How do you teach worship to them?

What About Theology?

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Joe Thorn)

I’ve been wondering, lately, whether we in church world (especially in children’s ministry) are overemphasizing a culture that is centered around leadership. There are countless books, articles, blogs (mine included), and conferences/workshops that focus on leadership issues. How can I be a better leader? How do I manage volunteers? How do I recruit volunteers? How do I lead up, down, all around, touch your toes, do the hokey pokey…?

Take a look at your bookshelf. I’m assuming you have one. How many books there are “leadership” books?

OK… how many are in the “how to do ministry” category?

Done? Alright, now how many books on your shelf deal with theological issues?

More than likely, you’ve got a boatload of leadership books and how-to books and not so much, if any, in the theological realm. I have to admit that until the past few years my collection of theological books was limited to my Bible dictionary and the systematic theology textbook I had in university. I think I had a couple more, but I never looked in those. I didn’t have time. I was too busy trying to be a better leader and find out better ways to do children’s ministry. I grew up in church, I read the Bible, I taught from the Bible… why would I need to bother myself with boring theology books?

I know you’ve thought the same thing! You probably still do. So what? What’s the big deal with theology anyway? All you have to do is read the Bible and then teach what it says, right? Theology just gets in the way of the Spirit moving, right?

Before I continue, let me just get on the record saying that, no, I don’t think you have to go to seminary or have extensive theological training or knowledge to be a good children’s minister. What I am saying, though, is that a continual growing knowledge of theology can make you a great children’s minister.

Yes, leadership and how-to’s are important, but I think we short-change the children and families we minister to when we remain ignorant of the theology behind what and why we teach.

Whether you want to admit it or not, we all have filters we use when we read and interpret the Bible. We don’t have to be aware of them. They are there. When we prepare a lesson, it isn’t simply a matter of reading the Bible and then teaching what it says because we all interpret what is being said differently.

Here’s another way of putting it:

1. You pick up the Bible and read it.
2. What you read goes to your brain.
3. What you read goes through an interpretation filter that has been formed by what was taught to you, what you’ve grown up with, and what you’ve read.
4. That interpretation filter colours your understanding of what you read in the Bible.
5. You teach out of that understanding and contribute to the formation of interpretation filters in children.

Too many of us are unaware of our filters (or lenses) that we use to interpret Scripture. Gaining a better understanding of theology helps us to discover those filters and help us to find newer, more refined filters. Theology helps us to make sure that the filters we do have are within orthodoxy. Theology also helps us understand that there are many ways to read and understand Scripture. (Take for example looking at scripture through the lenses of a new perspective on Paul theological understanding as opposed to the “older” perspective.)

While building and developing leaders is important and while learning the how-to’s of ministry is important, far more important is a better understanding of theology.

I’m not necessarily advocating everyone go out and start reading N. T. Wright, Scot McKnight, J. I. Packer, and others (it wouldn’t hurt). I do think, though, that much more time and effort needs to go into helping those on the frontlines of children’s ministry have an elementary understanding of why they teach what they do or why their faith community may have a slightly different understanding of things than the church down the road.

So, please put down that book on the 15 unchangeable truths of a micro-manager. Please stop reading that article on the perfect volunteer appreciation mug. Please step away from the curriculum for a while. You can get back to all of those in a bit. Spend some time learning the difference between Reformed theology and Wesleyan-Armenean theology and how that affects your presentation of grace. Spend some time learning the different views on atonement and the implications each has for how you present salvation to a child.

If we truly believe we are called to disciple children and families, then we better put a higher emphasis on understanding more of what we want to disciple them in… Because right now, it looks like we know how to better disciple people to become better leaders than we do better followers of Christ.

 

Just Some Random Thoughts

Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here. It’s just been crazy busy doing my job. I sometimes wonder how regular bloggers find time to blog, especially those who are in children’s minsitry. I am intrigued at the number of blogs out there for children’s ministry and the number of blogs that children’s ministry leaders are reading. I wonder if all that time reading blogs is actually beneficial or if it is taking us away from doing ministry. I know that is somewhat inauthentic of me to be quesitoning blogs since I am blogging at this moment.

My main concern is that now anyone can post what they want with no peer review and there are many out there who read these blogs and take what is written in them as authoritative. I think there is a HUGE danger to that. Blogging also perpetuates our narcissitic egos that people actually want to read/hear what we have to say. We, in essence close our minds to thoughtful and reflective discussion and simply air our opinions as if our opinions are the only ones that matter.

I find myself starving, once more, for face-to-face networks with people I can spend time with in person. I do value the networking that happens virtually, but there is only so much that can happen through the ether of the information highway.

Especially in children’s ministry, I think we need to step away from our computers and RSS feeds more often and get out there and actually talk with those children’s ministry leaders that may just be down the road. Get out there and read something that is peer-reviewed and learn… actually learn something new.

So, I guess I better get done with my own (somewhat hypocritical) rant and get of this computer for a while as well.

Presenting the Gospel

What do you consider to be “presenting the Gospel?” I think that many of us take it for granted that we are all talking about the same thing when it comes to “presenting the Gospel” to people, especially children. There are different approaches to it, though. As I interact with and speak with more and more children’s ministers, I find that there are different definitions as to what “presenting the Gospel” means.

I think that we’ve accepted the cultural definition that in order to present the Gospel to someone you have to walk them through the fundamentals of faith or the Romans road and taken that to be the ONLY biblical way of presenting the Gospel.

What would happen if we stopped seeing the unchurched as people who need to be fixed and simply see them as someone on a journey that needs our love and acceptance. Now, I am not saying that we affirm the sin in their lives. I believe that it is possible to be accepting of people without affirming or condoning their sins. Hey, we all deal with sin in our own lives.

How much more effective would we be to build relationships with people and allow our lives to present the Gospel. I think we preempt the Holy Spirit by rushing to verbally lay out the gospel before people without them opening the door first. We plant seeds by our love. Water them by our love. The Holy Spirit is the one who grows that seed into a desire to know more about who Jesus is and what it means to follow Jesus.

I can’t help but think that reaching out to a community in service through things like an active food bank, teen mothers’ groups, etc. (or even offering to rake your neighbors lawn, shovel someone’s driveway of snow, wash your neighbor’s car) do more to spread the Gospel than going through an Evangelism Explosion class and asking people questions like, “If you were to die, do you know what would happen to you?”

Again, I am not saying that we shouldn’t ask someone to cross the line of faith and make Jesus Lord of their life. What I am saying is that we should stop trying to artificially create those opportunities and allow the Holy Spirit to open up those avenues through our daily interactions with people. After all, it is possible to surrender your life to God at places other than events, altars and Sunday school.

Outreach tactics?

We just had our Easter Egg hunt this past weekend. It was the first time I had planned one. It was a lot of fun. Anyway, as I was planning for the event and afterward as I reflected on the event, I was wondering at how many times we try and use events like these to “present the Gospel” to people coming. Many times I feel like when we make people sit through a traditional Gospel presentation before allowing them to have the fun most are there for, we have somehow pulled a bait and switch. We spend so much time advertising an egg hunt or harvest carnival or whatever and leave out in our advertising that their will be a mini sermon (or full blown one in some instances). People innocently come to have fun and many leave feeling as if they just had been tricked into hearing how they are sinners who are headed to hell if they don’t ask Jesus into their hearts.

Don’t get me wrong… I am not saying that you have to remove any aspect of God from these events. People aren’t dumb. They know they are coming to a church. They expect to hear something. What if, though, instead of hearing a sermon, people are shown the love of God through genuine relationships, a quality event and competent volunteers? Would that be wrong? Would that be a waste?

For our egg hunt event, we ended up singing two songs at the beginning… sort of a mini concert. The songs were Jesus the Soccer Star and The Bug Song. Both are from Rob Biagi’s V.I.P. to G-O-D CD that is available in the Kidology store. We, then, had a draw for some large plush animals and gave them directions as to how the hunt was going to happen. Before dismissing everyone, I invited anyone who did not have a place to go for Easter to come to one of our services.

It was a positive experience for everyone. The only thing that’d I’d probably change is to mention that there would be a mini program before the hunt. The only reason for having that, though, is because we have to do our hunt indoors due to weather here in Thunder Bay around Easter. It is practically impossible to have an outdoor hunt with 938 ppl when the snow just melted and the ground is squishy.

I’m not sure how many ppl took up our offer to return, but I do know that I made an impact on our community as far as to the professionalism and care we took in offering this family event. The local newspaper came and took pictures only to place a 1/4 page-sized pic on page three. We joked that the picture was bigger than the pope’s on the front page Also, a couple of radio stations had picked up on our ad and advertised for us. On Sunday morning one of my small group leaders mentioned that he heard one of the DJs on Saturday afternoon talk about how much fun his family had at the hunt and how well it was done. BTW, this was a DJ on one of the more popular 70′s, 80′s, 90′s mix stations in our area.

Anyway, I’ve been on an interesting journey in ministry. Five years ago, I would’ve said, “Of course you have a ‘gospel message’ at these events. Why waste an opportunity to tell people about Jesus.” Over the past five years… especially the past six months being at my current church, I’ve been challenged as to what it means to “present the Gospel.” Do we have to open our mouths to do it? I think we do far more to advance the Gospel by our actions. When we give to people with no expectation of anything in return… including having to listen to us talk about God. I think, too many times, we try and help the Holy Spirit to convert people. I know, I know that we still must speak truth and tell people about Christ, but when do we do that?

Ivy Beckwith, in her book Postmodern Children’s Ministry, brings up a valid point that most churches today get caught up in how many ppl get saved from Sunday to Sunday or from event to event. Salvation is seen at “The Goal.” Is it the goal, though? Is it the finish line? What happens after ppl cross the line of faith and make Christ the Lord of their lives? Many times we hand them a Bible, tell them to read it, pray, go to churchk, and oh yeah don’t forget to tithe.

We forget that Christianity should be an adventure. It should be exciting. To steal a term from Erwin McManus, Christianity should be barbaric. (If you haven’t read The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus, stop reading this and go get yourself a copy!) Making Jesus the Lord of your life is simply the beginning… not the end. We would all say amen to that, but are we actually living out that philosophy?

I can’t help but think that when we say things like, “We had ____ people get saved at ______ event,” that we trivialize Christianity. Christianity is more than just a destination.

When it comes to large events, I think the emphasis should be on building relationship. Yes, present the truth, but it doesn’t always have to be “in your face.” In a world that is becoming more and more cynical towards the church, we need to reach out in love. We need to give our best. We need to offer programs and events that are professional, well thought out and organized. We need to listen first and earn the right to be heard later. We can’t do that from Sunday to Sunday. (Although, what we do on weekends should be top notch.) The only people who come in our doors are the ones who want to hear what we are saying. We have to “earn trust” by doing those things outside of our walls.