Jodi Quinn!
Congratulations to Jodi for winning, and thank you for all of you sharing your game changing stories.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Amy Dolan Re-Imagines Partnering with Parents
I love Amy Dolan‘s perspective on spiritual formation and how to engage families from all walks of life. Check out this amazing post over at her blog on what I believe is a much better way to see what are job is as children’s ministers when it comes to partnering with parents.
“helping parents identify things that get in their way, and then leading each to cast aside the preventers. a new way of partnering with parents.”
Happy Holidays? Does it really matter?
We just heard yet another news story about the evergreen tree with colored lights on it being called a “holiday tree” this year. We attended the Phoenix Symphony yesterday for a wonderful afternoon of “Holiday Pops,” where Santa Claus wished us all “Happy Holidays.” And last night a very kind Home Depot employee noticed my VBS t-shirt before telling us that he refuses to obey corporate policy and always wishes people a “Merry Christmas.”
Here's a great post from Gordon West about how we need to spend more time living out Jesus every day and not focus just on "putting Christ back in Christmas."
Book Review: Clean Water for Elirose by Ariah Fine
It’s been exciting to see children’s ministries all over the place helping children see and respond to global social issues. The challenge, though, for children’s ministry leaders and parents is finding resources to help children grab onto and understand issues like building wells for clean water. It’s such a foreign concept for children who grow up not having to worry about whether or not the water they are about to drink will make them sick or not. Continue reading
Holy Week…
(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Javier Delgado Esteban)
I know I’m a bit late on this, but this past Sunday (Palm Sunday) marked the beginning of Holy Week in the church calendar. I’m curious to find out if any of you do anything with the kids and families in your churches for Holy Week? It seems to me that we tend to pass up the events leading up to Easter and focus on the resurrection event. Don’t get me wrong, I get excited about Christ’s resurrection and look forward to celebrating Easter from year to year! I think we miss out, though, by taking that hop, skip and a jump from the celebratory nature of Palm Sunday to the even bigger celebration of Easter Sunday.
One.Life Blogging Project Thank You
(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by SimplyShutterbug)
A HUGE thanks to all of the contributors to the One.Life blogging project. This was an independent project of mine so each of the contributors got nothing in return for their participation other than the opportunity to share their thoughts on, what I believe, to be a valuable book. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the posts, I encourage you to do so by clicking on the links below. I also encourage you to check out the blogs of each of the contributors.
We’d love to hear your thoughts, as well, on each of the topics covered so as a little incentive I will be giving away a copy of One.Life to one lucky person! Here’s what you have to do in order to be entered into the drawing, which will be Saturday, April 16 at midnight (PST):
- Comment on at least one of the blog posts below (you get one entry per blog post you comment on)
AND
- Tweet this or put this on your Facebook: “How would you answer, ‘What is a Christian?’ Join the conversation & win a copy of One.Life by Scot McKnight! http://bit.ly/g5Lz2q”
Be sure to check out all of the posts in this book blogging project:
- March 28 – Chapter 1: One.Life – Doug Olson
- March 29 – Chapter 2: Kingdom.Life – Eli Suddarth
- March 30 – Chapter 3: Imagined.Life – Dan Scott
- March 31 – Chapter 4: Love.Life – Emily Mullens
- April 1 – Chapter 5: Justice.Life – Noel Walker
- April 2 – Chapter 6: Peace.Life – Jesse Smith
- April 3 – Chapter 7: Wisdom.Life – Jared Massey
- April 4 – Chapter 8: Church.Life – Tim Shiels
- April 5 – Chpater 9: Committed.Life – Chris Lema
- April 6 – Chapter 10: Sex.Life – Henry Zonio
- April 7 – Chpater 11: Vocation.Life – Helen Lee
- April 8 – Chapter 12: Eternity.Life – Christiaan VandenHuevel
- April 9 – Chapter 13: God.Is.Love.Life – Henry Zonio
- April 10 – Chapter 14: Cross.Life.Ressurection.Life – Barbara Graves
One.Life Blogging Project: Chapter 14 – Cross.Life.Ressurection.Life
(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Babo Style)
This is part of a book blogging project for Scot McKnight‘s book, One.Life. In this blogging project, various contributors will be looking at each chapter of the book as McKnight unfolds his answer to the question, “What is a Christian?” I believe that what McKnight has to say will challenge each of us in different ways on how we view what it means to follow Jesus and how we help children and families understand that. Please interact with what is written here in the comments section below. Also, I encourage you to pick up One.Life and read along with us adding your thoughts and impressions as well.
The review for chapter 14 is submitted by Barbara Graves. Barbara has been in children’s ministry for over 30 years and currently is the children’s pastor at Momentum Church in Woodstock, Georgia. She has been married to her husband, Chris for 27 years and they have 4 grown children. She loves to read and tweet, and drinks way too much coffee. You can also catch Barbara at her blog, Caffeinated Adventure.
Continue reading
One.Life Blogging Project: Chapter 13 – God.Is.Love.Life
(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Leonard John Matthews)
This is part of a book blogging project for Scot McKnight‘s book, One.Life. In this blogging project, various contributors will be looking at each chapter of the book as McKnight unfolds his answer to the question, “What is a Christian?” I believe that what McKnight has to say will challenge each of us in different ways on how we view what it means to follow Jesus and how we help children and families understand that. Please interact with what is written here in the comments section below. Also, I encourage you to pick up One.Life and read along with us adding your thoughts and impressions as well.
The review for chapter 13 is submitted by Henry Zonio. Henry has 20 years’ experience in children’s ministry as a volunteer and a full time Children’s Pastor in the USA and Canada. Henry is the founder of Elemental CM, which exists to move ministry to children and families forward through coaching, consulting, and conversation on the blog. Henry has served in children’s ministry leadership roles in multiple denominations and has led children’s ministry workshops and breakouts at various conferences. Having lived in warmer climates like California and more frigid ones like Thunder Bay, Ontario, Henry has taken his love of watersports to new levels from swimming and wakeboarding to sitting in a sauna followed by rolling in the snow.
Continue reading
One.Life Blogging Project: Chapter 12 – Eternity.Life
(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by Newtown grafitti)
This is part of a book blogging project for Scot McKnight‘s book, One.Life. In this blogging project, various contributors will be looking at each chapter of the book as McKnight unfolds his answer to the question, “What is a Christian?” I believe that what McKnight has to say will challenge each of us in different ways on how we view what it means to follow Jesus and how we help children and families understand that. Please interact with what is written here in the comments section below. Also, I encourage you to pick up One.Life and read along with us adding your thoughts and impressions as well.
The review for chapter 12 is submitted by Christiaan VandenHeuvel. VandenHeuvel has been serving as Children’s Pastor in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 17 years. As part of a fast-growing church he currently oversees ministry to over 1,000 children each weekend at Cornerstone Fellowship. He blogs at kidmintoday.com and at christiaanity.com.
Continue reading
One.Life Blogging Project: Chapter 11 – Vocation.Life
(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by George Vnoucek)
This is part of a book blogging project for Scot McKnight‘s book, One.Life. In this blogging project, various contributors will be looking at each chapter of the book as McKnight unfolds his answer to the question, “What is a Christian?” I believe that what McKnight has to say will challenge each of us in different ways on how we view what it means to follow Jesus and how we help children and families understand that. Please interact with what is written here in the comments section below. Also, I encourage you to pick up One.Life and read along with us adding your thoughts and impressions as well.
The review for chapter 11 is submitted by Helen Lee. Helen is longtime Christian journalist, as well as a homeschooling mom to three boys 8 years old and under, and wife to classical pianist and Moody Bible Institute professor Brian Lee. She is also the author of the newly released book The Missional Mom: Living With Purpose in the Home and in the World. Helen has served in her church’s children’s ministry for as long as she has had kids and currently teaches a class of junior high school girls, which means that she has many conversations about topics she knows nothing about. You can follow Helen on Twitter (@helenleeauthor and @themissionalmom) or connect with her on Facebook.
