I’ve been reading a lot of material from educators and administrators about the end of the school year.  Recently, I came across a blog entry by a school principal who asked his readers (and teachers) to take stock of the past year.  So that’s what I did.

I realized that churches need people to help kids develop spiritually.  My interaction with local churches, both small and large, has generally been that the staff and volunteers are all doing their level best to help kids know Jesus and become more like Him.  Yet, I think we can take better strides in days to come.

One of the places here the men and women in children’s ministry can come to the leadership table is in the area of learning.  We are the champions of learning in our churches (because as I’ve argued before, we are in the trenches of Christian education as leaders in the field of children’s and family ministry).  Now I think Aaron Reynolds has already done the work for the Chief Creative Officer in children’s ministry, but who is sounding the horn for a Chief Learning Officer in children’s ministry?

Who will welcome and reward innovation, encourage reflection, share information, foster learning, experiment, and work across ministry silos?  I think the leaders best poised for this kind of work in the church are those involved in children’s and family ministry because we are already involved in education and we are process oriented.  What would this look like in your church?

I am proud to be a Children’s and Family Ministry graduate.  I think we are the ones who bring the touch of whimsy to the classroom – we’re always drawing and using markers.  It’s a fun program at Bethel Seminary, that of course would not be possible without the help of our own children and families.  It is an exciting thing to finally bring our families here to Bethel to actually see what we’ve been doing for the past few years.  Certainly without the help of family, this program is simply impossible.  So we owe family a great vote of thanks, I know I do.

And of course the Master of Arts in Children’s and Family Ministry program would not be possible without the leadership of Dr. Denise Muir-Kjesbo.  She has taken the time to show us all the different pieces of ministry, theology, and leadership – now we can step back and fully appreciate the whole.  I know I have appreciated her mentoring, insight, and friendship.

But if I could sum up my entire seminary experience in one story, I’d tell you about an online interaction I had just a few weeks ago.

I do quite a bit of online interaction (outside of Blackboard) because you should participate in the kind of community you are trying to build, and in my effort to help build the community of children’s and family ministry online through the Cory Center for Children’s and Family Ministry I came across a young pastor, much like myself, who was reflecting on seminary.  This pastor is a popular leader – his website is found on many blogrolls and he is often tweeted and retweeted.

The subject of his blog post the day I stumbled upon his site had to do with seminary.  He has a friend who went to seminary and has regretted the experience.  For this young pastor, seminary is a complete waste of time. He quipped, “Ultimately seminary teaches you answers to questions no one is asking.”

Now, this is a very witty turn of phrase.  It’s the kind of thing that you hear and you think, “Oh – that’s deep.”  But once you look at it you realize how ridiculous it sounds.

I could not pass up the opportunity to respond.  I simply stated that first and foremost, his friend did not go to Bethel.  Bethel has taught me so much about myself, about leadership, mentoring, and collaboration.  If he regretted his seminary experience, he must have gone elsewhere.

Second and more importantly, as spiritual leaders – we need to be asking questions no one is asking. That’s the locus of change, that’s the nexus of innovation, that’s where things start to happen all the way from the invention of the flexible straw and the intermittent wiper to greater understanding of the atonement or creation care.  The personal computer was not because created Bill Gates really loved using an abacus.  “It’s so easy, you just move the beads from one side to the other side.  This is the perfect instrument for handling complex mathematical problems.”  When we look at history, we will find that every innovation, every invention, every flash of genius took place precisely because men and women began asking a question no one else was asking.

I did not spend the last 4.5 years learning answers to every question.  Yes I did spend some time investigating the finer points of the Epic of Gilgamesh (and a tip of my two hats to Dr. Howard), but I spent more time finding out where to answer questions no one is asking and who to answer these questions with.  And the truth of the matter is that Bethel found a way to teach me, a guy who thought that I already knew the answer to everything, that unless men and women lead others through forays into the questions no one is asking, we will not be able to answer the questions people are asking.  And now I am confident as a children’s and family ministry leader that I can begin to address these questions and bring change and innovation to our field and leadership in my own ministry contex

Okay, first things first.  I’m totally pumped because the Cory Center website had over 5000 visitors in the month of May!  That’s amazing.  Hopefully you are finding the content provided by the Cory Center helpful in your ministry context.

Second, I just graduated.  This is a huge reason why the KidTech Blog has been on a little hiatus.  Finishing up schoolwork and attending graduation were at the top of my list.  Now I’m off for a wonderful vacation in Florida.

Third, I just saw the movie Up.  As a minister to children and families, this movie is considered research for you.  Watch it and see if you can really create an argument that you cannot teach by using pictures.  There is about sequence in the beginning of the film without words and it is moving and beautiful.  The amazing thing about Pixar is that people rave about the lifelike animation.  Somehow in Up, they found a way to portray lifelike emotion and relationship digitally.  It’s amazing and I need to go see it again.

Fourth, what am I supposed to do now that I’ve graduated?  I’m up for suggestions.  Tweet them to me!

I’m always looking for better ways to find things on the Internet.  As you know, the Internet is a vast sea of information that is constantly being searched and catalogued.

Scoopler

Organizes content as it happens.  Great for getting the latest viral videos or investigating cultural trends or current events.

Icon Finder

Provides small images or icons that might be useful for a blog or webpage.  The licensing information is readily available, so you do not have to run into any copyright issues.  Icon Finder also has a pretty cool looking Wall-E type logo.

Vunky

Only searches and delivers Photoshop tutorials!  I basically learned Photoshop through tutorials and I can tell you that it is a pain to find these items all on your own. Vunky changes all that.  If you want to get your feet wet with Photoshop or start developing some mad skills, Vunky might be a valuable resource for you.

I came across a great blog post the other day from elearnspace.com.  I wanted to share it with you whole before commenting.

“Dave Snowden’s recent post on emergent meaning or prescription reflects what many of us have been saying about education: “new approaches that have become possible since technology matured from process control and information flow to the networked, fragmented and semi-structured worlds of social computing. Here as communication flow increases, patterns of meaning start to emerge.” When information is bounded in courses, books, newspapers and other frameworks that are established by experts, the primary mode of interaction is intended to be absorption. The predominant view is that information can be known, packaged, and communicated. Through social media, information is increasingly fragmented. Frameworks created to communicate no longer have the pull they once did. Hence, even the concept of a course can be questioned. What if meaning emerges as a by-product of interaction…rather than something that exists externally (in the head of an expert) and is then communicated to prospective learners? What if coherence of subject matter is produced individually, rather than externally? This – or something close to it – is the fundamental change higher education needs to understand.”

I’ve shared before that children’s ministry leaders are in the business of Christian education.  We are educators.  As such, we have a responsibility to address educational issues.  Technology is such an issue.  As elearnspace delineates, technology has evolved and so have the educational structures that use technology.  This is a good thing.  However, as technology grows and information becomes more and more social, education will need to respond even more radically.

Children’s ministry is in the same boat.  We have many tired structures delivering Christian education in a ministry context.  Week by week purchased curriculum is probably at the top of the list.  Certainly the predominant method of a teacher leading kids from the front of the classroom, spoon feeding information is as tired as it is ineffective.  The awesome thing about technology is that it is disseminating innovation far faster than a curriculum company ever could.  People are sharing ideas about how to minister in different contexts without speaking at a conference or putting 50 ways to blow up balloons in a workbook.  I think that curriculum is the key component that will change in the field of children’s and family ministry in days to come.  I cannot wait to see what happens.

Why did our Cory Center team decide to go digital?  There are many reasons…

1. Our kids are becoming more and more digital and the learn digitally
2. We have a responsibility to respond to the digital age with change
3. The statistics about the amount of time kids spend interacting with media is incredible and we need to know how kids spend their time
4. Knowing about how kids spend their time helps us create tools and resources to better facilitate spiritual development
5. The amount of information on kids and technology is overwhelming and we want to provide some easy and ministry specific updates
6. Getting the updates on technology will help us better inform parents about how to interact with the kids and how to protect them as well

This blog will serve these purposes in days to come and I hope you join us on the journey!

I talk to lots and lots of parents every weekend.  And at my home church (Christ Community Church in St. Charles, IL), we’ve found that the more parents we talk to, the more people we find who are lost in their parenting.  They question their decisions, they don’t know how to share the Gospel, and they wonder if they are making wise choices.  By far, the parents I interact with have a heart to reach their kids for Christ and they work very hard.  However, the longer I spend in ministry I have found that many, many parents work to reach their kids for Christ without having made a decision for Christ themselves.

Two weeks ago we did a baptism weekend.  It was incredible!  We baptized over 100 people at our main campus and we had the largest group of 4th and 5th graders baptized ever.  When we held the baptism class, we found that parents would march their kids to the class and have them fill out a testimony, only to find that it was pretty clear that neither the parents or the child had ever made a real decision to follow Christ.  At Christ Community baptism has become an evangelistic tool for families.  The same thing happens when we do child dedication.  We are pretty intent on making sure that the parents who dedicate their children to serving God have a strong and growing faith in Christ.  Many times, parents come to faith through this process.  It’s important to be intentional when it comes to the Gospel.

How are you doing with sharing the Gospel and empowering parents to share the Gospel in your ministry context?  This week, we launched a parenting series at our church and we kicked off the first week with a message about sharing the Gospel using the wordless book.  Here’s a link to the series downloads page.  Each week, the notes, audio, study guide, and streaming video will be made available.  We’re covering The Gospel, Truth, Modesty, Media, and Dating.  Maybe you’ll find something helpful for your ministry to families.

He was The Worst Sunday School Teacher Ever. Period.

Last night a good friend of mine graduated from community college and I had the opportunity to attend her graduation ceremony.  Whenever I go back to the town I grew up in (Rockford, IL), I see people that I used to know.  Interestingly enough, one of my Sunday School teachers from elementary school sat right behind me during the graduation ceremony.

He was not a great Sunday school teacher.  How do I know that?  Well, he did not like kids very much.  I realized that because he spent most of his time yelling at us and belittling us.  He also brought his own curriculum, which was different from what the other classes were using and happened to be from a different denomination.  My 1-year experience in his class is something I will never forget.

When I looked back at that memory, I realized that it had been twenty years since I was in his Sunday school class for eight months.  Only 32 Sundays.  I still remember the experience.

This week I had the chance to pray with our senior pastor Jim Nicodem for the recruitment of new leaders for the summer.  He prayed that God would arrest the hearts of many with a love for kids.  At the time, I found that an interesting thing to pray because I know how many leaders we need and right now we have less than 5% of our summer team filled.  But after seeing my old Sunday school teacher, I realized that Jim’s prayer was right on the money.  It’s easy to fall into a trap where we do not put first things first.  A love for kids is a requirement for every person who works directly with kids.  Kids remember the leaders they have, good and bad.  As ministry leaders, we need to give them shepherds who love being with them.

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out which social media tools are necessary for me to both learn and network.  Here’s my breakdown of the tools that are out there and how they work for me:

Facebook – I gave up Facebook for Lent and now, I spend very little time on the site. I’ve found that from a children’s ministry perspective, most of the people I am networking with are on Twitter.

CMConnect – I just got started on cmconnect and for a newbie, it is a pretty vast resource.  I’ve never been that much into discussion boards and again, I find that most of the people who are commenting a lot or blogging a lot are already on Twitter.

Blogs – I’m a blogaholic.  Thankfully, NetNewsWire feeds (yes, that pun was intended) my addiction.  While blogs are most often a one-way communication, I’ve enjoyed reading the comments on several children’s ministry blogs and from time to time I chime in.  I think for the person out there just started to get into connecting with the broader field of children’s ministry, blogs are a great way to get your feet wet.  I’ve also found that most anti-blog people have blogs and while they quote Wired Magazine’s quip that “blogs are dead,” I’m pretty sure that Wired Magazine has 12 blogs and they post 25+ stories a day.

Alltop – I think Alltop is an amazing tool to get content fast.  AllTop advertises itself as an “online magazine rack of popular topics.”  You pick the topic, news category, or name and Alltop delivers it to you all day long.  The stories are updated every hour.   You can check out my Alltop page here.  You can also find several children’s ministry blogs on Alltop’s Church Page.

Twitter - I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon a few months ago and I think it is the best tool to connect to people in children’s and family ministry.  It’s a great way to find superb content, brainstorm, learn about new leadership strategies or ministry initiatives, and get the pulse of children’s ministry across the nation.  Here’s a great link to getting started with Twitter written by Henry Zonio. If you are on twitter, you should follow me.  And if you want the latest content from the Cory Center, follow us today!  I think of the four resources I mentioned, Twitter will win the day.

I’m interested in finding out more about the tools you are using to connect with other people in children’s and family ministry.  Feel free to comment here on the KidTech Blog or you can Direct Message me on Twitter.

I’m a huge fan of the StrengthsFinders assessment.  When I took it a few years ago and read my results for the first time, I felt like someone was describing what I always knew about myself but never put into words before.  My primary strength is Activator.  Here is a brief description of an Activator: “Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you.”  (You can read the rest of the description at the Gallup Management Journal).

Being an Activator predisposes me to David Allen’s Getting Things Done personal management style and practices.  The other day I came across a blog post entitled, “The Cult of Done” and I thought I would share it with you.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

There is no editing stage.

Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

Once you’re done you can throw it away.

Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

Destruction is a variant of done.

If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

Done is the engine of more.

Are there any other Activators out there?

What parts of the Done Manifesto resonate with you?