I will never forget an online exchange I had years ago with a prominent figure in church leadership.  He argued that seminary was a complete was of time because its role was to “help people answer questions no one is asking.”  According to that leader, a seminary education was irrelevant to “real” church leadership.  Without a doubt, one of the greatest gifts I received from my time in Bethel Seminary’s Children’s and Family Ministry Program was the gift of understanding my own leadership and the passion to pursue leadership topics that were previously untouched.

This passion brought about the resources behind What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry and the newly released Kindle ebook Nexus: Central Themes in Children’s Ministry.  The focus of all of these projects was to answer big questions because that very act of collectively and collaboratively identifying and pursuing the primary issues in our ministry work is what leaders do.

Nexus answers the question: What is at the core of children’s ministry?

Why do children’s pastors, Sunday School teachers, Christian Education directors engage in children’s ministry?  When you take all of the programming, special events, recruiting efforts, and shopping for supplies – what is the foundation of ministering to children?

David Csinos, Greg Carlson, Nancy Davies, Amy Dolan, Larry Fowler, Ryan Frank, Matt Guevara, Stacy Igarashi, Ed Jenkins, Melissa MacDonald, Matt McKee, Dustin Nickerson, and Nicki Straza contributed to the book and their answers and passion for ministry are inspiring.

Nexus is available for free this week on Amazon.  Stop by the Amazon store and pick up a copy of the Kindle ebook!

When I first started with Cory Center I went though a series of post asking what you were reading and extolling the virtues of reading. It’s still true that reading is fundamental to leadership – but not just reading books.

If you are involved in Children’s Ministry, it helps to know you are not alone – even though it often feels that way. One of the best ways to find help, hear what others are thinking, learn from some of the leaders of the #kidmin world, and simply get some encouragement is to read some of the many Children’s Ministry blogs that are out there.

Some blogs come and go and others have been around for ages. Tracking these down could be painful – but thanks to Tony Kummer, it isn’t. Ministry-to-Children.com, Tony’s site, publishes a blog list that is kept pretty up to date. Each year they also publish a top 100.

In addition to doing all that work, Tony’s also created a fun way to peek interest in some of the more active blogs. Each March, in honor of March Madness, they host a children’s ministry blog madness. 60 some blogs go face to face, one round at a time to find the winner. The best part is that you get to choose that winner!

Take a moment and head over to http://ministry-to-children.com/kids-ministry-bm-2012/ and check out some of the best children’s ministry blogs on the web. After you browse, give them some props by casting a vote.

Most importantly, I want to introduce you to some connection points – but if you are so inclined, we wouldn’t mind if you voted for Cory Center and I wouldn’t mind if you voted for my personal blog, Coffee With Dad.

Enjoy the fun!

Last week I asked what you were reading. @Amy Dolan responded with a video blog over at Lemon Lime Kids and I thought to further encourage the community I would share some of the books that I am currently reading, have on my list, and just finished.

My reading list generally falls into a five different categories: Children’s Ministry/Parenting, Leadership, Fiction, Biography and General Ministry/Theology.

I don’t usually read Children’s Ministry books for new ideas, for that, I prefer to read blogs instead. Generally by the time a great idea makes its way into a ministry book, many churches have found the pros and cons and someone has blogged about it. However, CM books are great at reminding me of things that I already know but don’t always remember to practice and there are some authors that are great at sharing timeless principles. I just finished reading Stretch – Structuring Your Ministry For Growth which was a great help as I think through moving some classrooms around.
I’m also reading Parenting by The Book: Biblical Wisdom for Raising Your Child. Reading parenting books helps me as a dad but also helps me know what books to recommend to parents.

I read leadership books mostly because I love reading leadership books – it’s kind of a hobby. I finished The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary a few months ago. It’s a very quick read that talks about having excellence in all you do. I don’t have another book on deck in this category – maybe you could leave a comment and suggest a good one.

I try to read a biography each year. I’ve found they are filled with tidbits that help me in my ministry and my life. Most recently I finished reading Decision Points. Very educational – no matter what your political leanings I think you can always learn from someone who was skilled enough to reach the office of President. I have a few possibilities for next year, maybe Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy or one of the books on Jimmy Carter.

In General Ministry, this years best book was The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict Loved the book and have spent the last 10 weeks teaching our children’s church the principles of resolving conflict biblically. Currently I am re-reading a book that I read in 2006: Seven Practices of Effective Ministry.

Finally, fiction…Last year I probably would not have thought to include this category in a post but I found out that it is vital to my reading. I read a minimum of 10 books a year, usually the total falls between 20 and 30. Add on the blog reading and social networking on top of that and I found that I was burning out, I’d sooner sit in front of the TV rather than read. For me, fiction rekindles a desire for reading when I am feeling burned out. Even better, if I read a fiction book every 3 books or so I have found that I can avoid burnout in the first place. My favorite author is Vince Flynn and I’m finding that I enjoy Tim Green (who also writes children’s novels). Right now I am reading Bill Myers’ The Judas Gospel: A Novel. Myers is a Christian author and I’ve never not enjoyed his writting – but I am a bit of a sci-fi geek.

So, other than this long post, what are you reading? Why not comment below or blog about your books and send us the link in a comment?

The following article from Daily Mail blew me away.  I notice every week that more and more kids from Kindergarten to 5th grade bring their cell phones with them to church.  In my children’s ministry context, cell phones are pretty common for 4th and 5th graders (the iPhone being the most popular model).  But the realization that kids as young as 11 are sexting was a shock.  Read the article and let me know what you think in the comments section!

A disturbing number of children – some as young as 11 – are taking pornographic images of themselves and swapping them with friends via text messages or the internet, experts warn.

A survey reveals that 40 per cent of 11- to 14-year-olds have used their mobile phones or computer to send pictures of themselves or receive naked or topless images of friends.

And more than half of youngsters who sent these images – a trend known as ‘sexting’ – did so knowing the pictures would be passed on to a number of recipients.

And four in ten of the 11,000 children surveyed thought it was ‘appropriate’ to circulate pictures of topless girls in their school.

Experts said the findings showed a significant shift from children viewing internet pornography – to creating it themselves.

The shocking trend has been blamed on the volume of internet pornography seen by boys who, as a result, expect girlfriends to be promiscuous and flaunt their bodies.

Singers such as Cheryl Cole were also blamed for their ‘raunchy’ dance routines.

Outraged parents have urged others to monitor their children’s mobile phones and internet use.

Internet safety expert Ken Corish yesterday revealed the findings of his survey at a forum on behaviour and bullying.
He said: ‘The proportion of young children “sexting” is shocking. The driver of it is boys’ attitudes to online porn, which is now far too accessible. This raises the expectations of young males about what happens in a relationship. But it goes further because this survey shows we are now seeing a shift from youngsters accessing online content to creating it themselves.

‘The root cause is not just online pornography. It is everywhere in society from the raunchy pop music videos to TV star Gok Wan persuading woman to get their clothes off on his show.’

Liz Murtagh, of independent Radley College, in Oxford, said: ‘There is rapidly occurring desensitisation. It is a great cause of concern. What is worse is that the images are often voluntarily initiated by young girls, rather than the boy himself.’

Siobhan Freegard, of parenting website Netmums, said: ‘There is also a big element of desensitisation.

‘They see the likes of Rihanna or Cheryl Cole parading in raunchy poses and they think they look fantastic.’

Sexting, if it involves pictures of children, is a criminal offence under the Child Trafficking And Pornography Act.

For more resources on this topic see:

• Navigating the Digital World Takes Kids, Parents and a Supportive Village
• The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families
• Sexting: Youth Practice and Legal Implications
• Talking to Kids and Teens About Social Media and Sexting
• Jan Hoffman’s New York Times article

One of the pieces of research that I look forward to reading every year is the Horizon Report. The Horizon Report is put together by the New Media Consortium through funding from HP.

The purpose of the Horizon Report is to identify and describe emerging technologies that are likely to have a large impact in the next five years. In the 2011 report, the focus is on those technologies that will impact the teaching, learning, and creative process.

The Horizon Report identifies several key trends that are likely to make an impact in the near future. We will provide a more comprehensive breakdown of these trends as they relate to children’s ministry, but for now check out the list:

• The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing.
• People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want.
• The world of work is increasingly collaborative, giving rise to reflection about the way student projects are structured.
• The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.

One of the most interesting components of the report is list of six technologies to monitor in the near and far-term. The Horizon Report predicts that these technologies will be adopted into mainstream use at different junctures over the next 5 years:

1. Electronic books (within the next 12 months)
2. Mobile devices (within the next 12 months)
3. Augmented reality (widespread usage within 2-3 years)
4. Game-based learning (widespread usage within 2-3 years)
5. Gesture-based computing (widespread adoption within 4-5 years)
6. Learning analytics (widespread adoption within 4-5 years)

If you are in children’s ministry and you want to understand the critical trends that impact teaching, learning, and the creative process, download the 2011 Horizon Report. We’ll come back to the report in days to come on the blog!

The Cory Center app for iPhone and iPod touch is now available in the iTunes store! This is the first app providing resources to children’s and family ministry leaders.  Access our podcast and listen to episodes right from the app!

Download the app today!

I am very excited to announce that the Cory Center is releasing our own app! From the app you’ll be able to read all of our blogs, download our articles on pdf, and listen to the latest editions of the Cory Center podcast. It’s going to be epic!

I’ve been working with an incredible company, SubSplash, to create the app through their remarkable platform “The Church App.” The Church App has over 1 million launches, so I’m to have them as partners in digital ministry! The app has been submitted to Apple for approval, so hopefully we’ll be ready to download sometime in January!

The Cory Center for Children’s Ministry is a project of Bethel Seminary whose mission is to provide resources to the field of children’s and family ministry.  Our resources are focused in five areas: coaching, blog, articles, podcast, and app.

2011 will be an incredible year for the Cory Center because we will be:

• Coaching leaders in children’s and family ministry
• Developing new training modules for the 1 for 50 Initiative
• Continuing the What Matters Now blog (formerly the KidTech blog)
• Publishing monthly articles (including resources children’s and family ministry leaders can use to train, encourage, and build their volunteer teams)
• Distributing a redesigned enewsletter
• Offering several podcast series
• Releasing the Cory Center iPhone app

For our regular readers, you’ll notice that our website looks a little different.  We’ve moved our website hosting from SiteOrganic to publishing our entire website through WordPress on Dreamhost.  This transition will prepare our site for a migration to Bethel University’s domain in late 2011/early 2012.

Our staff looks forward to serving you in 2011!

This year I will turn 29.  God has opened up a really amazing opportunity for me to interact with a veteran in the field of children’s and family ministry.  This person is a leader that I have come to respect and learn a lot from.  But recently he challenged me with some big questions.

From my perspective, what are the top five things that the older generation of children’s and family ministry leader needs to know about my generation, parents from my generation, kids from this generation, and the challenges these groups afford to ministry paradigms from the past.

Here are some further questions for discussion:

Is it all about technology?  Are the distinctives only technological?

What about depth?

What about relationship?

What will ministry to children and families look like in the future?

What will students look like in the future/when they grow up?

If we make a host of changes in the way we minister to children and families, where will that lead?

Several weeks ago I was struck with an epic idea.  I wanted to create a book with insight from people across the field of children’s and family ministry, education, non-profit, and para-church ministry about what matters now in children’s ministry.  Like any great idea, it occupied all of my mental space until I finally shared it with others.  I am proud today to be part of the release of the culmination of this idea: a free e-book that answers the question, “What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry?”

The team (Amy Dolan of Lemon Lime Kids, Henry Zonio of Elemental Children’s Ministry, and me) have gathered 33 perspectives from a cross section of denominations and ministry contexts to answer our epic question.  But we asked every contributor to answer the question with only ONE word (we gave a couple of contributors some grace and allowed two words).  After they honed the one-word answer, they were allowed to support their answer with another 300 words.  Not an easy task.

David Staal, Ivy Beckwith, Gregory Carlson, Larry Shallenberger, Rob Reinow, Michael Chanley, Scottie May, and many more individuals graciously agreed to partner with us.  Prepare to be inspired – these answers are industrial strength, not over the counter.