More on Christian Subculture and CM
3 Jan 2009 Author: henryjz In: Uncategorized
I ran into a new blog a couple of days ago from another person in children’s ministry. It’s called Just Pudge. I found the latest blog entry on Christian subculture interesting, especially since I blogged my thoughts regarding that same topic a while back. Check out what Pudge wrote.
Here’s my comment to his blog post:
I think we do a great disservice to kids (both churched and unchurched) whenever we try to perpetuate a mentality that says, “You have to be a part of my subculture, or you are wrong.” We are called to shape the future and be a part of the culture around us. Now, that doesn’t mean we conform to the culture. We need to be able to communicate God’s timeless truths in ways that can be heard in our time and in our culture. We cannot do that effectively if we huddle in our barracks, speaking our secret codes, and laughing to our insider jokes. We must reach beyond a Christian subculture and be transforming agents in the greater culture around us. That means each Christian context will look a bit differently from another one because each will be flavoured a bit differently depending on the surrounding culture. Now this is a messier way of looking at Christian influence in the greater culture, but I think it has far better chance of being effective than simply perpetuating a subculture that simply does not fit the context it is in.
We need to equip the children and families we minister to to be able to read the culture around them, interpret it, and become culturally effective.
Happy New Year!, originally uploaded by ~BostonBill~.
I thought it would be fun to review some blog stats over the past year.
Here are the top 10 posts that were visited:
10. Roadmaps for Child Spiritual Development
9. Children’s Ministry Leadership Nugget from an Olympic Swimmer
8. My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
7. It’s More Than Just About the Kids
6. Family Ministry Coversation Day 1
5. Generation We
4. “Why Do Bad Things Happen?” and Other Tough Questions
3. Jon and Kate Plus 8 Go To Church
2. Scot McKnight chiming in on children’s, youth and young adult ministries
1. Christians Rule
Top Ten Search Terms that were used to find Elemental Children’s Ministry:
10. “create a whatnot”
9. “100 films for children”
8. “things to do with cardboard”
7. “jon and kate plus 8 church”
6. “donald miller mentoring”
5. “children’s ministry themes”
4. “elevate curriculum”
3. “elemental children’s ministry”
2. “create a muppet”
1. “children’s ministry”
Top Ten Countries Where Visits to Elemental Children’s Ministry Came From:
10. South Africa
9. Israel
8. Germany
7. New Zealand
6. Kyrgyzstan
5. Philippines
4. Australia
3. United Kingdom
2. Canada
1. United States
It’s been a fun year interacting, discussing and learning from you this year. I look forward to interacting with more of you in 2009. BTW, if you have any ideas for posts or would like to see a discussion on a specific topic, comment below, and maybe it just might show up some time!
Have a great New Year’s celebration. May God bless you all in 2009 as you continue to follow him where he has put you.
Seth Godin on Passion vs. Expertise
31 Dec 2008 Author: henryjz In: leadership, volunteer management
Toaster, originally uploaded by Always Changing Clothing.
Seth Godin’s latest post talks about what to look for when picking people for different jobs. He poses the question of what is more important: expertise or passion? In the end, Godin leans more towards choosing people more for their expertise over their passion. It’s not that he downplays the importance of people buying into mission. What Godin is trying to say is that, for most jobs, it is far easier to hire someone who is skilled in the area you are looking for and then sell them on mission rather than the other way around. Of course, getting people who have both is ideal! The example Godin uses is fan-based companies or websites. Many times these organizations hire great fans to run the website or organization and then use that as an excuse to have mediocre product.
I couldn’t help but think about how this plays out in church. We are big on mission, vision and values of our churches. We spend a lot of time getting people to buy into them, we put them on banners, print them in our bulletins and on our websites, we even pride ourselves when people can quote them back to us. Because we are volunteer-dependent organizations, we then recruit these “passionate” people and put them where our “need is greatest” with no regard to their skills and expertise. We then leave them to figure things out on their own.
How much more effective would it be to find people’s skills, talents and abilities and then match those with jobs that fit? I know that we all talk about doing that, but do we really do it? Do we recruit that way?
I can already hear the questions, “What do we do when we can’t find people who don’t have the skills we need?” There’s always outsourcing projects. Or you can get people the skills they need; invest in getting them educated or encourage them to get the training they need.
There is a world of difference between something staying “good enough” because the people working on it are passionate about the cause and something starting off mediocre and steadily improving as skills are gathered and honed because those who are passionate about the cause are also passionate about the quality of work that goes into making the cause work.
Elfed by a fellow staff member
29 Dec 2008 Author: henryjz In: for funThis past Sunday, Jay Dampier, the adult ministries pastor at Redwood Park Church played an Elf Yourself video in which he put pastoral team (minus himself). It’s a funny video! Of course there were MANY people that Sunday who had fun seeing it and commenting on my mad dancing skills.
Redwoood Park Church Pastoral Staff Team (minus 1) Elf Yourself from Henry Zonio on Vimeo.
I did warn Jay, though, that he had set himself up for retribution times five…
Did any of you play with Elf Yourself or any other stuff on JibJab.com? Post links in the comments if you did!
I ran across this post on Eric Bryan’s blog about an “unconference” called The Idea Camp. I’m not all sure exactly what it’s about. It seems pretty nebulous right now, but it has piqued my interest. Apparently, registration for this unconference is free and is happening at the end of February at NewSong in Irving, CA.
Go ahead and check it out. I’m sure we’ll find out more about it as time goes on, but the concept of people getting together to share ideas and have the attendees drive the content seems intriguing. I wonder how children’s and family ministries could fit into something like this? You could look at ideas of how to form/create generational cultures at the formative stages of a generation–when they are kids. Or looking at how current missional/emerging theological converstaions are translated into children and family ministry contexts? Hmm… now my brain is percolating!
Take a look at The Idea Camp. What do you think? Initially, I’m somewhat cynical because it seems very church trendy, but that could just be me.
Long gone are the days of cookie-cutter children's ministry!
We need to adapt, to change, to grow up... Come and be a part of the conversation. As we grate against each others' thoughts and convictions, maybe we can figure out what this children's minsitry thing is all about.
Elemental Children's Ministry Blog by Henry Zonio is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at www.elementalcm.com