If you don’t know what to do, and you’re frightened, might as well panic.
He goes on to point out that there is an expectancy by many people for leaders to panic if things don’t seem to be going correctly. Panicking about a situation that seems to be going sour has become a sign that the leader cares or is, at least, aware that things are going wrong.
The one thing that stood out to me was this:
Apparently, panicking is an acceptable substitute for forethought, contingency planning or actually taking productive action.
People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme perefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
Another thing that came up in my assessment that said people may see my adaptability as a sign of me not being organized or not caring or being unaware. It suggested that I make sure people know that my lack of panicky-ness is due to productive flexibility rather than an “I don’t care” attitude.
It’s easy to panic. It takes creativity and organization and strength to keep one’s head. It’s also easy to assume that a leader who is not panicking in the face of crisis or unexpected situations or impending deadlines is out of touch. It’s harder to trust.
What do you do in stressful situations? How do you stay calm and not panic?
How do you respond when a leader isn’t panicking in the midst of chaos and pressure?
For those few of you who might not already know, there are thousands of senior pastors, student pastors and children’s pastors converging on Atlanta for The Orange Conference. If you don’t know anything about the Orange Conference, here is a short blurb from their site:
ORANGE IS THREE CONFERENCES ROLLED UP INTO ONE EVENT. It’s the only place that a senior pastor, student pastor, children’s pastor and volunteers that work within these ministries can learn together and begin formulating a strategy to impact the lives of the people in your congregation…
This year there has been a lot of online hype leading up to the conference.
Blogging
They are saturating the blogosphere by having recruited some prolific bloggers from the student and children’s ministry areas as well as from other areas of the church world. A CP friend of mine Kenny Conley has a run down of them at his site.
Here is Kenny’s list:
Carlos Whittaker – Production Director, Buckhead Church, GA
Twitter: loswhit
Blog: ragamuffinsoul.com
I’ve gotten to know a number of these fine people, so I am kinda jealous that they get to hang out with each other all in the same place without me… Yeah, that’s right… I am not going to Orange… sniff, sniff…
There are also somebrown bag lunches planned for people to come to the bloggers’ lounge and interact with these bloggers and have some questions answered when it comes to blogging and online networking.
If you are at Orange and do visit, say hi to Kenny, Sam, Gina, Matt, JC, Jonathan, Rick and John for me!
Twitter
Another place that Orange is trying to leverage social media is through Twitter. They’ve set up a twitter account that you can follow. They are also heavily encouraging attendees to use the hashtag #orange09 while at the conference. For the sake of those of us not attending, I second that encouragement. I plan on living Orange out vicariously through twitter and blogs… yes, I am that pathetic.
There hasn’t been much on Facebook with Orange other than the Orange Conference Page, which you can become a fan of. When it comes to this type of social networking, I don’t think anyone has quite figured out how to leverage FB.
UPDATEE: Mike Jeffries reminded me about the Orange Leaders Facebook group. It’s another place to interact about Orange on FB.
If you are at the Orange Conference and you are on Twitter or FB or blog, please share! There are some of us who can’t be there following what is going on. Don’t just share quotes or who’s onstage at what time or what you are eating for lunch. Share you feelings, experiences and impressions of the Orange Conference. And share quotes, who’s on stage and what you eat. Also don’t forget that all this social media isn’t just about you getting your word out, it’s about interacting with those there in person and those there virtually.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with all of this saturation in the social media scene. One thing that I am wondering is if Orange is set up for too much online social saturation. Will there be online Orange fatigue with the abundance of blogging and most likely tweeting that will be happening? We’ll see.
The one big thing that is missing with all of this use of new media is steaming of any of the sessions. OK, I just found out they are streaming the opening session on Wednesday evening at 8:15 EDT. (Just click on “Live Webcast” on the bottom of the homepage.) I don’t know if this really counts, though, because it is sponsored by David C. Cook. Would they even have done the stream if it wasn’t sponsored by someone? Probably not… Yes, I’m being a bit critical, but I think this is one thing that a lot of ministry conferences don’t quite get. “There are people who have paid to come to the conference, why would we stream some of that content for free?” It’s about building trust and authenticity with those who aren’t there. It’s about letting people in on all the fun they missed by not being able to be there in person and making it a priority to come the following year. It’s also about a simple thing called sharing. I understand that bills have to be paid and people make their living doing this sort of thing, but with the ease of technology to share content, I think we need to be more generous with our content. On the other hand, I’ve never had to put a conference together so it’s easy for me to simply say we have to share. But come on! Make webcasting a part of you planning process as well as all this other social media stuff and budget for it… find sponsors, reallocate funds, whatever… but conferences really need to think more intentionally through all of this and have ppl who care and understand new social media be a part of the planning.
Anyway, I’m sure the conference will be great, and I look forward to interacting with those who are there from way up here in the Great White North.
About a month ago while me and my family were in Chicago for Conspire 2009, my wife was talking to our oldest son (9 years old) about what the word holy means. She explained that it literally means “to be set apart” or special. Too many times we confuse that holy means being perfect. She, then, went on to explain that it was sort of like our china… we use our china for special purposes. When we are holy, we are special sort of like our china is special.
My son jumped in saying that when we aren’t holy, it’s like being paper plates instead of china… wow! I was floored that he caught on so quickly and understood what we were trying to convey to him about being holy.
If that wasn’t enough, he went on to say that there are some people who think they are better china than others, and they treat other people like paper plates. He ended by saying that we need to treat the people around us like china and not paper plates.
It was at that moment that I had trouble seeing where I was driving. I still get emotional even thinking about the amazing grasp and simplicity with which he stated what so many of us who claim to follow Christ miss. He understood and could articulate in his own words loving God and loving others.
It’s moments like those that remind me that I can do nothing to make my child grow spiritually. No amount of family devotions or memory verses or family ministry curriculum can make children grow spiritually. God’s Spirit is the one responsible for that. All I (or any other parent) can do is daily give my children over to God and model for them what a surrendered life to God looks like… bumps, messups and all.
Our Vision: This network is a community of followers of Jesus who are passionate about seeing people know God and experience life as He intended. As we are guided by the Scriptures we will inspire one another to embrace innovation and creativity as a means to fulfill this mission.
Our Passions: Jesus, Humanity, and Innovation
Jesus: Jesus and the inspired Scriptures are our guide for everything we do.
Humanity: God ‘s extreme love for people infuses this mission with urgency.
Innovation: Creativity will be normative for our mission.
If you resonate with the vision of The Origins Project, jump onto the website and join the community and get involved in the groups and discussions there. I’ve started a group called Third Culture Children’s Ministry to further the discussion about missional children’s ministry.
As we continue to look at Children’s Ministry in a Missional Paradigm, I want to make sure that the term “missional” is adequately understood and explained. We’ve looked at a couple of other explanations of missional here and here. I think the idea of third culture sums up missional pretty well and highlights the characteristic of being applicable in a variety of different contexts.
Now, what does children’s ministry look like when it strives to help children and families take on this mindset of living out the Great Commandment (loving God and loving others) even in the midst of discomfort and pain in and beyond their cultural contexts? That is what the next part of this series will try to flesh out.
What are your thoughts? What does a “third culture” children’s ministry look like? How does it feel? What does it do? What is in it’s DNA?
BTW, another place to enter into this conversation is at The Origins Project. The Origins Project is a new network of people and churches looking to figure out what it means to live missionally and yet still be true to Scripture. Join the community section and then join the Third Culture Children’s Ministry Group.
I love me some Sport Stacking, but 12.92 is the fastest I’ve ever done that in.
Have you used Sport Stacks? What do you do with them, if you do? If not, you can find them at places like WalMart or Target or at the Kidology Store. (There Karl… a plug for you.) You can also find out more about Sport Stacking here.
Today, Eugene Cho posted a thank you letter he wrote to his children’s pastor on his blog. I couldn’t quick on the link from Twitter fast enough when I saw Eugene’s tweet:
As I read through the letter, I think my allergies were acting up because my eyes were watery and my nose was a little runny.
In all seriousness, I was touched by this letter. Being a children’s pastor for over nine years and a CM volunteer before then, it means a lot when the senior pastor of the church you serve at takes time to personally and publicly thank you from the heart. Luckily, I’ve been privileged to get that a handful of times through 15+ years of being involved with CM. Ministry is lonely sometimes, and with CM it is exacerbated because you don’t get to mix with the “big people” as much. So, thank you Eugene for posting that letter and expressing you sincere thanks publicly for Katey and her team. I hope that this inspires more senior pastors to stop for a moment in all the busyness they have about them and take time to sincerely and personally thank the staff and volunteers they have under them to see God’s Kingdom advanced through their churches.
On April 21, 2006 I opened up a Blogger account and started the Elemental Children’s Ministry blog. I soon moved it over to Wordpress.com and then last June I bought server space in order to host the blog on my own.
I can’t believe it’s been three years since I decided to start sharing my thoughts and conversing with others in CM about the future of children’s ministry and the mutual interaction culture and CM have on each other. It starte with sparse posting here and there. Since last June, though, I’ve posted more regularly. Most recently, I’ve taken up the challenge to have one post up each day.
Thanks to all who have encouraged me along the way as well as to those who have entered the conversation. I look forward to more conversations as we continue to figure out what this children’s ministry thing is.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of Henry Zonio. Redwood Park Church is not in any way responsible or necessarily endorsing the opinions expressed on this website.
(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Isaac Z. Schlueter)
(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by Jim Linwood)
(image originally uploaded to 
