Elemental Children's Ministry

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by Dave Keeshan)

I’m so sorry that I have been so lax in blogging lately. I thought I’d be able to keep up with blogging while we’ve been in our transition time, but I’m realizing that I have a lot less time than I realize! We are still trying to find a place to live. While I appreciate the graciousness of my parents and my in-laws over the past month, we really need our own place. Would you please pray for us. We are looking for a place that is close to where my wife works, which is in Santa Clara, CA. We’ve been looking in Fremont and Newark but are open to other cities… those two have seemed the more affordable ones and are in close proximity to public transportation to get Erin to work. We’ll be staying closer to those areas this week in an extended stay hotel so we’re hoping to find something this week. With that in mind, also pray that the six of us don’t go crazy living out of a hotel for 7 days :)

Once we get more settled, we can establish a new rhythm, which includes me finding time for blogging!

BTW, thank you all for your support and prayers through this crazy leap of faith. I’m in awe of this community. I’ve heard from some of you who I’ve never met, and I know there are more of you who I haven’t heard from. It’s humbling to know there are people all over the place praying for us.

I found out about this video on Eugene Cho’s blog. I thought it was pretty cool and a powerful way to jump start a conversation with children on loving your enemies.

Any ideas on how you would use it?

(more…)

(picture taken from NakedPastor.com)

I don’t know about you, but I’m really not into Hamburger Helper. It’s just plain nasty! I’m sure there are many out there who can’t think of anything better then digging into all that prepackaged goodness… more power to ya! (and a good cardiologist)

Anyway, I came across this cartoon and it got me thinking… How many times do we do this in children’s ministry? I see so many tweets and blogs and Facebook statuses talking about being Biblical. It’s almost as if there’s a competition out there to be the most Biblical. “Our curriculum is more Biblical than yours!” OK, maybe that isn’t explicitly what is said, but it’s pretty easy to read between the lines of all the not-so-subtle digs at other curriculums. Who’s to say that what you use or create for children is more Biblical than what someone else is doing or creating? C’mon!

We can become so arrogant about our understanding of the Bible that we forget that God is WAY bigger than the boxes we try and package him in. I’m not saying that being Biblical isn’t important. What I am saying is that our idea of “Biblical” isn’t the end all.

I can already hear it, “Well, it’s easy. You just teach from the Bible! What’s more Biblical than that?” If it were that simple then I would challenge you that your idea of God and understanding of Biblical is too small. God is infinite. To think that we can corner the market on Biblical interpretation is arrogant at the least and dangerously unorthodox at it’s worst.

If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we pick and choose what we focus on in the Bible. Some of us put more emphasis on free will while others of us focus more on God’s sovereignty. Some of us thrive on more contemporary forms of worship while others of us connect more fully to God in the midst of creeds and ritual. The list can go on.

I’m not saying we throw out the Bible. What I am saying is that we give our kids space to encounter the Bible with the Holy Spirit guiding them. We shouldn’t be so quick to interpret everything for them and systematize how they are “supposed” to understand the Bible in order to fit within your denominational distinctives. We need to help children see the Bible as a comprehensive story of who God is, how much he loves us, how we can follow him to have the most amazing life ever and how we can be a part of the redemptive and transformative work God is doing in the world around us.

If you haven’t already read it, I suggest that you pick up Scot McKnight’s book the Blue Parakeet. It’s a great resource on how to read the Bible in light of it being a comprehensive story of God’s desire to restore creation to what he intended for it.

• What are some ways that you are prepackaging God for kids? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
• What are some ways you help children discover God?
• How can we become more like facilitators and cultivators of spiritual formation rather than simply being conduits of information?

Alright, I’m taking a cue from my friends Amy Dolan and Dan Scott and posting about my reasons for choosing my answer for What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry.

I chose the word Ingenuity.

Why that word? Well, I didn’t start off with that word. I knew what I wanted to write about. I just didn’t have a word. Back in December, I wrote a post about innovation in children’s ministry. I then followed that up witha series on being dynamic in children’s ministry. Those posts were my response to the love affair that we have with wanting models and programs and systems to follow so that we can do children’s ministry well.

I’ve been to my share of CM conferences and networking meetings and have perused so many books and articles and curriculum. The main thrust of these is to give “practical” models to adapt and/or follow. While I know that practical advice is important, I think that we limit ourselves to only searching out the practical.

We become too fearful of “reinventing the wheel” because we think it’s a waste of time. We follow the axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” because we don’t want to mess with a good thing. If those are your philosophies, then great. But don’t pretend you’re being innovative or ingenious.

I’m not saying we ignore the past or not learn from those that have gone before us. What I am saying though is that the wheel always needs to be reinvented and if it ain’t broke, then maybe your aren’t trying hard enough. True ingenuity isn’t afraid to reshape, re-engineer and rethink what children’s ministry looks like. We need less people worrying about what curriculum or model they are using and more people experimenting with what they already have as well as daring to incorporate ideas and elements they’ve never considered using before in their children’s ministries.

(picture was originally uploaded to Flickr by vancouverconvention)

With yesterday’s release of the FREE eBook What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry, I thought I’d share my contribution here at Elemental CM. The word I chose was Ingenuity.

Following a recipe is easy to do. It takes little skill. One only needs to follow directions.

Short order cooks follow recipes. World-class chefs create mouth-watering masterpieces.

Creating a culinary work of art isn’t so easy. It takes finesse and the understanding of how ingredients combine to create a dish that is tailored to the specific palate of an individual.

Why is it that you attend conferences, read books, network with others, and buy curriculum? Is it simply to gather and trade recipes for ministry? Or is it to gather inspiration, taste something different and discover ingredients you’ve never tried before?

True creativity, innovation and reformation in children’s ministry will only come when we dare to step beyond the tried and true recipes and are willing to experiment with new strategies and practices.

What are your thoughts on Ingenuity? I’d love to hear!

What word would you choose to answer the question, “What Matters Now In Children’s Ministry?”

Back in December, Seth Godin released a free eBook entitled What Matters Now. He had gathered 70 leaders from various disciplines and asked them to share an idea each thought people should think about in 2010.

In a matter of days of Godin’s release, I get this DM from Matt Guevara asking if I’ve seen Godin’s book and proposing that he, Amy Dolan and I put our heads together and come up with something similar for children’s ministry. My answer was a wholehearted “Yes!”

Fast forward a few months, some Skype calls, emails to a number of our friends, uploading and downloading files to Dropbox, and working with the generous people at Imago… and what started as tweets among 3 friends has evolved into an eBook which we believe will help shape conversations in children’s ministry for the next year.

Introducing “What Matters Now in Children’s Ministry!” The best thing about this eBook is that it is completely FREE! Feel free to download the eBook here and distribute it to everyone you know. Use it as a conversation starter in your children’s ministries, your church staff and children’s ministry networks you are a part of.

I don’t want to say too much about the book other than you need to download and read it. For those of you who will be tempted to use up your ink cartridges by printing out the eBook, there will be a print version available come June 14th.

A huge thanks to Imago for donating their time to design and set up both the eBook and the print versions! Please check them out and see if they can help your ministry.

One other thing… we’d love to hear your favorite quotes and thoughts. You can interact with others about the book on Facebook, Twitter (use #wmnkidmin as the hashtag), Kidology, CMConnect, and on the various blogs that are showing up (hey, you could even blog about it!).

We do have some plans to take these conversations further so stay tuned in the next days and weeks!

In light of Amy Dolan’s recenet post, I thought I’d repost this one from last year:

Take a look at the above video before reading on. I posted this video previously with my thoughts about a workshop that Matt Guevara did at the Conspire 2009 Conference.

Matt posted some of his thoughts on where education is going when it comes to “e-learning” and how children’s ministry needs to take a cue and start taking into account this brave new digital world. Here is a snippet of what Matt says:

“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.”

I wonder how long it will take curriculum writers and publishing companies to catch on to the cataclysmic changes in how curriculum needs to be developed, deployed and designed. No one really has it figured out yet. I wonder what all the scribes felt like when Gutenberg came out with the printing press. Maybe the “next thing” won’t even come out of curriculum publishing companies…

There is one thing to remember in all of the changes that are happening because of the changing face of how we communicate thoughts and ideas as well as communicating with each other. We have to remember that at the core of digital learning isn’t that it is digital… it is non-linear and participatory. We can utilized non-digital and means to accomplish those.

I agree that the model of the teacher dictating to students is becoming less effective. There needs to be more interaction. There needs to be some sense of participation that guides the direction of how a lesson is presented. There also needs to be a sense of contribution to the material. What does this look like? I’m not sure. I just hope that children’s ministry doesn’t end up being the ones who are trailing 10-15 year behind… again.

I know that many of you have probably seen this video, but for the few of you who haven’t… take a look at this recruitment video for preschool volunteers from Northpoint Kids.

I got the video from Northpoint’s blog, Inside Northpoint. Not only are the words and people compelling, but the chair used in the video is the chair that is used by people giving their salvation stories as part of their baptisms. What a powerful way to link the idea of story and stories of salvation with what is happening in the lives of children in those preschool years.

Now I have to go find some Kleenex to get this dang dust out of my eyes. It’s making me tear up.

How are you telling stories? How are you inviting people to help write the life story of children? How are you inviting children to find their place in the bigger Story?