Subtle Signs of Stress

I'm a pretty calm person (which means I internalize my stress). And the telltale signs of that are I get this pain in my neck when stressed. Yes, it's an actual, not a figurative, pain. Doctors say it's an ulcer on my vocal chords. And it's baaaaack.

Why so stressed? My son just graduated from high school (yea!) so there was a lot to do, but that was pretty easy. Company came in; that was fun, but kind of high-maintenance.  (and we had tornado scares while they were here...an F-3 actually hit a nearby town, causing lots of damage.) So, here's the real stressor, Grant wants to join the Marines and go to Iraq. I'm not dealing real well with that one. I'm praying that God will help me to live life with an open-hand, and I'm trying, but I don't think the problem's in my hands--it's in my neck. Gulp.

Work has been busier than ever. The good thing is our managing editor had a precious baby boy. The tougher thing is filling in for her. She's fabulous so stepping back into a hands-on role (on top of other responsibilities) has piles of unfinished work and unanswered emails accumulating. And I think there's some kind of weird fungus on my keyboard. No time to clean it. Gulp.

We leave for vacation in a couple weeks--in a rented RV to Yellowstone--while gas is climbing over $4 per gallon. And I think it gets like two miles to the gallon. Big gulp. Looking forward to a break, but not sure it's going to be an easy trip. Packing, cooking, cleaning, unpacking. I'm adding to my stress just thinking of all the details.

So I'll just keep swallowing my antacids and trying to take deep breaths--not gulps. Say a prayer for God's peace to flood my life if you read this. That's what I long for.

Conversation Over

Wow! It's taken me awhile to get caught up (I'm really not yet) from the Large Church Conversation. We had a great time exploring the top-four trends in children's ministry (according to an article I wrote in CMMag last year called "Trend Quakes").

For safety, it didn't surprise me that all together the groups listed 117 things that they're doing to keep kids safe in their ministries. We talked about "due diligence" as opposed to providing for every single possible danger. "Due diligence" is that we've done everything reasonable to do. We all agreed that background checks need to be the norm instead of the exception.

A surprising thing: Many of these churches have armed security onsite. But, here's the shocker for me, one of the churches actually has an armed sniper in the balcony to protect the pastor who's had threats on his life.

In the area of Wired Ministry, it was surprising to hear how many of these high-tech churches are concerned about not letting technology replace relationship and relevance for kids. They see the use of technology as part of their ministry, not all of it.

In the area of Family Ministry, not surprising, they're all trying to figure out how to impact today's families. We had a great discussion about learning from the "go green" movement. Matt McKee suggested that we do "value adds" and make spiritual nurture look natural for parents. There are four key areas to do that: getting faith conversation into the home, family events, everyone on the same Scripture each Sunday, and maximizing milestones. (We'll actually be doing an article on this in the Sept/Oct 08 issue.)

In Experience Required, some of our folks got scolded for starting a fire on the LaQuinta's property. Long story. But it's part of the creative experience we do to make the point.

Volunteers are a challenge, as they are for churches of all sizes. In the end, we all need to cry out to God. Jesus said "the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers"! There's no substitute for prayer. And we all need to be cautious of running around looking for the next program/solution/strategy apart from the power of God!

Wow! We had a great time! Looking forward to our next conversation with denominational children's ministry leaders this fall!

Large Church Conversation

I'm so excited! In less than an hour, we start our second-ever Large Church Conversation summit! We have 23 people from some of the most amazing churches in America here (it's by-invitation-only). We'll explore the top-four trends in CM today: Safety First, Family Ministry, Wired Ministry, Experience Required. And we'll talk about leading volunteers in a shifting volunteer culture.

Can't wait to hear and learn! I'll keep you posted!

Ten Commandments Holiday?

So I'm driving to work today and listening to K-Love when I heard about a movement to get a Ten Commandments Holiday enacted. Looking online, I found that anyone who resists it is labeled as "liberal and atheistic."

So, at the risk of being labeled, I wondered, "What!?"

Is that our best foot forward as Christians? Why not a "grace and faith" holiday or a "Jesus loves me" holiday? Do we want to proclaim to the world that the essence of our faith is a list of rules that must be followed and obeyed to win God's favor? What!?

By the way, in my opinion, the Ten Commandments aren't the most important part of our faith. What's most important is that a broken humanity CANNOT keep these rules/commandments, so God in his amazing love and mercy came to earth to die for us and provide a way to be forgiven and live with him forever.

I'm afraid that movements like the Ten Commandments movement only serve to solidify a wrong perception of Christianity--it's not man's attempt to be good enough for God; it's a good God's attempt to draw us to himself.

So that's my rant for today.

Miley Cyrus

Check out our poll on the childrensministry.com homepage. Will the Vanity Fair photo of Miley Cyrus have any impact on the kids in your ministry?

And check out this great article on how to talk to kids about it: http://www.pluggedinonline.com/read/read/a0004044.cfm

What We Could Learn From One Another

For the last 17 years, we've surveyed children's ministers to find out what they do with kids during "big church." Without fail, it seems that it's a 50/50 split. Half the churches create a separate "children's church" environment and half keep kids in with their parents.

So, now the half that's been splitting kids and families is starting to ask why. In terms of "reaping what we've sown," these churches recognize that not only is faith segregated at church by age, but it's segregated from the home. These churches desire to get families talking about faith at home (great goal!) The only problem is that they're not creating a common experience for families to talk about.

So, the entry of the "shared family experience"--where families worship together in a kid-friendly environment. It's very cool and very volunteer-intensive. For churches who can't pull it off, would it be enough to keep families together in big church? Could one side of the church learn from another side of the church?

Check out Mary Rose's May 4 post at http://catholicprodigaldaughter.blogspot.com/2008/05/kids-at-mass.html to see what we can learn. Is the answer standing right before us--and we're missing it?

Strategic Planning

Our Group leadership team just went away to the mountains for our spring Leader Retreat. It was so amazing!

We spent a lot of time looking at the barriers that we're facing in our work. We met in teams and brainstormed and shared and laughed and cried. (One of the purposes of the retreat is to grow together as friends so that facilitates trust in all our interactions. It works!)

The "aha" for me--and maybe all of us--was after we'd listed our barriers and itemized points underneath each one, our Brand Champion, Jeff White, spoke up. He said that we could transform each negative barrier into a positive statement that fit our five core values. And he was right. Our values are innovation, people-friendliness, authentic learning, quality, and servanthood.

It was brilliant. And it was a great (long) exercise to get to the realization that whenever we're experiencing barriers in our work, ministries, and life...perhaps we're not being true to our core values.

Maybe that insight will save you hours of processing. If you're blocked somehow, what core value do you need to get back to?