In past posts, I have mentioned a guy named, Carl Lindelien (Pastor Carl or “Cowboy” Carl to some). He has been a mentor of mine for many years. He is in the hospital – currently in the ICU and He needs your prayers.
Here is a link to his Caring Bridge Site if you want to know His latest condition.
Here’s a brief bio of Who Carl is and his accomplishments: He started in children’s ministry back when few churches even considered a children’s pastor as a viable ministry. He was my children’s pastor when I was a kid and took me under his wing.
He went on to produce children’s ministry music and write children’s church curriculum.
Would you please keep him in your prayers?
My nugget for the night – Ministry should be an adventure… and it will be if you don’t know what you’re doing. 90% of everything I have ever done in Children’s Ministry are things I have never done before and it has been a blast. You would agree with me in the statement that not everything that you get to do is fun, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Every pastor I have ever worked for has presented me with unique opportunities and challenges (perhaps in later posts I will share with you some of the humorous stories). Every parent, good or bad, has helped me learn what it means to communicate to real adults. Each time I have stood before a group of kids to teach, stretches me to be better at what I do.
What’s over the next hill, around the next corner, on the other side of the field, beyond the forest, in that classroom, in the doorway to the pastor’s office, on the other end of the phone, laying in the hospital bed?
As I said in my last post, I would give some details about my latest project. For the past few years I have been speaking at conferences and seminars, making my resources available. I have been looking for an effective and low maintenance means by which I could make my resources available online. I really didn’t have the time or the money for a storefront and packing and shipping these items out.
But I have found the answer: Down loadable books! I am starting to make my books down loadable at my own online bookstore. What does this mean? It means that you can start to have access to the resources I have written and published over the years, instantly as downloads – you can use a credit or debit card and because I don’t have to publish the books, the are offered at a cheaper price!
Currently I have uploaded my book “Teaching Kids To Give Vol. 1” as the first item for just $8.00 (ususally $10 at conferences).
More will follow… My other “Teaching Kids To Give”, The “Incredible Object Lessons” books, the “Adding Flash To Your Lessons” books, the “Puppet” book and my 13 week Curriculum complete with PowerPoint and take-home bulletins!
Yep, this is a shameless plug for my resources – but I really do hope to get some resources in your hands, and that you will find it a blessing.
Hit this link to my online bookstore. I will let you know when more items become available.
Hey friends – yep, I’m still around. You may even see me on Kidology once in a while, adding my comments to the posts in the network forums. If you haven’t joined yet – please do! Wow… Feruary of 2007 is the last time I posted anything to this blog. So, at least I’m not a year behind. But, man, a lot has happened in the last 10 months. As of Apil of 2007, I am no longer at my church – I am a Children’s Pastor in transition! If you would like to dialogue with me personally about that, I am open to it. Just e-mail me at Jamie@JamieDoyle.com
This has, of course, in no way caused me to lose my passion for reaching children and training leaders. So, I have begun a new project in the midst of this transitional time – But, I will blog about that in the next post. Hope to hear from some of you!
Recently we have been activating a new philosophy in ministry and it’s working… at least for us. We started looking through the eyes of the average churchgoer to see what they see when they look at our ministries – how do they view it and why? We saw that we looked desperate: Our recruitment method was to start calling people on the phone and saying “Hey, If you could help us out – that would be really great… any chance?” we would get reluctant “yeses” but only because they felt sorry for us. I decided to take it up a notch. Our current team began to draft job descriptions of the positions that we needed to fill. We put together sharp sign-up materials with – get this – requirements to be met. We started giving the perception that this ministry is valuable and you should be a part of it.
I thought about investors. If some guy showed up and handed me a sheet of paper and said, “Hey, I’m trying to get people to invest with my firm – here’s a little photo-copy of our information… what do ya say? Can you help me out here?” You or I would laugh out loud and tell the guy to get lost! But if some guy showed up with a portfolio of information that was top notch and said “I would love it if you would look through this packet – you’ll see that we are the top firm in this area. Check the list of requirements and see if you qualify…” the first thing we would do is open it up… find the list of requirements and see if we qualify.
What are you doing to add value to your ministry?
I have just finished reading a great book by children’s entertainer and author, Samuel Patrick Smith or Sammy Smith, as he has become known. Here is the title and the description form his website:
ON STAGE:
Have you read this one yet? You can read it in one evening at home, but the benefits to your performing may last a lifetime… Learn from tips and advice gathered from some of the greatest magicians of the last 25 years.
The book covers a bunch of stuff that those of us in large group presentation situations find ourselves in. Everything from timing to making an entrance to getting the audience to react.
You may be thinking – I don’t perorm, I minister! Yep, so do I. But I want to make the most of every moment and if a kid will pay closer attention to me becasue I timed the words that I was saying to get him to sit on the edge of his seat… or I get the entire room to excitedly say the verse with me because I used an audience management technique – then, I’m making a great impact.
You can get the bood from Sammy’s Website
I am so pumped about some new developments in our church. Just today I bought a lazer-tape gadget that uses a lazer beam to measure distance. It can then add the linear distances together and figure out square footage of a room. (Or cubic footage if you care).
Why did I buy this gadget for $19.95 us at Menard’s? Because we are expanding the children’s ministry into some newly acquired warehouse space (We own a warehouse as a church). It will give us the ability to have a secure children’s ministry wing and TRIPLE the size of our square footage. So, I have been measuring every room that we have currently to figure out what we need, what we want and what we can do. If you could triple the size of your children’s area, what would you do?
Hey out there to my Calvary Chapel friends. I am going to be at the Calvary Chapel Children’s Ministry Leadership Conference in Southern California in March. You can get the pdf brochure here. If you are in Children’s Ministry, and you are with the Calvary Chapel, and you can get to the Murrieta area by March 4… then, you should be there! it’s a great time and the price is right for the conrference, food and lodging on site.
I ran across this post a few days ago – it intrigued me because, 1. I run a children’s ministry and 2. This is a church in Minnesota. I added my comment and got a nice response from the folks in charge of the blog. It turns out that the family is just one suburb over from our church and the folks in charge of the blog were going to forward our church info to them. When I found out where they lived, I knew which church they were referring to. I began to realize how sad it is that this well known church in our part of the metro is not just well known for being big… they have a reputation as the church that has a cover-charge for kids to get into the children’s ministry. It makes me wonder if they realize that they have this kind of reputation.
How about you – what do you think? Do you charge kids to attend weekend children’s ministries? If you were asked to start by your leadership, would you?
