Archive - March, 2009

It could be your lucky Day!!!

March 17, 2009 in Family Ministry 0

There are currently 2,909 people registered for Orange. If they get up to 3,000 today, then they will give the church that registers person number 3,000 four free registrations to the conference AND preconference. I’ll either refund them the cost of 4 people or give them orange-cloverpasses for 4 additional people. It’ll be their lucky day.

All you need to do is go to the Orange Conference website to register. This is only good if it happens today!!! So get the word out and let people know that they need to sign up today. Only 91 people need to register and someone will get an awesome prize!!! Tell anyone you think might be interested or let me know their info and I will tell them how awesome the conference is going to be.

Blogger’s Block…

March 16, 2009 in Tech 2

I’ve had some seriously bad weeks creatively the past few weeks. I’m not sure why just seems off. So nothing creative or funny the past few weeks for me is like really really bad.

So first I really need some prayer. I’ve had some deep thinking going on but not much creative decision making or even thought processes. I am lacking some dreams right now and that is not a good place for me… I need some serious prayer and some reflection…

One of the thoughts that I’ve always had is this quote by Edgar Cayce

“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions”

While Cayce was sort of a weirdo… I think this is extremely true. I think that dreams are what push us forward with vision and gusto. So I am praying that I get out of this funk very soon…

Times…they are a changing pt. 3

March 16, 2009 in Family Ministry, Lead 0

Alright the first two posts of this series are here: pt. 1 & pt. 2

Basically I’m looking at some ways that children’s ministry and student ministry are changing and ways that we might be able to get ahead of the curve.

Here are probably some of the highlights before we go forward:

  • most skeptical consumers ever
  • growing up digital (1st gen to do this)
  • willing to pay for digital content (has the church capitalized on this???)
  • want to be heard
  • most supervised generation in history (if I could put 1 mil stars by this I would)
  • less than 20% of teens on the internet download podcasts!

Ok so there are some bullets. Now what can we do about it? First and easiest piece of advice… Get ONLINE. Think about a website that is geared to students or kids. Let me ask you a question. Kids play videogames online. What if you provided a place for that to happen??? What if your website had games for them to play?? But regardless of that Get ONLINE. This is the first generation to ever grow up digital and it’s extremely important to be ahead of the game and give them a safe place to go in their digital world.

Second, kids and students want to be heard, they are civic minded, and they feel like no one can be trusted. Now read all of those slowly and tell me what you come up with: a generation waiting to be tapped into. A generation starving for people to believe in them. A generation having the ability to participate in community digitally and the desire to make a difference. You want volunteers that are starving for a chance to make a difference?? Here you go.

Third what is the impact on children’s ministry. Honestly most of the content in this series is more geared to students than children. But alot of the same things apply. But here is where I think that we can make the biggest impact in CM, besides grasping some more teen volunteers ready to make a difference. Kids are creating content like never before. 2/3 of 12-17 year olds are creating content!!

Are we using this? Are we saying to our kids make a video and get it played on Sunday mornings (of course with guidelines and such)? Can we create a safe place for kids to go online and create content and view content from other kids around the world? Can we be ahead of the curve and provide a way to allow kids to satisy their online needs and help them develop a worldview online??

It seems the church is starting to have a presence online but it’s geared more towards adults and not the first digital generation the world has ever seen. You want buy in from the kids and students in your ministry. Give it to them. It’s what you do with your volunteers and adults. It’s our job to do it with everyone that we minister to including students and kids.

What does it look like to you? Is it possible to have this forum for kids to create content and community? Any other trends you think we should look at in student ministry and children’s ministry?

Soapbox post… sorry :)

March 14, 2009 in Life 4

First let me state 2 facts:

Always been a Memphis fan and basketball fan in general, and 2 I went to school there. So I probably have some blue shades on :)

But I am not really ready for the criticism coming our way after we get our spot in the tourney. We set another NCAA record yesterday by winning more games in 4 years than anyone else.

Let me start w/ my we don’t play anybody argument. We can’t pick who we play against. A few years back CUSA was one of the best conferences in the country (Louisville, Cincinatti, Marquette, and us). Pretty good company. They left and we had to replace them with people that weren’t as good and were in smaller conferences. And they are getting better. But regardless we can’t pick them. O yeah and for 2 straight years we beat them all. ALL of THEM.

0 conference losses!!!

But that is minor.  My second point is our nonconference schedule.

On the road we played Georgetown, Gonzaga, Tennessee… On a neutral court we played Xavier. We played Syracuse at home. All nonconference top 25 teams at the time. That doesn’t count teams like Cincy or Seton Hall which aren’t nobodies (only cause they play in the Big East though :) These are all scheduled by us even though we don’t play anybody out of conference either as some of my Duke fans would say.

Let’s compare these nonconf teams to other “top tier teams”

UNC- non conf- big opponents Notre Dame(neutral) and Michigan State(neutral but in Detroit so we’ll say road) and Kentucky (home) pretty good but three tough opponents out of all of their nonconference…

UCONN-Miami(neutral), Wisconsin(road), Gonzaga(road) not bad again half of the teams that Memphis has to schedule out of conference to be considered a “decent non-conference schedule”

The reality is that you should be impressed with our streak, and the fact that we are looking for 4 straight trips to the Elite Eight and 2 straight to the Final Four. We have proven ourselves after losing 3 players to the NBA and will continue to play well. And guess what this is our down year.

Next year I am already telling you guaranteed Final Four and if we get John Wall we should be preseason Number One. Somehow I have a feeling that I’ve done nothing Duke will be in the running again for beating no one at all…

Overall I am looking forward to the tourney just not looking forward to the 3 or 4 days of ACC grads talking about how Memphis is terrible.

stepping off now :)

CM Commentational

March 10, 2009 in Family Ministry, Resources 6

CM Peeps what are 3 tools that you could not live without?

GO!

Times… They are a changing pt.2

March 10, 2009 in Family Ministry, Lead 0

So as you can see below this post. I posted some consumer trends that I think most people would agree are becoming more and more prevalent. Here is the first way in which I will connect this to students and kids.

Now I could babble with all of this info but here is a link that you need to check out. Take about 10 minutes out of your schedule to do this. It’s a necessity! Pay special attention to slides 10-13.

Marketing To Millennials

Study on Marketing to Millenials

Teens are responsible for all of the information that they gather. They are more involved in data gathering and content creation than any generation we have ever seen. You seen countless blogs on internet safety and it is most definitely a necessity. But that doesn’t mean that we should try to stop or avoid these internet issues. We need to be involved in what our teens are doing. We must find ways to utilize these trends to provide relevant life changing procedures for teens to follow.

I would hope that the engage part makes sense and that we would provide relevant interesting discussion for our kids and teens.

Empower is where I see the most change happening. You can see this change in a lot of places: Video Production, music, social networking. I think for clockStudent Ministries especially this is a big change. Programming used to be the biggest priority. Stay in tune with culture and try to do the latest greatest things to stay relevant. Problem is that it’s old news now. Teens have surpassed the high production value only stage. They are becoming more and more interested in seeing what they can do to change this…well “off kilter world”. They feel they can contribute right now and need someone to give them opportunities and a platform to do it. They need someone to give them authority to make decisions and be responsible for things and also someone to absorb and someone to bounce ideas off.

Just like this past month in CM magazine talked about some subtle shifts that Children’s Pastors have seen over the last few years. The biggest one that Ned (my boss and CP at Brookwood) saw was the CP’s are now more Volunteer Managers rather than the Pastor to Children. I think that is so incredibly true. I think that this shift will mirror the shift that is about to happen in Student Ministry. The difference: those volunteers are students instead of adults. Student Ministers will begin to manage students in the way that CP’s manage volunteers. They will need to train, release leadership to them, and cast vision and allow them to grow and succeed and to fail.

I still have a few more thoughts on these changing ideas and more specifically how they relate to children’s ministry, but are any of you experiencing these things where you are?

Times… they are a changing

March 7, 2009 in Communication, Lead 0

So I have spent so much time on blog design and coding and fixing and stuff like that and have neglected posting a little bit.

I have spent so much time this week talking about change in both student ministry and children’s minsitry that I thought it would be a disservice if I didn’t post some of my thoughts.

This will be part 1 of this series of posts that I have and it has to do with our culture.

A few observations about kids and teens in this culture:

Time is becoming more important than things:

Time is an asset that hasn’t always been important to the 8-19 bracket. However, now products are tied with an experience. Webkins, Pokemon, Bakugan, and the newest trends in gaming: Home for PS3 and the new Xbox 360 dashboard experience all involve an experience tied with products. Creating takehomes with the program is something that is essential for all programming.

Increase in digital media awareness:

In the past thriving business men and women were at the apex of the technology breakthroughs. Now kids and teens can produce content with just a laptop and a personality. Connections are more prevalent than they were in the past ten years. Kids and teens are spending more and more time with the computer and the internet and are having information and entertainment everywhere at their fingertips.

Skepticism is prevalent:

This is a nationwide trend and is the biggest contributing factor in advertising right now. Trust is the most important asset that a company can have. Transparency and Openess are becoming increasingly more important to consumers than flashy features and numerous options and customization.

Home is the new Downtown:

Online experiences continue to grow in popularity. Families are staying home to watch movies rather than go to the theater. Online communities are taking the place of real life social interactions. And the family is staying at home in order to save some dough.

So with all of these things considered how are kids and teens viewing ministry? What are they looking for? How do they feel they can contribute? What skills should we focus on and try to develop for the future of ministry?

Finally got Email subscription working!

March 5, 2009 in Communication, Tech 0

I finally got email subscription working… I know you are all excited. You can now hit the button up at the top. That is what you should do in order to keep up with what is going on with jcisonline.com!

Thanks for reading and contributing!

Running through my head this morning…

March 5, 2009 in Life 0

  • OJ Mayo ran the point last night for the Grizzlies. Yeah it was the Clips, yeah it was forced, and yeah they looked like an actual NBA team! Much better spacing and scoring opportunities for everyone. It made me a lil proud of the Baby Griz.
  • I am really excited about two series going on in churches: Scars at Mark Batterson’s Church and Life Out of Control at Brookwood. Much wisdom will come from these.
  • God is moving me spiritually forward but my physical body is lagging behind.
  • I am praying like never before for everyone, everywhere.
  • Culture is changing everywhere and I hope the leaders of all ministries are proactive rather than behind the curve.
  • I am still reeling from The Bachelor. If you haven’t seen this watch these clips. Ridiculous.
  • My Memphis Tigers are preparing for their Tourney run once again. 3 straight Elite Eights, 1 nat’l champ. game. Don’t think we’re a title contender but if the chips fall right we could make a run for it. But I want a title not bragging rights again.

What’s running through your head this morning.

Giveaways!!! Listen UP!

March 3, 2009 in Family Ministry 0

So I love stuff that is FREE. And I always want to give some thumbs up to the folks that give away free stuff. And these folks are awesome.

The Orange Conference is giving away a ton of freebies. And here is a chance to get in on the fun! Here is some of the stuff they are giving away:

Real-Fake Buildings
Giving away a portable stage set for a family experience to one church. This is a $15,000 value. Churches can submit their written stories to the team onsite at the Real-Fake Buildings exhibit booth and they will partner with the staff of The reThink Group to select one lucky and deserving winner.

Clover
Giving away a website makeover to one church. This is a $1,000 value. The winner will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.free-tag

David C. Cook Publishers
Giving away resources for an adult small group study of your choice – either Crazy Love by Francis Chan or Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna – to three churches. This is a $150 – $500 value per prize. The winners will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.

Dare to be a Daniel
Giving away Dare to Be a Daniel 13-Session Training Resource for three churches or organizations. Dare to be a Daniel is a classroom curriculum that teaches “tweens” to stand for Jesus and share their faith. These are a a value of $229 each. The winners will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.

By the Book
Giving away a child check-in system to one church. This is a $567 value. The winner will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.

…if you want to be included on the emails, they can drop us their email address at orangeconference@rethinkgroup.org

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