Archive - June, 2010

The power of Google Reader

June 30, 2010 in Tech 0

Ok a few things you need to know about me as a person.

  1. I love to read
  2. I love listening to people that have something worthwhile to say
  3. I love to read
  4. I love to have intentional conversations with people
  5. I love to read

Did I mention that I love to read? I read a lot of books every year. The kindle has really done all kinds of awesome to my book reading time. But one of the other tools that keeps me refreshed is Google Reader.

I subscribe to a lot of blogs that deal with an arena of things such as: Family Ministry, Pastors, Marketing Agencies, Communications gurus, blogs about writing and sports blogs. The tool that keeps these things in line is google reader. You can find a ton of posts out there about this particular Google product so I won’t bore you with the basics. But one of the things that I think is the coolest feature that I wished more people took advantage of is the sharing options.

Ever read a blog and think man wish I could just email this out to all the people I think it would help? Well you can. By following the list in google reader you can see everything that a particular person shares for the world to see. I’ll give you an example.

I read everything that Michael Hyatt does. I think he’s brilliant. He also has a google reader account and regularly shares items. They are not written by him but are written by blogs that he follows and he shares them on his reader account. He will also add notes to particular items of interest. If you would like to follow his shared items here’s the link.

Anyways, if you want to get started with Google reader click this link. It’s free and super easy to get started, like most things google. And last but not least click here to follow my shared items in google reader.

Anyone following someone on Google Reader that we should be?

The Rizers: Family Worship and Scripture Memory that’s fun

June 29, 2010 in Family Ministry, Resources 0

So Family Worship is something that you are going to be seeing a lot more of in the future. I saw this post from the Resurgence on some music from The Rizers. They specialize in making scripture easy to learn and memorize by putting it to music. The songs are pretty catchy and in a new school pop format. You can test drive a few songs here by giving a little bit of information.

You can also buy their full album from Amazon for only $7.99 by clicking this link:
Meet The Rizers

You guys know of any other music like this out there?

Back Home

June 28, 2010 in Random thoughts 0



Hi Res Reedy Falls, originally uploaded by RandomConnections.

I’ve been not blogging for the past two weeks, purely out of busyness and lack of internet. My iPhone is jacked up and has some issues when I go out of town. And as much of an Apple fan as I am, it really upset me and it has nothing to do with AT&T at all.

Done with that soapbox… The week of 14th-18th of June was our Adventure Week program and last week I was on a mission trip to Bluffton, SC with our high school ministry. It was a great opportunity to learn about leading trips like this, and also a great chance to see students being involved in ministry. It’s been a beautiful two weeks.

Anyway, glad to begin getting in a routine again. And I have a lot of posts coming up this week trying to recap and go over a lot of our “VBS” thoughts and processes and a few things that have been on my heart that we talked about on the mission trip or in general in my life.

A lot of stuff going on. Hope your summer is going well and that everything is kicking this summer in your ministry and family.

Brookwood Church’s Adventure Week starts today!!

June 14, 2010 in Family Ministry 1

Our Week long Adventure Week/VBS/Day Camp for kids starts today! I’m pumped. We’ve got a few kids and volunteers that will be here this week.

I plan to post a little bit about our Adventure Week Philosophy and hope to talk about some of the things mentioned in a cmconnect forum mentioning VBS Alternatives, Paying for VBS, and Does VBS still work? I’m sure it will be an interesting discussion for sure.

But with all the fun things that we talk about I hope that you will join us in prayer this week. Pray that kids experience life in Christ as they go thru this week with a volunteer, and that for this week they will associate Church and fun together.

Those are the two goals that we have for this week. And we’ve done a lot to accomplish these goals, but nothing happens without God intervening. Pray that He does and the glory ONLY goes to Him.

Faceoff Friday: iPhone 4 vs. Droid

June 11, 2010 in Tech 4

So this should get interesting…. But I really wanna know, who are you backing and why?

Why does everyone love Google?

June 10, 2010 in Tech 0

Here’s one reason.

I can post my own picture as the background of google.com

Man my wife looks hott in that picture.

+1 for making my search that much more awesome.

Young Leadership Lesson #1 – Humility

June 9, 2010 in Leadership 1

So in rethinking my blog’s purpose one thing continually sticks out in my mind. I must talk about young leadership. I am a young leader. I believe that I can teach other people about leadership while they are young and I really hope that these lessons can help young people, who desire to be leaders, really begin to develop this skill.

So for Lesson number one I want to talk about humility. Humility is such an interesting part of leadership. It’s not glamorous or powerful nor does it have some bling as a part of it’s identity. I’ve heard a quote that says:

Pride makes us artificial, but humility makes us real.

I totally agree with that. One interesting thing to not about humility is the way that we view other people when we have a humble spirit about us. When we take pride in ourselves, our abilities, and our accomplishments, we place other people in a spot below ourselves. But when we live with an attitude of humility, the way we view people changes. People are seen as at least equals, but in most cases are honored.

Humility is cool for another reason as well. It gets us to ask questions of others. If you view yourself as an expert, are you ever going to ask someone questions to improve your craft or your behavior or your family life? Probably not, Humility opens us to the realm of authentic life change, because we have opened the door to being able to take advice from others.

Oswald Chambers talks about Humility on June 9th, in My Utmost for His Highest. He says:

“If any of you lacks wisdom . . . .” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit.

So today be humble, but also remember this quote:

“The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it”

-Mignon McLaughlin quotes

[Picture via jeridaking]

Wednesday Wisdom 6/9/2010

June 9, 2010 in Leadership 0

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

-Thomas A. Edison

5 Reasons to get an iPhone 4 for your ministry

June 8, 2010 in Family Ministry, Tech 0

So you probably watched the Steve Jobs Keynote presentation yesterday. And you were trying to figure out reasons to drop the 200 or 300 bones to grab one of these sweet mobile thingy’s. Well just for you, here’s 5 reasons to get an iPhone 4 for your ministry.

1. iBooks

It’s easy to be well read when you have books on the one thing that you will never forget to bring into your small group room. You can always have the latest vision casting, volunteer recruiting, or inspirational title right at your fingertips. Plus for kids and students it will make reading cool again. +1 for intellectual stimulation.

2. iHD Camera

So I know we all wish we could afford the greatest camera to easily capture moments from Sunday morning, training classes, or when you get bored in your….um…I mean have a random stroke of creative genius. And it’s in HD and you can edit it on the same device. Sa-weet!!!

3. iMissions

I know cheesy title, but I’m bringing the creativity on this one. Wish your kids could get a taste of the mission field? Wish they could connect to your missionaries that are currently abroad? Well with the handy dandy face time app, you most certainly can. Ok the cheese factor is most certainly on for me today…But in all seriousness, imagine being able to connect not only with missionaries, but also kids.

Not only that but what about you multi-site people. Imagine your volunteer connection time with these to connect with all of your site on a Sunday morning. It would be a cool thing to pray together via video every week before services.

4. iGaming

The kids or students in your ministry will definitely want to connect with you because of your mobile device. With the new gyroscope feature, I can only imagine the gaming possibilities. It’s going to be pretty awesome to see what people come up with. Great chance to connect with kids and students.

5. iEnvy

The last thing and the least important…well, just depending on who is reading this :) . You want to be the coolest student ministry person in your community, one hypenated word for you pre-order.

Not to mention, it’s so incredibly exciting that what we saw yesterday at Keynote is just the tip of the iceberg. Have fun inventing ways to use the new toy you were probably going to buy anyway.

Giving advice on a subject you know nothing about

June 7, 2010 in Communication, Leadership 4

Operator?!, originally uploaded by Dalla*.

So in this blog I’m going to let you into my wounded brain for just a second. Ever feel like you have no idea what you are doing?

Yeah that’s this guy. I started blogging long ago to just dump and evaluate what was going on in my life. This blog shifted about 2 years ago into more of a children’s ministry blog. That is my role and I look at people that have been in ministry for ages in a children’s role and I’m in awe of the content they have. For the most part I feel so inadequate. I feel like a child in the midst of so much awesome.

I feel like sometimes I just don’t contribute enough to the growth and development of Family Ministry and Children’s Ministry through this blog. It’s one of the main factors in re-assessing the purpose of this space. You have people like Kenny, Sam, Matt, Gina, Henry, Anthony, Jonathan, Amy, etc. who are just killing it and I’m just trying to soak it all in. So in my woundedness, I feel totally inadequate when coming to terms with the value that I add to the community, when these rockstars are knocking it out of the park.

But then yesterday happened. I have been solicited advice on numerous occasions before about parenting. I’ve never walked away from giving parenting advice with the idea that I helped in any way. But yesterday was different. I knew answers, I knew strategies, I knew resources. It was like I knew what I was talking about. I don’t think this father is going to be totally different but I felt for the first time that I gave meaningful parenting advice.

The part that makes this all so weird to me is this: I have zero children. I know very little about parenting except for what I have soaked up from people, blogs, and books. I don’t understand why people would seek me out for advice. It’s sort of my own insecurity about my abilities and gifts but these thoughts race through my mind at least twice a day.

But yesterday it seemed as if I gave some sound, beneficial advice to a father searching for some.

I say all of this because maybe you are out there like me and feel like you are completely incapable of succeeding in a particular arena because of experience, education, or emotional baggage. But don’t stop learning or trying. Allow God to work in and through you as you seek to perfect your craft. Allow God to be glorified not by your ability, but by your openness to surrender to Him. Look for ways to get better and ways to practice your craft.

But be open to God working in and through your life.

What is an area that you feel inadequate to help others in? How or what did you do to overcome it?

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