JCISONLINE

So part of the reason you can basically know everything Orange via bloggage and tweetage is because of the blogging suites David Lyons of MinisterSearch has provided… the blogging suites. ! If you’re here at Orange, MinisterSearch wants to get to know you. Stop by the blogging suite and meet David as well as all the bloggers.

MinisterSearch is a search firm for those who serve in the church. Whether you’re a church looking to hire someone or you’re seeking a position in a church, MinisterSearch is a great resource for you. So make sure that you can come by and chat with David and all of us bloggers upstairs in the Orange Leaders lounge, directly past the free Coffee

 

Be sure to check them out at MinisterSearch.com

So I have the privilege of being able to giveaway the book titled Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back(affiliate link). I wanted to think of something incredibly creative in order to give this book away, but honestly I couldn’t come up with anything. So here is what you need to do in order to win:

• Post a comment naming at least one starter on the Memphis Grizzlies NBA Basketball team
• Receive notification that you were the first one from me
• Then come find me tomorrow in the Arena. Have to be at Orange tomorrow to win.

It’s as simple as that. Happy hunting

I have been loving the Orange Conference, like I have every year. Today I definitely found a few takeaways. So again I will give you my summary of the 2 main sessions of the day and also the cliff notes of the 2 breakouts that I attended.

Main Session 2 – Jeff Manion

I heard Jeff Manion at the Willow Creek Leadership summit last year. He did a similar talk there involving the idea of his book: The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions(affiliate link) and it was definitely a talk that I remember.

• The Land Between is in reference to the time that the Israelites were in the desert after being freed from slavery, but not yet crossing the finish line into the Promised Land.
• The Land Between is both the soil for transforming faith and it’s also where faith goes to die.
• The Land Between is when you have received God’s promise but you haven’t necessarily experienced the relief of the situation.
• God is attempting to transform the Israelites from people of slavery to the people of God.
• The soil we most detest is the same soil that produces the fruit we most deeply desire

 

Volunteer Assimilation by Nina Schmidgall

• Know your vision so that you can always cast it. (please stop immediately if you can’t state your vision and take today and figure that out)
• Date a new volunteer: love the analogy. Know when to pop the question, shower them with gifts, etc.
• Use a shadowing system
• Use the One Time Ask: Hey can you sit in on “x” and give me your thoughts on how we could improve? (stealing this one)
• Know your entry and exit points for volunteering. (NCC uses semesters, plans recruiting and celebrations around semesters)
• Never say “ONLY” as in you are “only” committing to this or well you “only” have to do this. You are already undermining the volunteer.

Not JUST a Volunteer by Jeanne Stevens

• Coming to Serving, Serving to Owning, Serving to Leading. Note the progression.
• Had a cool idea she called Next, they took 15 minutes after the service to give everyone in their congregation that was interested info on what to do next.
• Imagine your volunteers living this out “If you don’t give me responsibility, I won’t be responsible.”
• Letting the wrong people hang around will negatively affect the right people.

Main Session 3 – Jud Wilhite

• This one thing struck me and I couldn’t shake it: “God moves on our behalf not just so we can be forgiven and free but so we can be sent out on mission to share his love and grace.”

Tomorrow is the last day of the Orange Conference, make sure you swing by the blogger’s lounge upstairs and say hello

So #Orange11 has been incredible so far. Had a great chat with Chad Swanzy, Gina McClain, and Cathy Harwick talking about the preteen age group and the many talks that need to happen between parents and students. Great preteen ministry conversation we had. But that conversation needed so much more discussion and a lot more action. Which begs the question: How do you move from notes and chatter to action?

Jim Wideman mentioned today in his How to get more done in a day, that you need the right tools. So with the inspiration from Brother Jim and also this post from Ryan Millard here are some thoughts and tools to move from notes you take at Orange or another conference and transform them into action.

You must capture well

For me I use a variety of tools:

• Evernote
• Pen and Paper (I prefer Pilot G2(affiliate link) and Moleskine(affiliate link))
• Pictures taken on my iPhone 4 and then modified with a scanner app called CamScanner Free and then moved into Evernote

Any of these are great to use to capture thoughts, ideas, and quotes from incredible speakers, friends and even strangers. You must do your best to capture your thoughts as completely as you can.

Prioritize Action Items

What are the ideas that you need to act on? How to you label those items to set them apart from your regular non-thought provoking thoughts?

• The @ sign is something that I always use when I’m in Evernote. Why? Because you can search for the @ symbol. When you do a search for that symbol all of your action items will immediate become available to you.
• Colors if you are using pen and paper. Colors can help you organize information so well. From calendars to contacts to conversations, colors draw attention and immediately identify differentiation.

Plan and Breakdown

After you’ve prioritized action throughout your notes, you need to immediately plan to complete the tasks. One of the best things that you can do is immediately bring down the big task that you want to complete into small steps that are easily completable. Sounds simple, but this separates dreams come true versus forgotten ideas. Begin working to complete the big, one small step at a time.

 

Biggest Hacker Tip

Are you ready for this? I can’t believe that I’m even telling you this tip. If you take notes with pen and paper and you have a smartphone with a camera. You need to get an Evernote compliant app. I use CamScanner Free to transform pictures of notes, whiteboards, and books into brighter pictures where the white is made much more vibrant and makes the text searchable (if you use Evernote).

Here is an example from today’s notes:

 

 

I cannot tell you how much this has changed the game for me in my note taking abilities.

 

 

To Summarize:

• Capture your thoughts
• Prioritize what needs action
• Breakdown the big into smaller more attainable steps
• Do it!!

 

First, wow it’s been awesome. I am truly blessed. Great conversations with incredible people and can’t wait to meet more. Had a few preteen ministry conversations as well and man it’s been awesome.

So here are the 3 breakouts that I attended:

• How to plan a ministry calendar by Kenny Conley (@kennyconley)
• How to evaluate your weekly programming by Kendra Fleming (@KFleming)
• How to do more in a day by Jim Wideman (@jimwideman)
• How to connect with parents using social media by Kenny Conley and Matt Mckee (@kennyconley & @mattmckee)

I will give you a brief synopsis of each and some key takeaways, with some more detailed breakdowns coming later.

How to plan a Ministry Calendar by Kenny Conley

• Get your mission, vision, and values down before you even think about a calendar
• Make your calendar reflect your mission, vision, values, and goals.
• Don’t do things based on budget but instead based on your goals.
• Ask for more, and be ok settling for less.

How to evaluate your Weekly Programming by Kendra Fleming

• Kendra does an amazing job. Wish I could have done everyone of her and Kenny’s breakouts, but alas.
• Evaluate by 5 criteria. Critique the environments, nurture leaders, value team, inform the crowd, and perfect the systems.
• Evaluate consistently, Evaluate honestly, and most importantly evaluate critically.
• If you aren’t evaluating, you aren’t getting better at anything.

How to do more in a day by Jim Wideman

• Organization, Time Management, and Leadership are learned behaviors
• Organization + Order = Effective Management
• Your time should reflect your priorities
• You need a big vision, know and live by your priorities, desire to change, and the right tools in order to get more done.
• Whatever you don’t manage you will lose.
• If you spent as much time with God as you do with your wife, then would you still be married? (insert bam here)
• Break big things down into small steps.

How to Connect with Parents using Social Media by Kenny Conley and Matt Mckee

• Used Google Voice to take questions, I took this opportunity to text the real JC (Jonathan Cliff, who was GV moderator) and try and distract him.
• Social media was used more on the internet than porn last year.
• Social media isn’t just a fad it’s here to stay.
• It’s not about blasting your message, it’s about providing a way for others to interact
• You should come meet all of us at the Blogger’s Lounge and buy an app from ROAR (they didn’t say this but I thought I would add it)