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How to deal with difficult kids when you’re teaching

July 19, 2010 in Communication, Family Ministry 1

So I know you’ve been there. There’s a kid in your large group that most would describe as really energetic. But the people telling the truth would call this kid demonic :) Only kidding of course. But I think that we have all had a kid that is one of these three common difficult kids: The Riddler (asks too many questions), The Joker (distracting the audience), or a last one that we will call Robin (Sunday School answer kid). So the next few posts will be about these three types of kids and how you can begin to deal with them in an effective manner in your Large Group setting.

Thanks for the pic Nulka

Giving advice on a subject you know nothing about

June 7, 2010 in Communication, Lead 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?

Organizational Buy-In: Relationship

April 26, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

handshake

Time for the real crux of this formula. Remember the formula is here. Today we will talk about the R-Relationship.

Relationship to me is the most important factor in this entire equation, that we’ve talked about over the last few weeks. The depth of relationship that you have with people really increases your influence with them. It’s important to continually invest in people. When you come into a new organization, most people will give you this first piece of advice, “Build relationships, with people” and that’s true. You should continually look to build and deepen relationships with people in your organization. Insert this cliche here “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care” and that pretty much sums it up. I know really corny post for such an important part but there are so many resources out there for connecting with people and building relationships.

Author’s Note

Now this formula is not for you to manipulate people. But I hope that you begin to look at the formula and see some areas that you can improve upon.

Organizational Buy-In: Value

April 12, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

Have you ever attempted to quantify the value of your product, service or organization? Have you thought about what would life be like without “x” in their life? How can you expect people to buy-in to what you are repping if you don’t have the slightest idea of how valuable “x” is?

This idea of value is always interesting to me. It’s why I love marketing. Few people really understand the value that their product or service has in the lives of their “customers”. But a ton of people misappropriate the value that they hold in people’s lives. Most of the time feeling as if, the value is bigger than it’s real value.

But to help give you an appropriate measuring stick, Here is the breakdown that I use for value.

current benefit of “x”, perceived future benefit of “x”, number of alternatives or exclusivity on the market.

So V=CV(current value)+FV(future value)-a(alternatives)

Now generally people would include alternatives in the costs part of the overall formula. You most certainly can for sure, however, it is important to note that if people associate the value of your product with those that are similar, then it is something that needs to play into your value equation.

Current Value- Are you adding value to people presently? Are you continuing to promise future benefits but never give them anything for the here and now? People might be asking: When are we going to get moving, when are we going to start seeing some results?

Future Value- Is your product only living for the here and now? Are people limited with the amount of time that they feel like they will spend in your ministry or organization? Do people feel like there is zero future with “x”?

Alternatives-Don’t limit yourself here to only things that you can see as direct competition. For Example, Family Dinner has changed. It used to be that you would show news at around 5-6 timeframe, but now media has expanded it’s reach. So a family’s time or money is something that you should also consider when thinking about alternatives. In your ministry, what other opportunities could people pursue.

For value always remember this:

Vision casting isn’t the answer. Having a vision that you can cast is the answer. For most, it’s not the ability to cast vision that needs help. It’s the vision and value of the vision.

Think about the value of what you are offering to people and up the ante.

My Organizational Buy-in Formula

April 7, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

Poker chips, originally uploaded by Jam Adams.

I’m going to give you the formula first so you can drool over it, :) and then break it down later.

To determine the amount of buy-in for each individual you must consider:

Value of Product/service/organization/ministry(Relationship) – Cost = Amount of buy-in

or simplified:

V(R)-C=$$$

What do you think?

Organizational Buy-In: First Shot

April 6, 2010 in Communication, Lead 0

Poker Night 2/5, originally uploaded by 204studios ~ Michael Herb.

Yeah I used a poker picture which is generally not a good picture to use when describing successful business practices. However, I think that it’s a good picture for something that we want to talk about.

How do we get people to buy-in to our particular product, organization, or ministry?

This will be a series of posts, so I want to take this with even the simplest idea first. I’ll call it initial buy-in.

In poker, the buy-in is the amount of money that you need to enter a particular game. Most games have minimum or maximum buy-in rates.

So the first thing that you will need to look at in your organization is what price is our initial buy-in?

Is it astronomically high and you leave a lot of people that might be beneficial partners out because of the high cost? Or is the cost so low that every single person you know can get in, even though you might have 200,000 applicants for a single position. You have to ask yourself, what kind of cost are we asking people to pay up front?

The second part is are you attracting the right people.

What if you came to the table expecting a buy-in for a Bingo game? You would probably look really foolish when people throw out chips instead of calling out B 8.

The reality is that sometimes the communication of what you are actually representing is confusing, unclear, and even off-putting. People might not even consider bringing their chips to the table if your new gardening ministry is being communicated as a yard work ministry. I mean who likes yard work?

Not only that, but sometimes people communicate things in crazy ways. If you look desperate, then I probably will look twice in your direction, because I respond to need. However, I am probably in the minority in that situation. Desperation most of the time for people equals failing. So how are you communicating the vision of your product, organization, or even ministry?

So first shot for you is figuring out these two things:

What initial cost am I asking people to pay?
What am I communicating for people to buy-in to, exactly?

Stay tuned for my own formula on Org. Buy-In.

Love You Guys!

Organizational Buy-in

March 31, 2010 in Communication, Lead 4

broken dino toy, originally uploaded by fickleknitter.

I am a Marketing junkie. My degree is in Marketing. I love aligning a brand with purpose and identity. I remember countless days applying principles of marketing in the church during my college career.

One thing that I get asked about a lot is “How do I get people to buy-in?”

Over the next few posts I would like to focus on the idea of buy-in.

But first when you think about buy-in, what comes to your mind?

Vote for Kenny!

March 30, 2010 in Communication, Family Ministry 7

vote-for-kenny

So I’m officially throwing my support behind one candidate. His name, Kenny Conley. In my best Lanny Donoho format I’m going to give you a few reasons to vote for Kenny.

First of all he’s the only Children’s guy that I know named Kenny. Kenny is a very special name, generally reserved for people with musical abilities. Kenny G, Kenny Rogers, Kenny Loggins and Kenny Chesney are the only famous people that I can even think of with the first name of Kenny. So the fact that Kenny is succeeding in something other than music with the first name of Kenny is in and of itself amazing.

But here is where it gets interesting, a singer by the name of Souad Massi who was influenced by Kenny Rogers is from the country of Algeria, Kenny Conley as you know hates the Algerian font.

Kenny Chesney wrote a song called Tequila loves me. There is a restaurant in Texas called Azul Tequila. It’s in the city of Austin which is also where Kenny’s church Gateway Community Church is located. Azul Tequila is about 14 miles from their McNeil campus. If you add 1 + 4 in 14 you get 5, which is about how many times Kenny posts each day… Crazy I know…

But it get’s so much better :)

Kenny was called to Children’s Ministry at the age of 14 as a child, which is also the miles Azul Tequila is from the McNeil campus. He has been a children’s pastor for over 11 years. He’s been married to his wife Sara for 8 years. He also has one child named Titus. If you add 14+ 11 + 8 + 1 together what do you get?

34.

Which is also the number of people in the group think project called Collaborate:Family + Church which I would love to review if someone could get me a copy :)

Also if you spell Kenny backwards it spells ynnek, which I’m pretty sure is Canadian for Awesome. Ask Sam Luce for confirmation on that one, though.

Overall, childrensministryonline.com is one of my most favorite blogs for Children’s Ministry. The amount and quality of content that he provides is sorta unreal. I’m still just trying to figure out how in the world he can blog as much as he does. But Kenny is incredibly deserving of your vote in the final four of the #kidmin blog march madness tourney.

So head on over and vote for childrensministryonline.com today!

3 people you should strive not to be on Twitter

March 25, 2010 in Communication, Resources, Tech 4

Twitter icon for a fluid app, originally uploaded by mfilej.

I am no expert at twitter by any means, however the time that I have spent tweeting I have learned 3 people that you should make a concerted effort to avoid being. (besides hanging preposition guy)

1. Incessant Fan boy/girl:

We understand that Andy Stanley, R-dub, and Ashton, talked about something that rhymed with your name and now you need to return the favor… But seriously more than 6 times in one day is ri-dunkulous. Just send a few @ replies to a person a day. And if you have to think about limiting how many times you @ reply something then you are definitely in need of incessant fan intervention.

2. Verse Person:

I love Bible verses as much as the next guy, however, unless your username is: Verseotheday, Powerverseguy, thebible, etc. you should seriously limit the amount of verse usage on twitter. Why? Because people won’t pay attention to anything else that you say because they unfollow you or at least make sure that you didn’t make any of their lists that are for other people to see.

3. Power follower/Power non-follower:

I have been in the power follower category in the past, especially since twitter groups and lists became commonplace. But I have most definitely slowed down the rate and the kind of person that I follow. But I think the opposite is true as well. Being that guy/girl who follows like 20 people but they have thousands of followers is dumb imo. There are tools that allow you to be selective in who you would like to tweet, so why only follow 10 people, when a ton of people obviously want to connect with you. Both are no-nos.

Thermonuclear avoidance person:

Someone who is a power follower, then they suddenly become a power unfollower but they don’t tell anyone…. Avoid being this person like the plague…

That’s it for me, any other twitter person you would caution people to avoid being? (minus hanging preposition guy)

Plus you can follow me here

A little more cheese, signage time!!!

March 19, 2010 in Communication, Life 0

a77_church3

So I’ll just post one. But feel free to insert some in the comments below and don’t forget to vote in the #kidmin March Madness

Don’t you just love cheesy church signs :) I know my friend Matt Mckee does!!!

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