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.

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]

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

-Thomas A. Edison

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.

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?

Few people have the kind of resume in their respective industry like John Wooden, the long ago UCLA Bruins head coach. 10 NCAA Championships, Longest winning streak in NCAA Basketball History, 7 straight national titles. But more important than his basketball success was his faith. Here’s a quote about his view of priorities between basketball and faith:

“I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior.”

John Wooden is one of my favorite people to read about for so many reasons: Basketball prowess, incredible active life of faith, poured into young people, His incredible relationship with his wife, incredible balance between excellence in industry and excellence at home, etc. Since his wife Nellie passed away, on the 21st of every month he visits her grave and writes her a love letter and puts it into an envelope that he adds to the stack on the pillow that his wife slept on while they were married. John Wooden is someone that I look up to from afar and I read everything that involves him. The world lost a great one yesterday, but he is in a much, much happier place now.

So today I posted his pyramid of success and I will leave you with this:

John Wooden’s Seven Point Creed, given to him by his father Joshua upon his graduation from grammar school:

* Be true to yourself.
* Make each day your masterpiece.
* Help others.
* Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
* Make friendship a fine art.
* Build a shelter against a rainy day.
* Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

So are these two competing? Probably not, but I wanted to know in your mind. Which is the better social media platform?

We’ll duke it out in love.

New thing here. I want to know what you are praying for this weekend. Allow us to pray for you and your family, your church, your pastor, and anything in between. This is just a place for you to get a chance to ask for prayer and this place will lift it up.

So join us as we pray to God this weekend for the prayers below.

So we look for these tips on recruiting volunteers all the time. I follow a few blogs to really help me write a better blog. It’s arguable how effective they are at achieving that goal however. But I came across this great post on 10 surefire ways to land more customers at CopyBlogger. It’s a great read and I think most of it is translatable to recruiting volunteers in ministry.  A few highlights for me

1. Know what you’re after and where to fish

I know that for the most part it goes without saying but, you would be surprised at how many times my recruiting searches have been so much more effective, because I mapped out what I wanted and tried to understand the best places to find those people. It takes time to plan but you will be more effective and efficient that way.

2. Use good bait

Our call is to prepare people for ministry. However, sometimes we feel that is the what and the how that we communicate. I know this is just me but if your bait sucks then the fish prolly ain’t biting for you. Bring your excellence and creative spirit to the table. How can we communicate impact? How can we communicate the idea that people will be involved in the stories of children, students, and adults and that influence could dramatically change their story? How can we continually reinforce and add value to current recruits in order for new recruits to salivate at some of the same opportunities? Don’t ever disregard God’s word in making these actions apparent. Prayers must be followed by action. Pray it up and work it out and create some ridiculously amazing content to get volunteers in and loyal.

3. Partner up to get a bigger catch

This is one that really opened my eyes to recruiting. In Family Ministry, partnership must be a core. So chat with everyone who is following the stories of people that you aren’t. See where God is opening doors for service. See where God might be leading you to take a role that could help influence a group of people to take a next step in this area of their life. Not only that but also allow people to tell you what are doing right and wrong in recruiting. Partner up to get better results.

And always remember new volunteers may not be the only ones to go after. Maybe current volunteers are looking for more. And if they aren’t try not to spend all your time in recruiting. Make sure to develop some “customer loyalty” type practices with current volunteers as well. Promise you that it will pay off big time!

What are some of your best recruiting tips?

Have you ever tried to start something from scratch. Like completely from scratch. You’ve got big plans and dreams and things that you just can’t wait to be in the middle of the process. One problem. You are stuck at the beginning. I have an entrepreneurial spirit in my heart. I love starting new things. But I am in the middle of a project, very large project, that I am just having trouble focusing on where to start.

How in the world do you focus, when you aren’t sure what to focus on? Any help out there….