One thing that I hope that this little blog has done in 500 posts is push you to ask questions. Asking questions is my favorite part of Children’s Ministry. The questions that kids have about life, God, and everything in between always keep me on my toes. If you can give your kids a comfortable place to ask questions, then you will find spiritual growth in that place. All that to say, I want to pose a few questions today.

First if you haven’t read these posts then stop and come back later. Or really you don’t have to come back, they will talk about a lot of what I want to talk about in this post.

Kenny’s letters to kidmin curriculum publishers (I’ll post the link to the conclusion he has links to all of his posts there)

Henry Zonio’s Something Digital this Way Comes Post

Many of Matt’s posts on Digital learning I’ll post his most recent one! Please scroll through his content, it’s ridiculously loaded on this subject!

And my series on Digital Kids (I also saw that I didn’t finish the other characteristics. I’ll have to get on that )

Here are a few questions that I feel like Curriculum publishers should be asking and probably are asking:

• How can I use technology to enhance Children’s Ministry, Student Ministry, or even Corporate Worship as a whole?
• How can we make curriculum more affordable for everyone?
• How can we expand the learning environment OUTSIDE the church?
• How can you create an active, dynamic, changing learning environment?

I’m not sure that curriculum is even the answer to a lot of these questions. In this ever changing digital environment, the people that I talk to have a few things that they need in their ministry context: Worship, High End Graphics, and Something to get kids involved in the experience.

So here are a few of my thoughts:

• I have some issues with the lack of innovation and the fact that churches are hurting everywhere and I don’t know of many producers of curriculum dropping prices. I want to see some new and exciting stuff. FYI I would promote the heck out of it!
• I think that a lot of stuff out there is quality, but most of that stuff has “money makers” that cripple a ministry rather than help them. (I’m looking at you additional pricing for materials that you could duplicate in house instead of paying extra)
• Lifechurch.tv provides their resources for free on Open. I don’t expect everyone to do that, but I mean how can a small church afford to buy those crazy cool production resources for their kids if the price of that curriculum is more than 50% of their budget?
• Is video teaching the most innovative thing going on for curriculum? I had video teaching when I was a kid. It was called Sesame Street. I watched it a ton and learned that one of these things is not like the other and also how to count. But where is the interaction, the group think, the dynamic changing environment where digital learners succeed?
• What if there was a place that artists could create illustrations for common Bible Stories? Jonah, Moses, Noah, Jesus, Peter, etc. all in different styles by different artists for different contexts of churches. Same thing for worship graphics? Could that work? Would that be an alternative for churches that have the ability to write but can’t create the graphics?

But honestly, I see curriculum will be here for a long time, because for most churches, the staff doesn’t have the time to write and develop their own material for their own individual setting. But what are your thoughts on this issue? How do you feel about curriculum as it stands now?

Ferrari 599 Hamann Gold, originally uploaded by Tex Mex (alexandre-besancon.com).

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.

I picked up Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John C. Maxwell in hopes of improving my ability to start relationships, deepen relationships, and also connect with others in a much deeper way. John Maxwell wrote this book to help others learn how to truly connect in a relationship with other people. He starts the book with 5 principles for connecting with others and concludes with 5 pratices to help give you some tactical things when connecting with others.

While I am a huge John Maxwell fan, his more recent books have seemed like more of the same leadership nuggets that we all know him for, however this title is different. It is both principle oriented and yet gives you things that you can do tangibly today. I was thrilled as I was reading to really understand the depth of preparation and time that John took in preparing not only meaningful connecting principles but also clear and concrete ways of becoming a connector today. He comes from a place of influence and lets you into what he is thinking as he prepares to speak to an audience or an individual. If you are in ministry then you know it’s all about relationships, I think this book is a must have on your bookshelf.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas
  Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book
  review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The
  opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with
  the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
  <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides
  Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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?

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!

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?

Edit 5133, originally uploaded by jameshodgson100.

I know totally un-manly this morning, but I just need to let you know that spring is here!

If I can just let you into my brain for a bit, I do a little bit of graphic design and am totally self taught. My design is ok, but in no way am I professional designer.

But part of the reason that I love design is because of pictures like the one above this post.

I go nuts over Macro shots of flowers. I am consistently astounded by the creative ingenuity of our Creator. Flowers are a perfect picture of the detail involved in God’s craftmanship. I am consistently floored by the amount of focus put into color, form, and lines in flowers.

I can not get over how amazing they appear. I love spring so much more because of the colors brought out by the seasonal change.

When I look at these flowers and realize that they were good to God and then I think about myself and how in God’s eyes we were created VERY good, it puts a lot of things into perspective for me.

One of my friends is about to have a baby girl and I can imagine when she is born in the next few days, I can only imagine the amount of thought and detail that God put into her design.

Do flowers change your perspective on the value that God gives you? For me they most certainly do.