In the 1990s there was a big push to target the 10/40 Window for prayer and missions. For those who may not know, the 10/40 Window is the geographical band around the world located between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator that is where the majority of the world’s people unreached by the gospel live.

This geographical window, including regions like South Asia and the Middle East, has always been a core focus of missions efforts, but recently another window of great mission significance has been identified – the 4/14 Window.

The 4/14 Window represents children between the ages of 4 and 14. Worldwide, there are 1.2 billion of these children needing to hear about Jesus and how much He cares for them.

You may be wondering why is it so important to share the gospel message with children between the ages of 4 and 14. Besides the fact that God loves them, studies by well-known researcher George Barna have revealed these interesting facts:

• 85 percent of Christians in America who accept Christ do so before the age of 15.
• Most of a person’s moral beliefs are formed by age 9.
• People’s life-long spiritual identity is typically in place by age 13.

As a result of these findings, Barna concludes:

“The implication of these findings is clear. Anyone who wishes to have significant influence on the development of a person’s moral and spiritual foundations had better exert that influence while the person is still open-minded and impressionable — in other words, while the person is still young.

Tragically, Satan also understands the importance of the 4/14 Window. That’s why he unleashes some of his most vicious attacks against children within this age span in the form of poverty, war, hunger, disease, neglect and abuse. He will do anything to ruin children’s lives and their potential for spiritual transformation in Christ.

As a dedicated champion of children, you are invited to participate in this important effort to focus the Church’s attention on those children in the 4/14 Window through fervent, targeted intercessory prayer.

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a great week. Today, I would like to share a very helpful resource for any leader. The Eric Trap is a book by Jim Wideman, Sam Luce and Kenny Conley. The book focuses on 5 things every leader has to get right. The Eric Trap is exciting, engaging and inspiring. This is not just another boring book about leadership. The authors write in a way that puts the reader in the middle of the story. I can’t begin to tell how many times I felt like Eric.

The book can be read in a couple of hours and it is well worth your time. I recommend picking up a copy for your entire leadership team. The chapter on delegation really inspired me to focus on tasks that I can share with other qualified leaders. I now realize that simply delegating is not enough. I have to place a great emphasis on delegating authority. The concepts in the book have already started to lighten my load.

As a lead pastor, I greatly appreciated the section on aligning individual ministries with the overall vision of the church. It really helped me to gain clearer insight on my team’s perspective of ministry. I am a huge fan of family ministry and I thought the chapter on activating parental leadership was right on target. The topic of measuring success was also very beneficial to me.  Possibly we all are measuring the wrong things in our ministries.

Every leader should read the final chapter of the book. Almost every one in ministry has struggled with balancing their priorities. I constantly need to be reminded of what God expects from me.

Check it out, this is one of the best books i’ve read this year!

We all make mistakes in ministry from time to time. That time you forgot to sanitize the toys. That time you offended a child’s parents. That time that game went horriby awry. We’ve all made these relatively little mistakes in ministry.

But what about the bigger mistakes? Ignoring our families? Devoting too much time to ministry and neglecting our spiritual lives? Brian Dollar knows right where you’re at.
Brian Dollar grew up as a “church brat.” God radically saved him and now he serves as a children’s pastor at a local church in North Little Rock, Arkansas. In his book, I Blew It!, he writes about the biggest mistakes he’s made in kids’ ministry, and how you can avoid them.

But enough reading. (It’s so overrated.) We’ll let KidzMatter director Ryan Frank tell you his thoughts about the book. Check them out, then head over to KidzMatter.com to get your copy of I Blew It! today.

Kenny Conley

I hope you had a wonderful Easter. This week, Kenny Conley offered to share some content for our blog that he wrote specifically for leaders that attended ICM.

Kenny recently published a dynamic book about leadership in Children’s Ministry.  I will be sharing more about the resource next week. We also plan to catch up with Joy Bowen and Brian Dollar, two other speakers from ICM, in the near future.  Be on the lookout for an upcoming interview with Kathy Creasy. She has been training leaders in several different countries and she has many exciting stories to share!

I hope you enjoy the post:

Last year I read several books about change and getting things done. Like many people, I can get overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done. I find myself desiring to make many changes, but my pace is sluggish. That’s the reality of being under-staffed and under-resourced, plus we only get 24-hours in a day, right?

I’ve learned that there is something highly motivating about seeing results. It inspires others and keeps us going even when progress is far slower than we would like. Many years ago I wrote about a similar concept in regard to construction. So, even though true progress is often slow, sometimes it’s important to accelerate change.

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University puts this concept to practice in their second baby step, the debt snowball. In this step, you pay down your smallest credit card as quickly as possible and only pay the minimum payments on everything else. Once you’ve paid off the first card, celebrate and apply everything toward the next smallest card. Keep doing this until you knock them off one at a time. This practice keeps you motivated, and allows you to experience successes and milestones until you are debt free.

I remember taking my leadership team to a retreat many years ago. At the retreat, we talked about making some pretty significant changes that would likely take many years to pull off. However, just before concluding the retreat, we each came up with a short list of simple things that we could do right away with very little effort that would make an immediate difference. I was surprised by how many ideas we came up with, like simply painting an entry way or rearranging the way parents checked their kids in. While we began the work of initiating huge ministry changes that would be time consuming, we quickly put several of the quick fixes to work and enjoyed the immediate success they brought.

So whether you’re stuck in the tedious work of progress or simply trying to keep your head above water, always try to accelerate a little change. It could be as simple as gathering 3-5 parents for an extended lunch after church. Share a little vision for where things are heading and explain that you’d like to bring a little fresh energy to the ministry that comes with a few simple changes. Have everyone brainstorm some simple ideas, evaluate what would be easiest and most practical… and delegate away. Encourage your team that these ideas are things that you will do together.

You never know, this simple exercise of accelerating change may help some parents have greater ownership in your children’s ministry. This will far surpass the change you are trying to accomplish.

Joy Bowen

Joy was one of the keynote speakers at the 2011 ICM. She really challenged us all to take our leadership to another level. She taught us: How to Launch a Jr. Praise and Worship Team, How to Structure Your Preschool and Children’s Ministry, Leading Families,Organizing Intentional Small Groups, and Mobilizing Kids and Youth to Lead.

This week, I would like to share some of Joy’s thoughts about connecting with parents. It’s extremely important for pastors to work together with their children’s director to ensure that parents know what is going on:

My family is navigating the roller coaster many know as “Middle School” for the first time in  our parenting career.  We now have multiple teachers and a myriad of due dates, test dates and every other date one would want to add  to the calendar.  Our heads are swimming.

Most teachers have a class website that students (and parents) can access to stay in the loop on the the details of Middle School life.  It’s a welcome life preserver for those of us who feel we are drowning in paperwork coming home. Some teachers do not utilize this technology for communication because they fear that parents will complete their children’s assignments.

As much as I would hate to admit that there are certain parents who would cross the line and complete assignments for their child, I have a hard time believing that every parent is seeking ways to cheat the system.  Regardless of her reasoning, this decision has made it extremely difficult for parents to participate in the process.

Perhaps you are tempted to tell your children’s director to stop creating communication pieces for parents because of the dozen that you found on the ground last week. We’ve all wondered, “is this really worth the effort?”

Why not make it as easy as possible for parents to become connected with what you are doing? Some will, some won’t – it’s okay. Your ultimate goal is to help lead parents to the next step. According to Barna, 85% of parents believe they have the primary responsibility for teaching their kids about religious beliefs. One size does not fit all when it comes to communication. If your goal is to help parents take the next step as the spiritual leader of the home, how have you made it easy for parents to stay in the loop?

Joy Bowen

Last week, I reconnected with Joy Bowen. Joy was one of the keynote speakers at the 2011 ICM. She really challenged us all to take our leadership to another level. She taught us: How to Launch a Jr. Praise and Worship Team, How to Structure Your Preschool and Children’s Ministry, Leading Families, Organizing Intentional Small Groups, and Mobilizing Kids and Youth to Lead.

This week, I would like to share some of Joy’s thoughts about building tomorrow’s leaders today. Pastors, we really need to be intentional about developing leaders.  We have to provide them with opportunities to lead.

What’s the difference between a youth “helper” and a youth “leader?”  Have you ever sat down to think about it? When my oldest son became a Jr. Black Belt, he also earned the privilege of stepping into a Jr. Leadership role at the studio.  His rank opened up the opportunity for him to help instruct various classes.  Our Karate Studio does an excellent job developing Jr. Leaders.  In fact, college recruiters commend them — not just for the athletic skill of college recruits — but, for the type of leaders that come from their program. Having worked with youth leaders in ministry, I am very observant of the way this studio is developing students to lead.  I think their influence is far more effective at developing students than most for one key reason:  It is an “all staff” initiative. Certain instructors may have age groups or disciplines that they specialize in, but when it comes to developing the young black belts to lead, it’s definitely everyone’s responsibility.  They all come together for the sake of developing the next generation of leaders.

Continue Reading…

Kenny Conley

In this post we will be continuing our ongoing conversation with Kenny Conley. Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. He is also the author of childrensministryonline.com, one of the top Children’s Ministry blogs in the country. This week, we are talking about vision. On Sunday, someone anonymously donated $1,000 to our children’s ministry.  Obviously, this made my day!  I love seeing us invest in the next generation. Our next step will be to strategically decide where to invest these particular funds. Kenny shared some of his thoughts about vision and children’s ministry:

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about vision lately. A couple months ago I heard an interesting story. I don’t remember who told it to me, so I can’t confirm it’s validity. However, I was told about a church that was given a significant financial gift. When I say significant, I mean in the multiple millions of dollars. How amazing, right? What a blessing! Unfortunately, it wasn’t for this church. Within a couple of years, the church was defunct, no longer in existence. Why? Because leadership didn’t know what to do with the money and fighting tore the church apart until nothing was left.

I don’t know the details of this particular situation, but if I had to guess, they had a vision problem. Either they didn’t have one, or it wasn’t nearly big enough. At least it wasn’t a million dollar vision. In the case of this church, a lack of vision was fatal.

It seems to me that a ministry with a God-sized vision would know exactly what to do with a gift of any size. That way a substantial gift would immediately be applied toward the vision… no questions asked, right? I believe that God calls us to things that are far bigger than we could ever do on our own. Maybe that’s because he wants us to truly depend on him… keeping us humble.

I get it though. We’re so busy that we lose track of the vision. We can’t see the forest from the trees. That’s normal and natural. However, I think it’s healthy for us to take a step back from time to time and refresh ourselves with the God-sized vision He’s called us to. Maybe for you it’s reading through your journal. For others, it might be enjoying a lunch with fellow staff and dreaming together. These exercises are critical to keeping the vision in front of us.

How clear is your vision? How big is it? Would you know what to do if someone gave you a million bucks tomorrow?

Wess Stafford is the president of Compassion International and author of Too Small To Ignore:  Why Children Are the Next Big Thing.  Take time to listen to his thoughts on kids in this video, “The Voice.”

Kenny Conley

I mentioned in last week’s blog that I was very fortunate to meet Kenny Conley at ICM last year.  Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas.  He is also the author of childrensministryonline.com, one of the top Children’s Ministry blogs in the country.

One very common challenge that pastors face is the ability to find money for children’s ministry.  We understand the importance of investing into the next generation yet many times the financial resources are just not available.

Here are Kenny’s thoughts on how we can improve in this area:

There are times when there just isn’t enough money to do what you need to do. Here are several suggestions that I have seen work in the past:

Fundraisers

I hate these things, but they’ve often allowed me to have some non-budgeted items over the years. Back in 2000, I had kids sell frozen cookie dough. We got a special deal through Wal-Mart and they matched what the kids raised. We raised enough to get a computer and the equipment necessary to have Power Point in our Kids Worship area. A few years later at another church, we found out about a shaved ice business that did profit sharing. Our church hosted a huge church-wide picnic and the Children’s Ministry sold shaved ice. We ended up making $700 – $800 in just three hours. We used this to buy some tech equipment for one of our kid’s rooms. We also set up present wrapping stations outside of Wal-Mart near Christmas, sold concessions at family events, held an ice cream social after VBS and did parent-night-out events where we took care of the kids while the parents went out for the night. Like I said, I hate these things… but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Pick your poison.

Connect a person with your need

Sometimes there is someone attending your church who would be more than willing to financially meet your current need. I’ll leave you with one example. I was working at a church where we were pretty strapped. My wife found out that a co-worker was selling a gumball machine. I totally wanted it! I was teaching a series on missions and I had the perfect idea. I wanted to find an easy and fun way for kids to give toward missions on a regular basis. Although we would do a special offering at VBS and make pushes at other times, I had a great idea. I wanted to put a gumball machine in the hallway and tell kids and parents that every time they bought some gum, they were changing the world as I would donate all the money toward international missions. You’d be amazed at how quickly those things fill up with quarters. I talked to my pastor and he recommended a member who had a big heart for missions. He told me, “Go tell Bill to buy it, he’s got a heart for missions.” So, I pulled Bill aside one Sunday and told him what I wanted to do. He loved it. I told him I didn’t have the money and it would cost $600. He wrote the check right there. Mission accomplished!

Partner with businesses

Over the years I’ve gotten some good experience at corporate fund raising for the Children’s Ministry. I got my first start at it when I was asked to revamp our Fall Festival. It was an event that attracted about 2000 people and I had exactly $2000 to work with. I wanted it to be a great community-wide event. But I knew I needed more money. My initial idea to raise a few extra thousand dollars was to sell off sponsorships of booths and activities. I figured that I could get banners for about $35 a piece. If I sold sponsorships, I could buy the banner (have their corporate name/logo put on the banner) and have the extra $65 to spend. In addition we figured we could sell sponsorships to go on the pack of staff t-shirts for $200 to $300 each. In the end, we had between 6,000 to 7,000 people attend and we raised an additional $10,000 to $12,000. I had a woman working with me that was absolutely amazing at selling vision and raising money. She took the event from there and took it to the next level every year.

Kenny Conley

I had the privilege of meeting Kenny Conley at ICM last year.  Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas.  He is also the author of childrensministryonline.com

During February, I will be sharing some of his thoughts on children’s ministry…

At my local church, it seems like we never have quite enough volunteers in our children’s ministry.  Possibly you have the same problem.  Here are Kenny’s thoughts on how we can improve in this area:

One of the most significant forces for kidmin in the local church are teenage volunteers. Every kidmin has them and some highly depend on teens. Although some teenagers lead small groups or have a strong presence from the stage, most fill many valuable roles here and there as helpers, behind the scenes volunteers and on the floor with preschoolers having fun. Teenagers in kidmin are highly valuable because many will be the next generation of volunteers and staff. I’m amazed by how many kid’s pastors I meet who were volunteers in children’s ministry when they were old enough to serve.

Unfortunately, many of these teens get over looked. They’re treated as another warm body that helps us keep our ratios. It’s not that we’re not grateful for them, but they’re treated differently than adult volunteers. I think that’s a shame. Sure, teenagers can be immature and a little undependable, but they have passion, availability and a longevity that could far surpass most adult volunteers. These teenage volunteers need to be equipped. Intentionally.