Sign Wednesday: Centri-Kid Signs and others around campus

Here is a collection of signs around the campus. Some are good... Some are decent... Some are just... Well you be the judge.

By the way, what do you use for the letter "C"? We have use "choose" but I don't know if I like that either.

This is the sign for the crafts track time. I would say the only time it is appropriate to have a sign like this is for a craft track. It does look good in person. The picture doesn't do it justice.

This is the theme sign. Graphics are good and very good texture and depth. When Lifeway puts money behind graphics they do a very good job.

This sign is huge. It is on the side of a building. Very eye catching but I am not a big fan of the 2 kids they picked to be on the sign.

Now this is my favorite sign from around the campus. We will say that this is not a Centri-Kid sign but it does go to show that we are in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. All I have to say is enjoy!

I love that it is plural. I wish had many butts.

Recap Video of Smash 2007

I have posted the Recap Video of our Smash Camp to YouTube. Here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjGqcNf7oow

Let me know what you think of the video. It was done by a volunteer that was at the camp and was burned to a DVD that we gave to every kid before they left camp.

Smash Camp was a great week and we created very good buzz in the community. I am glad that I am not forced to do traditional VBS and I can do something totally different.

Centri-Kid: Freedom

First, some of you have ask what is Centri-Kid? I do apologize for not explaining what Centri-Kid is in my first post. Centri-Kid is a church camp for kid's who have graduated 3rd-6th grade. They are held all over the country and this one just so happens to be at Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY. Which is only about an hour away from our church. Centri-Kid is sponsored by Lifeway Christian Resources which is the Southern Baptist Convention. So if that is not your cup of tea I understand, but it is close enough to our churches views and doesn't push the SBC stuff to much.

Now on to the reason for this post.

Yes that is me with my face painted. I am trying to look mean. What do you think? If you haven't figured it out yet I am trying to look like William Wallace from Braveheart. Our whole them today was Freedom and I thought it was only suiting to give props to my favorite movie. By the way, I don't think the paint looked that psychedelic but it does look freaky in the pic.

The kids had a great time learning about freedom in Christ and how that comes when we put him #1. We as adults have our own worship time while the kids are in the Bible study time. Today's worship was exactly what I needed. You see, the biggest reason I chose Centri-Kid over any other camp is because they have a great staff that takes care of Bible Study, Recreation, Track Times, and Large Group Worship times, but still give you the chance to hang out with your kids and build relationships. So you get the best of all worlds. You get fed while feeding your kids and get to take the whole experience home to your local church. I don't know why more camps don't do this.

So let me end this day with one word:

FREEDOM!

Centri-Kid: First Impressions

Overall the first day was very good. The biggest highlight of the day was the drop off. It was very intentional and thought through. They stop you early and ask what church you are with so that they can make you a Welcome Sign. Nice touch for the sign geek in me. Then you are stopped by the camp pastor who prays with the van about the week and introduces himself. Then you make it to the place where you are to register and the staff "kidnaps" the kids and let the adults go through the ever popular paper work portion. The kids are playing games and signing up for track times. The staff is plenty prepared for how long it takes you to go through the orientation process, which by the way, was one of the most painless I have been through. Believe me when I say it started everything off on the right foot. The rest of the time was good. I will say that I hate mediocre sound during large group times and we were close on many occasions. Other than this little bit of my obsessive compulsive side of programming it was a very big hit with my students. Until tomorrow when camp really begins...

Side note... Anybody else out there go to Centri-kid this year? What were you thoughts?

I'm back

I am back from Mexico and a from a 2 day trip to Chicago. Went to Willowcreek this morning. Mike Breau spoke and it was incredible. If you haven't been to Willowcreek in the last couple of years they have updated Promiseland. Nice updates but... OK I won't critique to much right now.

Anyway, it is late and I am off to Centri-Kid tomorrow. I will be blogging from Georgetown, KY and updating often with pics and such.

I will give highlights of Mexico after next week. Thanks for your prayers. It was a great week.

Also, I have a little project that I will need your help on but I will keep you anticipation until later.

Monterrey, Mexico

I am taking the next week off from blogging. I know right now you are feeling angry, confused, upset, and maybe even a little bit happy all at the same time. I do have good news though. I am leaving tomorrow for Mexico for a mission trip. Believe it or not, but I am one of the adult leaders for the trip out of the country. Yes, it is true...Children's Pastors can hang out with youth and be well liked.

Seriously, please pray for the trip and all of the orphans that we are going to be able to work with. Pray for Back to Back ministries who is our contact in Mexico. Pray that God will move in a mighty way in the teenagers that are going on this trip. Lastly, pray for my 2 boys, my wife, and myself. This will be the longest I will have been away from them since the boys have been born.

Watch out Monterrey, Mexico. You won't know what hit you when we step off that plane. It could be my scent because I still haven't packed my deodorant or it could be an incredible team of teen agers just waiting to see God has in store.

A billion dollar idea

I believe everyone in the world has a million dollar idea in them. In some way, shape, or form they see our world and think of a way to improve it. If you then take that idea and make a business or a product out of it then you could make one million dollars. I truly believe everyone has this in them, so don't tell me you don't.

Now the hard part comes when we are talking about a billion dollar idea. Why is this so much harder? Because this has to be an idea that the money is set aside for already or the right company is willing to buy into and the masses must buy into as well and not just a niche market. Well, guess what? I have had a billion dollar idea that I have been trying to get off the ground now for 5 years. That's right. I have recently started the patent process on this idea and have started looking for the right Venture Capitalist.

Why do I tell you this? Because I was checking my stats to see who is checking out this site. For the most part there were no surprises. Mostly churches from around the U.S., England, and Australia. Isn't it amazing that you know when someone from Fellowship Church, Southeast Christian, Saddleback, Willow, First Baptist Orlando, and many other churches are checking out your blog? By the way, a big thank you to all of you. The most interesting one for me though is Google. There are at least 2 people from Google that read my blog on a very regular basis. Now here is a company that could take my billion dollar idea and make it into be a multi-billion dollar idea and it fits in their vision of owning the advertising dollar.

So what is the idea? I can't tell you here but if you readers from Google want an idea that would help every local community with communications during but not limited to emergencies, sell advertising not only to fortune 100 companies but be targeted enough that mom and pop stores buy in was well. The research for guarantee numbers is already there and it is free and the people that this would advertise too would be captivated then I have a proposition. I will lease the patent to you and I get in return 1% of all revenue from the idea. Now if you wanted to go over the top and hire me to see this to completion then that would be great. Just a proposition for a new way to advertise to the masses.

What would I do with the money? I would then help Christian business men and women across the world start their business in their countries. All of this in hopes to evangelize each country through business and the marketplace and fund local churches to reach the masses. There you have a little global vision from a guy who happens to be in Children's Ministry right now. See it's not about the money. It's about reaching people all over the world. I know some of you were worried.

What is your million dollar idea? If you could make everyday life better, how would you do it? What would you do to change the world with the money you make.

Sign Wednesday: 4th of July

In honor of the 4th of July this Sign Wednesday is one of the ultimate signs. It has no words but says thousands. It comes in very many sizes and is put all over the United States. My goal is to someday come up with a sign that can have all these qualities. Today enjoy the American Flag

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Does your family blog?

Does your family blog? I am proud to say that mine does. In fact, my wife just started her own blog. I am so proud. Now if I could only get her to write about Children's Ministry then she would blow your socks off. She too worked at Fellowship Church for 5 years and did incredible things in Children's Ministry while there. When we left, she was the Children's Pastor at one of the satellite campuses. Now her passion is being a wife and a mom and that is what her focus is going to be for her site but I bet you that I get her to talk about how to plan a camp for 500 kids a week or how to do a VBS alternative for 4000 kids over the course of 4 weeks. By the way, I know that you are going to read this Jessica so, I love you.

Not only does my wife blog but so does my father-in-law, my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law's husband (I really don't know what to call him except really smart), and my brother and his wife. All of these have some type of ministry focus. That's right... I will have to say that I am surrounded by an incredible family who is trying to change the world for Jesus.

Now if I could only get my mom, my dad, and my 2 year old to blog. Then we would have something. I can see it now... My mom would write about the adventures in nursing... My dad would write about how to be the best electrician, and my 2 year old would write about how to play a Nintendo Wii and beat your dad at golf.

Now this is what I call great family time.

Throwing Away Trash Cans

Today is trash day in Loveland, OH and it made me think of something. Have you ever tried to throw away a trash can? Believe it or not, it is very hard to do. If you put the trash can out on the curb they take the stuff inside but not the trash can itself. If you leave it by itself they do nothing with the trash can. If you try to put the can in another trash can they think you have made a mistake and take it out for you and leave both trash cans behind. Thanks for the help right but come on... Seriously... I want you to at some point in your life try to throw away a trash can and then you will fully understand how hard it is to change the culture of your ministry and not just the programs of you ministry.

Anybody can change programs, curriculum, and even the environment but how do you change the culture? We have had to do this over the last 2 years that I have been at Horizon. We have had to help our people see that there we have issues and then try and make them healthier. How did we do this?

Let me give you one example of what I am talking about. I will give you more in the future but this is a good starting point. When I showed up to Horizon we had around 20 paid teachers in our Children's Ministry for Sunday morning. Now that wouldn't have been bad if we were averaging 1500 to 2000 kids a weekend. Paying teachers to teach on Sundays is not bad as a back up program. It does give you a nice safety net but by no means should it be your vehicle of doing ministry on a week to week basis. Now as you can tell, I thought 20 was way to high when we were only averaging 85 kids a weekend. That's right. When I showed up almost all of my teachers were paid. Now you have to understand that Horizon is in a very wealthy area. The average house sale price is over $1,000,000 and the people that we reach are used to paying for almost everything. A culture shift needed to happen when it came to Children's ministry. We needed volunteers and not paid workers. So myself, and my wonderful assistant, Tami, set out to replace all but 8-10 paid teachers the first year and all but 4 paid teachers the next and replace them with volunteers. So how did we do this right?

Let me pause and tell you how to throw away a trash can. The secret is you have to make the trash can not look like a trash can. You have to change the way the trash men and women look at the trash can.

The same way you have to change the way you look at trash cans is the same way you have to get your people to look at your ministry in order to change its culture. Your first step is change the vision. Then you have to change the questions you ask. Then you have to change the way you measure success. Then you have to show that you are being successful. This is how we went from 20 paid teachers to 4 paid teachers in less than 2 years.

What part of your ministry culture needs to change? Is it the idea of excellence... the idea of "they are just kids"... the idea that ministry can be done by others...