My Take on Family Ministry

(photo by Patrick Q)

Family Ministry is a buzzword in children’s ministry. I hear people talk about the problem of family ministry. We talk about how we need to partner more with parents. We talk about it as if this is a new and revolutionary idea that we need to find new and revolutionary solutions to. We talk about how things used to be done reminiscent of “the good old days” way of talking.

I do think that it is good that churches are trying to be more intentional in how faith is integrated into family life. My concern, though is that most solutions are still based on an institutional and compartmentalized view of spirituality. We are looking for family programs, partnership initiatives, and shared “worship” experiences to deal with the questions of helping parents share faith with their children.

My concern is that these “solutions” do not help families live out their faith in authentic ways as they live out life. Families are inadvertently told that “THE WAY” to pass on faith to their children is by going to a church service together or by having family devotions that include some sort of learning activity or by following a curriculum they take home to use in the car and at the dinner table.

While these things are not bad, I don’t think we need to focus more on helping families realize that faith is lived out in the day-to-day things they do. Parents need to be encouraged to live out their faith from day-to-day and model what it means to live a transformed and authentic life with all its ups and downs. Parents need to be equipped to use everyday moments - teachable moments - to model faith for their children. Parents need to be empowered to be a faith model for their children.

While family ministry programs and systems and initiatives and whatever else you might want to add are good, I don’t believe they are the answer. We, as ministry leaders, need to model for our community that church is more than just a building… that worship is more than just a church service… that everyone in God’s family is a minister and needs to be doing ministry in the greater community together as families… that all parts of our lives need to be lived out as worship… that wherever we are, we are carry the image of God as lives transformed by the Holy Spirit…

What does that look like? I’m not sure. But I’m not convinced that all these programs and solutions that are being talked about are the answer. I think the answer is much more simple and organic.

Getting Rid of That “Extra Space” You Get In Word:Mac 2008

I was reading my friend’s blog, and he had a post about a setting Microsoft put on Word 2008 that adds a space of 10 pts after each paragraph by default. Personally, I agree that this is a stupid default setting… unless someone can tell me the thinking behind it so I understand why. Well, my friend was asking for help, so I Googled “get rid of space in Word Mac 2008″ and one of the sites gave a solution (and it worked for me). I thought I’d share it here for anyone who might be miffed by the default setting and wants to fix it. These instructions are for Mac. I don’t know if they did the same thing to the PC version. If so, the solution probably is similar.

Here are the steps to change that setting:

1. Open Word.
2. Go to Format » Styles…
3. Highlight Normal in the Styles selection window, then press Modify.
4. In the new window that opens, check the Add to Template box (lower left).
5. Now choose Paragraph from the pop-up menu in the lower left corner of that same window.
6. In the new window, change the After setting to 0.
7. Click OK twice to close windows, then press Apply in the main Style window.
8. Quit Word and re-open.

Mother’s Day

(photo by MontanaRaven)

Mother’s Day was a lot of fun at our church. I had the privilege of putting the service together. We entitled the service “Snapshots of Motherhood” and weaved a number of skits, monologues and dance together with the message. We also had the JK and SK kids share a song as well as had some Grade 1-4 kids join the adult worship team to lead music.

The message of the morning was that motherhood is hard yet many pictures are painted for mom’s about what “the perfect mom” is supposed to look like. These pictures only serve to discourage and weigh mom’s down with guilt and disappointment. These images come magazines, books, TV, and… us! I encouraged mom’s to look to the creator of the universe who gifted each of them individually for a picture of the “good mom” each of them needs to be. I also encouraged everyone else to stop painting pictures for moms of what they should be.

I used the story of Samuel looking for a new king of Israel among Jesse’s sons. I then pointed out 1 Samuel 16:7 that says God looks at the heart while we look on outward appearances. God chose David to be king whereas Samuel would’ve picked one of his older brothers. I then made the parallel that God is the only one who sees the hearts of each mom and is the only one who can accurately paint a picture of what each mom needs to be for her kids and her family.

It was cool because the skits were realistic snapshots of motherhood at different stages. Many moms left thankful for the permission to “just be mom” whatever that looks like for them.

I think we, as children’s ministry leaders, need to do more of this kind of thing. Cheering on parents and encouraging them to be the parents God has created them to be. We need to stop telling parents what to do and let God paint his picture of what they need to do and who they need to be. Then we need to come alongside them and encourage them in that.

Equilibrium

(photo by Pulpolux !!!)
I was talking with one of the staff here at Redwood about being in vocational ministry and the tension between work and home. He said something that got me thinking. He said, “I like to think of it in terms of equilibrium rather than balance. Equilibrium is just more dynamic.”

Both he and I are from a science background, so that really hit a chord with me. For those of you science nerds out there, Wikipedia defines dynamic equilibrium this way:

• “occurs when two opposing processes proceed at the same rate. A reversible chemical reaction will be at dynamic equilibrium when the rate of forward reaction is equal to the rate of the reverse reaction. Whilst at dynamic equilibrium there is no change in the concentration of either the forward or reverse reactions. The word “dynamic” indicates that at equilibrium both the forward and reverse chemical reactions still occur rather than the reaction halting once equilibrium is reached.”

In other words, equilibrium doesn’t mean things get balanced and then nothing changes. In equilibrium stuff is always moving back and forth. The key, though, is that the net effect over a long period of time is zero. One side of the equation doesn’t end up being heavier than the other.

I think that if we approach work and home that way when it comes to vocational ministry, it allows us the freedom to define how much we spend at work and how much we spend at home in terms of what our values and priorities are rather than in number of hours from week to week. Personally, my values are that home life will win over work life in the end. That then allows me to work more hours at work when certain situations require that of me because I will take advantage of those times when work isn’t as demanding to spend more time at home so that net effect in the end is that home does win over work.

This then becomes a good guage of if you are spending too much time at work (or at home). If the equilibrium that you have set up for yourself becomes out of whack over a period of time, then you know you have to adjust one side of the equation or make a radical change.

How do you deal with the demands of work and home when in vocational ministry?

More on Leadership

photo by Shenghung Lin

After posting about building leaders of leaders yesterday, I ran across this post from Eric Bryant’s blog. It has three great quotes about leadership (including one from Dwight Schrute!) Hop on over there and take a gander.

It Takes Time

Helping leaders become leaders of leaders takes time. It isn’t for the faint of heart, especially in a volunteer setting. I know that this isn’t new, but I need to remind myself of that. There is no quick route or 3-step miracle plan to instantly have leaders of leaders. It takes time. It takes trust. It takes letting go.

You hear speakers or read books that outline structures showing you leading Zone leaders who lead coaches who lead small group leaders who lead students (or however you want to name your subdivisions). It’s made out to sound as if all you have to do is start plugging people into these roles and you have instant leaders of leaders. There’s nothing instant about it. I forget that developing leaders of leaders isn’t a sprint… it’s a marathon.

Picture by darkmatter

Do Something About It

Earlier this week our staff went for breakfast. While I was paying, one of the guys pointed out the bag above. They had those individually wrapped toothpicks available for people on the counter. I imagine that they had found lots of those little plastic wrappers all over the place, and someone thought, “Hey! Why don’t we just stick a bag near the toothpicks for people to dump their wrappers in?” I should’ve asked the cashier, but I wonder if they have less toothpick wrappers laying around the floor now.

Now, I’m sure employees and owners complained about the toothpick wrappers on the floor. The thing is… someone did something about it. It got me wondering about the things that I complain about and do nothing about. Sometimes I do nothing out of laziness. Sometimes I do nothing to avoid conflict. Sometimes I do nothing because I put off doing it and get too busy to go back and do something. Sometimes I just hope that someone else takes responsibility for it and takes care of it themselves. Whenever I choose to do nothing, the outcome is almost always the same: Nothing changes… nothing gets done… and I am still complaining about it.

I think Nike is on to something with their tagline: “Just do it.” Stop complaining. Do something about it. It doesn’t have to be perfect or complicated or sophisticated. Just take care of it.

Shh… Just be quiet…

I was just recently at a conference where we were challenged to be quiet to listen to God. It was preceded creatively by text on a screen that we read through as if the screen were doing a monologue, so we were forced to be quiet before given the challenge to be quiet and listen to God. I really liked it and the way it was done. In the midst of all the busyness and excitement of being at a conference and having listened to general sessions and breakouts the previous two days, we were challenged to put all that aside and just listen to God.

The funny thing about this exercise was how many people, all of a sudden, had to cough. We are so conditioned to not have quiet that unconsciously some people filled in the silence with a cough. It was contagious! One person coughed, then another and then another. It wasn’t a cacophony of coughing. It was just a smattering of coughing, but it was interesting nonetheless. Some of you are probably thinking, “Well, you should’ve been concentrating on God rather than listening to the coughing!” You’re right. I, too, struggled to just be quiet and listen to God. I think we all, especially those of us who are leaders, need to practice silence more often.

A Racy Hannah Montanna?

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand in children’s ministry, you know that Miley Cyrus (a.k.a. Hannah Montanna) is the hottest person out there in kid culture especially in that 8-14 year-old demographic of girls. Hey, my six-year old girl even knows Hannah and can sing the songs to boot.

Well, recently some edgy pictures of Miley Cyrus are slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, and pictures have been circulating the internet. The “picture” is of Miley with just a bedsheet covering her front and showing some of her bare back with stylish-bedhead looking hair. There are also some other pictures of Miley and her friends that have been deemed “inappropriate.”

Here is a link to a Toronto Globe and Mail article about it.

I saw the pictures on the morning shows yesterday. I don’t really know what to think about them. I think that Miley, at 15 years old, is a bit young to be taking edgy pictures like that. As for the other photos, I think they are just a record of teenage stupidity that should’ve never been put on MySpace. The story of the Vanity Fair pictures was that Miley felt some pressure to have the pictures taken by the renown Annie Leibovitz. Whatever the reason for the pictures, Disney and Miley have already issued apologies about the pictures. With the recent nude pictures of Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame, I’m sure parents are wondering about positive female role models for their children.

What do you think about all of this? How should we talk to our own kids as well as equipping parents in our ministry of how to talk to their kids when they see these pictures on TV or hear about them? My aforementioned 6-year-old daughter was in the room when the Vanity Fair pictures came up, and we asked her what she thought of the pictures. She didn’t think girls should dress like that. For now, I think that was enough. As she gets older, though, I know I will have to enter conversations about the line between what is art and what is profane.

On a side note, the Globe and Mail article is also interesting because of the viewpoint of the Culture Wars in America from someone outside of the US.

Conspire Conference - Overall Impression

I was very pleased at the changes that were made to the conference this year. It felt more like a breath of fresh air than an extended commercial for Promiseland. I also appreciated the Point Leader Summit and the practicality of it. I only wish that we could’ve interacted with the presenters in a smaller setting.

One of the things that did stand out this year was the lack of clear communication from the stage about services like where the men’s restrooms were, that a business centre was available to use and have laptop batteries charged at, what to do at meal times. I was also a bit disappointed that there were a couple of things that I had to order (like the FX 3-pack) instead of being able to pick them up at the conference.

This year they tried to take advantage of forums and blogging during the conference, but no one really took advantage of it. Maybe something that could be done in the future is to give out prizes to people who post on the blog or forums or have guest bloggers do some live blogging and such. Last year at the student ministries conference, they did a good job of getting people to interact online. Maybe the children’s ministry conference planners should check out what student ministries did.

All in all, this year’s conference was really well done. I overheard many positive comments from people. Before the last session I was sitting in the cafe and heard someone say that if the conference hadn’t been so good up to that point, they would be heading home already and not waiting for the last session. One of his team members piped in that he really didn’t want to come but was VERY glad that the leader dragged him along.

Kudos to the planning team. I look forward to perusing the MP3s of the sessions in the next few weeks and letting my team here benefit from it all.