Top Toy Trends according to Toys R Us

Kidscreen has an article on the top four toy trends that Toys R Us thinks will dominate this summer.

• Backyard Bands: merchandise relating to the Naked Brothers Band and Jonas Brothers as well as games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band
• Nature First: environmentally themed toys/products
• Get Your Move On: products that promote physical fitness, namely the Wii Fit (I got one and it is cool!)
• Techno-cation: electronic educational toys like the Leap Frog toys

So, it looks like the theme for the summer is interactivity and the environment. It just goes to show that kids are wanting to be more involved in what they do rather than just watching. I plan on taking advantage of some of these trends like making sure I watch Camp Rock starring the Jonas Brothers as well as making sure that we are giving kids opportunities to move around and play quite a bit while learning. Day Camps, VBS and summer camps can really benefit from these toy trends.

Jon and Kate Plus 8 Go To Church

Erin and I have started watching a TLC show called Jon & Kate Plus 8. If you’re not familiar with the program, it follows the Gosselin family of ten: 2 parents, a set of twins and a set of sextuplets!

We’ve been having fun watching them lately because we have realized that they are just a normal family… except with 8 kids! Last night we watched an episode where they went to church and then on a picnic. As I watched them drop the kids off in the nursery, I was thinking to myself… “What would I do if a family with sextuplets arrived at my church? God bless those volunteers!!” Six kids all crying to not leave mom and dad only to have fun as soon as mom and dad left… sound familiar? (That is, except for the six kids…)

Family Friendly vs. Family-Centric

It’s funny how being on a trip with a friend gets you to ponder things you normally don’t ponder…

On my trip to see RUSH, my friend and I were told by our wives to stop at IKEA since there isn’t one anywhere near Thunder Bay. I had to pick up some boxes for shelves that we have.

My wife and I have always been impressed by how IKEA is aware of families in their decorations and the little things they have so that kids don’t get bored in their MASSIVE stores. They’ve got play stations throughout the store. They even have a kids’ eating area in their restaurant.

This time around, I realized that there is a big difference between family-friendly and family-centric. IKEA is family-friendly. They are aware that families come to their stores, and they want those families to enjoy their time so they continue to shop and want to come back. They also have many customers that aren’t “families.” They have customers that are singles. They have customers who have no children. They have customers whose children have grown and leave home. These customers don’t in any way feel left out or alienated or ignored by IKEA’s family-friendliness. In fact, their family-friendliness is just there. It’s not “in-your-face.” If you have kids, you notice it. If you don’t, then you probably don’t.

When it comes to family ministry, I think IKEA has got something. When it comes to doing church, we need to be family friendly. We need to do ministry with the thought of how we can equip parents and engage kids and keep families coming back and growing without excluding everyone else.

What I am seeing in current family ministry trends is a push to make church family centric. Families, namely families with young children, are the ones that church is encouraged to program for leaving out everyone else. OK, I may sound extreme, but that is what it looks and sounds like. I am all for encouraging, empowering and equipping parents to be faith models for their children. My fear is, though, that we program so much on the side of “family ministry” that we make everyone else cater to that.

Our efforts need to go towards creating whole adults who realize that they are to be transformed beings created in the image of God. We need to help adults come to a point where they no longer compartmentalize their “spiritual life.” We need to do that in a family friendly way: encouraging people to live out their lives so that children catch what is being modeled, having programming and environments that engage children so that parents can be discipled as well as their children.

Children’s ministry is, and will always be, important. Hey, I’m a children’s pastor and like having a job But we can’t make church family-centric and have it revolve around what we are doing in children’s and student ministries. What we do need to do is restructure what we do so that what we do is family friendly: is valuable and helpful to families while not excluding everyone else. I’m concerned that current conversations surrounding family ministry are too weighed towards the church becoming family centric rather than family friendly.

Leadership Lesson from Target

Last week, I was on a trip with a friend to see RUSH. I had not really known music from RUSH, but my friend was a big fan and had requested this concert from his wife as his birthday present. Since his wife doesn’t like RUSH and I am up to adventures, I got to go. It was a lot of fun.

On the way home, we did some shopping. Yes, I know… men and shopping? Anyway, we stopped at Target. I wanted a Senseo machine (best cup of coffee ever!) and my friend needed a toaster. While were were looking for stuff, we needed an associate to help us with something. We used one of those service stations where you pick up the phone and someone gets paged to help you. I like Target’s automated system. It pages everyone with a walkie talkie to come to wherever you paged them from.

Within 20 seconds, there was someone to help us. She was having trouble canceling the page, so there was a second page over the walkie talkies. Withing 10 seconds four more associates showed up! Wow!

Now, I know this might not be true of all Target stores, but for this Target, I know that it is the norm. My wife and I had just been at this same Target days previous and had a similar experience.

The cool thing at this Target is that not only does someone come to help you, but that person is empowered to answer your question and help you in any way they can. I couldn’t help but wonder at the culture that this Target had created. When a page is sent out, people don’t just assume that someone else will get it. If they are near the area, they go. Then with the second page, it seems as if all “senior” associates drop what they are doing and rush to the area that they are paged to. I felt important.

Now, I know that these people are paid to do what they do, but someone had to create that culture of service and taking responsibility for the entire store and not just their little task. It made me think about what I am doing to try and create a culture of volunteers who care about the entire church and not just their class or task that is assigned to them. Not only care but are empowered to do something. I was reminded that I need to keep communicating with my volunteer team. I need to tell them stories of what is happening all over the church. I need to keep the vision of the church before them as much as possible. I need volunteers to hear my heart consistently.

What are you doing to empower your volunteers? How are you creating a culture that cares about the big picture? Creating culture takes time… years of time. Keep at it. It’s worth it.

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 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