Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Posted on March 8, 2010 - by rfrank

The Facebook message I will never delete

This morning I came into the church office after pushing hard this weekend.

Yesterday we launched a new worship venue for the kids in my church. For as long as I remember, we have had two kid’s church services at my church – one for ages 3 through K and one for grades 1-6. We have been wanting to break the kids into smaller groups and become more specialized in our approach and teaching. We created a new service for the Kindergartners through the second graders. We have been working on this for a few months, but last week we pushed hard installing the sound and video equipment and working through a long list of “last minute” to-dos.

This morning I received a Facebook message from Shelli, one of our faithful volunteers in the bus ministry. Shelli is committed and has a heart of gold for kids. When I read her message, I choked up. I read it to our church staff this morning. I have changed the child’s name, but here is the message:

After church Sunday a little voice from the back of the van said, “Miss Shelli.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Thank you for taking me to the kindergarten class today, I had the best time there.”

Five year olds don’t always remember to say thank you and this just touched my heart. Jesse is not in school yet. She is often neglected in many other ways as well. She lives among addicts and yet somehow she is happy, smart, and doesnt realize when she goes without the things that every little girl should have. She loves church! If you asked her why, she would say its fun, but I would say she loves it because 1) it’s usually the only time she leaves the trailer park in week, 2) it’s the only age appropriate learning opportunity she gets, and 3) it’s the only stable, regularly occuring event that she has in her life. It breaks my heart. I could go on and on….

I just wanted to share this with you to let you know that for one little girl…the best thing in her life, just got a little bit better yesterday.

Thank you for all that you do for these children.

These are the stories that every children’s pastor wants to hear. I don’t think Shelli knew how much of an encouragement her message was to this guy. I think I have enough fuel in my tank to go another 10 years now!

Don’t forget the importance of what you do! Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these… you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Posted on February 22, 2010 - by rfrank

Preaching with the help of a mind map

The past two months I have been afforded the opportunity to preach in “big church” a lot more than normal. Most years, I speak in big church probably four Sundays a year. Recently, our church agreed to provide the preaching/teaching and pastoral support at another church. Consequently, I’ve had to preach more to the adults at my own church. In fact, I’ve preached four of the past five Sundays between both churches. I’m thankful for a strong team of volunteers in my children’s ministry (guys like Evan Doyle, for example) that step up the plate and hit it out of the ballpark in my absence.

All of that to say this: I’ve been forced the past few weeks to sharpen my communication skills. Before I tell you about a communication technique that I’ve been using, let me preface this by saying that preaching must start with an anointed, God-called person who has a message from the Word of God. You can be a dynamite communicator but without the anointing and power of God you won’t have fruit that remains.

Once you have that message from God, I want to share a tip that will help you communicate it with excellence. It’s called mind mapping. (more…)

Posted on February 6, 2010 - by rfrank

What I remember about Veggie Tales

I remember the first time I heard about Veggie Tales. It was 1994. I was in college and a children’s ministry director named Jaena told me I need to check them out. She had a story about how her cousin (or friend of a cousin, or friend of a friend of a cousin) was a college roommate with the guy who started making these cartoons on his computer. She introduced me to Bob and Larry for the first time.

I remember the first time I showed a Veggie Tales movie to the kids in my church. They loved it. My adult workers loved it even more. Back then you could show Veggie Tales to a room full of kids and most of them had never heard of it. Good luck doing that anymore.

I remember the first Bob and Larry stuffed toys I bought for my office. My office was a baptism changing room at the time, but gosh was this young children’s pastor excited to have Bob and Larry sitting on my shelf. Why? I was relevant.

I remember when 3 2 1 Penguins hit the market in 2000. Man was I excited to see a new line of videos. I was so bored with Adventures in Odyssey and McGee and Me.

I remember the first time I heard that Big Idea Productions was being sued by Lyrick over distribution issues. This was before K! Magazine and before I had “connections.” I couldn’t pick up the phone and call someone to see what was happening, I had to rely on Google, and Google confirmed the story.

I remember the spring/summer of 2003 when the court found in favor of Lyrick and awarded them $11 million in damages. I remember hearing the news that Big Idea (as it had been known) was dead.

I will always remember hearing Phil Vischer speak at Children’s Pastors’ Conference 2009. Since I’m on the board at INCM, I had the opportunity to meet Phil before the session when he spoke and talked to him for a few minutes back stage. What a great guy. I remember sitting in that room with 2,000+ other children’s pastors with my wife one one side and Evan Doyle on the other side. There, Phil shared his story. He shared the tough lessons he had learned about business – but most importantly – the lessons he had learned about his relationship with God. I bought the DVD of that session and have shared it with so many people.

Is Veggie Tales over? Obviously not. The company has new leadership and they are cranking out new products  like mad. I got something in the mail at the church this week about their new DVD called Pistachio.

Is Phil Vischer done? Nope. He has a new company called Jelly Telly. That’s another blog post of it’s own. I’m real excited about a new DVD series that Phil is creating called What’s in the Bible. It’s designed to walk kids and families through the entire Bible. The 13 DVD-series will release beginning March 1, 2010.

Some of my friends (Todd and Sean at Timbuktoons) have been working with Phil and the team on this project. Timbuktoons is the company that does the animation and video enhancements on our Kitchen videos. I got a sneak peak at What’s in the Bible a few weeks ago when I was meeting with Awana. It’s going to be great stuff that every Christian parent and children’s pastor will want to snatch up.

Enough rambling about Veggie Tales. All this food talk has made me hungry. I better hit the fridge.

Posted on January 7, 2010 - by rfrank

CPC week at a glance

I had a great week at Children’s Pastors’ Conference in Nashville. We have been home for a few hours. Luci is in bed, Jay Leno is on TV, and I need a break from catching up on email! I thought I’d let you know what the week was like.

Are you ready? Here we go!

Sunday

• We did week one of The Kitchen in my kids church. The kids ate it up! It was the first week in a long time that I ran out of time and didn’t get everything done.
• After church, we met at my house and headed south to Children’s Pastors’ Conference. We had seven KidzMatter staffers at CPC this year. The van was so packed with stuff that Tina, Evan and Lara had to follow four of us in the van.
• We ate dinner at Cock of the Walk in Nashville and then found our rooms at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

Monday

• Monday was set up day in the exhibit hall (see picture above – more on my facebook page)
• Monday was also registration day for the conference!
• The resource center opened with a bang Monday afternoon followed by a great general session with awesome worship and comedian Tim Hawkins.

Tuesday

• I started the day by checking out the breakouts. I managed to pop my head in every breakout the first two breakout hours. Needless to say, I was tired after all that walking! There were some awesome breakouts this year.
• I also talked to a good 500 people on Monday. I had several scheduled meetings but a majority of my conversations were informal chats with heroes that faithfully teach kids week after week.
• The night ended with an INCM Board of Directors meeting.

Wednesday

• My parents were at CPC today! They drove down to see what CPC is all about. They’ve heard me talking about it all of these years and were able to experience it for a day themselves! Beth and I enjoyed having them around.
• I taught a workshop in the morning and then spoke to 330 children’s pastors at lunch about excellence in ministry.
• Wednesday afternoon my staff worked hard at the KidzMatter booth in the resource center. They talked to a lot of people and encouraged them in their ministry.
• I spent a good part of the afternoon networking with the resource providers. CPC was “a great show” (using their language). It’s no wonder why there’s a waiting list for resource center every year.
• I had a few meetings in the afternoon with some people like Larry Fowler and Scott Turansky.
• Wednesday night I heard from Austin Gutwein, a 15-year-old hero who has raised over 2 million dollars for orphans in Africa. Wow, what an inspiration!
• Wednesday night I helped the staff tear down the booth and load up the van. Then I started to get nervous about our drive home after hearing about the snow storm coming.

Thursday

• After Tina’s workshop, we headed home! Praise the Lord the roads weren’t too bad. The 5 1/2 hour drive took us 7. I won’t complain!
• When I got home, I managed to get the van into the driveway. But after moving my car in and out of the garage, I managed to get stuck. I was kicking myself in the butt. 30 minutes later (and with the help of my father-in-law across the street) I got un-stuck!

Whew, what a week! This was a great CPC! If you want to look at the twitter chat about the conference, click here. If you were there, let me know how your week went!

Posted on December 24, 2009 - by rfrank

The greatest news event ever

Merry Christmas Eve from Beth & I. We will spend the day together as a family. We’ve been playing with Luci this morning, we’ll run to the church in about an hour to set up the platform for tonight’s communion service, then we’ll come back home for more family time together. I’ll probably make my famous (well, they are famous in our family) candied pecans. Tonight we will spend the evening with our church family. We love the Christmas eve communion service at my church. Then off to my parents to celebrate Christmas.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and those you love. I want to share a very well-known passage of Scripture. The greatest news event ever was not the declaration of our  independence, it wasn’t man landing on the moon, it wasn’t even Al Gore inventing the Internet. It was the day that Christ’s birth was announced!

And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” (Luke 2:9-12; 13-14)

Merry Christmas! I am looking forward to a new year of ministry together!

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by rfrank

Looking back on a great weekend

Yesterday was a great day of ministry. Here’s are some highlights:

• I taught a lesson in Kids Church on the rich young ruler. The point of the morning was that stuff won’t make you happy – Jesus will! We played the butthead game (I don’t call it that obviously), sang some Christmas songs (including a new one from Yancy’s new DVD) and had an all-around great morning in both kids church services.
• We had a great day on buses. If I remember right, the report showed 171 kids that came to church yesterday from the bus ministry.
• Sunday School was great. I teach an adult class called the Growing Together Class. It’s targeted at people in their late 20’s and 30’s. Beth picked up bagels from Panera for class (yummy!). We started a new five week series called Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith by Andy Stanley. It’s going to be good.
• At 4:45 I took Luci to Heaven’s Harmony for Christmas program practice. It will be here before we know it.
• Our 6:00 evening service was a blessing. My pastor is in a series on the gifts of the Spirit. He did a great job working through the Scripture. My favorite thing he said last night was that there aren’t volunteers in God’s work. Volunteers can get in and out whenever they want. Ministry, on the other hand, involves a calling and commitment!

Enough from me. How was your Sunday?

Posted on November 23, 2009 - by rfrank

Weekend Write-Up

I love Sundays! Yesterday was no exception. Here’s a quick review of my day.

• 7:30 am – I picked Evan Doyle up at his house and we stopped at the gas station for coffee. We’ve been doing this for several years.
• 8:15 am – The early service. We started earlier than normal (8:25). Big church starts at 8:15 but for some reason we never start the early children’s church on time! We did “the normal” (songs, prayer time, and all that good stuff). I taught a Thanksgiving lesson on the 10 Lepers and we played the Twinkie Rush. Kids love the Twinkie Rush!
• 9:45 am – Sunday School started. Beth and Luci showed up at church and I walked Luci to her Sunday School class where she was greeted by Mrs. Janet. I gave her a smooch (Luci, not Mrs. Janet) and Beth and I headed to our Sunday School class. Yesterday was the last lesson in my series on the book of Revelation. I started this verse-by-verse series in May. We did 10 minutes of prayer and share time, 20 minutes on the lesson, and 15 minutes asking review questions from the book. I pulled out my Eggspert game from the resource room – the big kids loved it!
• 10:45 am – The bus kids showed up with a bunch of new church kids for round 2 of kids church. We did everything the same as the first service, except for the pastor ran over and I had to stretch the clock. Been there, done that?
• 12:45 pm – We made it home for lunch!
• 4:30 pm – We had our annual praise dinner at the church. It was well attended.
• 6:00 pm – Our praise service included great worship, special music, and testimonies. The auditorium was packed. I also baptized a 10-year-old in my ministry. What an ending to a great day!

So, enough from me. How was your weekend?

Posted on November 21, 2009 - by rfrank

My Coffee Table: Strengths Based Leadership

A few months back I read this somewhere: Stop reading, stop leading. I won’t go as far as to say that you have to be in a book to be a good leader, but I can tell you from personal experience that books stretch my leadership. Books improve my serve.

Right now I am reading Strengths-Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. I took the Strengths Finder 2.0 test online several weeks ago and bought the Strengths Based Leadership book that same day.

Although I am still reading this book, I can tell you the gist of the book in a few bullet points:

• The best leaders in the world don’t try to copy other leaders. They discover their own strengths and build on them.
• The best leaders in the world discover the strengths of their team (employees, volunteers, or whatever) and allow them to focus on what they do best.
• The best leaders in the world know the needs of their team.

This is a great book. I plan to buy it and work through it with our team at KidzMatter. I will leave you with this thought: You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are.

Click here to get the book for yourself!

Posted on October 20, 2009 - by rfrank

Discovering my strengths

More and more people recently have been asking me what my top strengths are in reference to Gallup’s StrengthFinder 2.0 assessment tool. I’ve told person after person, “I haven’t taken the test yet.”

Last month at D6, Michael Chanley (creator of www.cmconnect.org) knocked it out of the ballpark with a precon lab about developing the strengths of kids. He talked a lot about Tom Rath’s book.

After the workshop, I jumped on Amazon and bought the book. It was a quick read and convinced me even more to do the test. It took about 30 minutes to take the test online and I found it was pretty accurate. Here are my top five strengths with a quick summary of what each one means:

1. Competition – People strong in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.
2. Futuristic – People strong in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.
3. Strategic – People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
4. Activator – People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.
5. Significance – People strong in the Significance theme want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized.

I plan to lead our KidzMatter staff through the process of finding their strengths this winter. Then we will work through the Strengths Based Leadership book.

Posted on October 16, 2009 - by rfrank

Happy Birthday Luci!

Our baby girl, Luci, turns five today! Happy birthday Luci!

I took the day off today and we’ve been doing everything Luci wants to do. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (her favorite), went to the YMCA to swim this morning (she loves swimming), ate lunch at McDonalds, and now we’re getting ready for her birthday party. She’s into frogs right now, so it’s a frog party!

I can’t believe that five years ago today Luci was born. I remember it like it was yesterday. Being a dad has to be one of the coolest things in the world. There’s no greater responsibility in the world and nothing any more rewarding.

Today is about Luci, so I’m turning off the computer. Besides, I have balloons to blow up.