I am pleased to share some exciting news with you.  On Monday, July 12 I joined the Executive Leadership team of Awana as the Executive Director of Innovative Ministries.  Beth and I have appreciated the ministry of Awana for many years, beginning when we were children in Awana at our church.  Awana is passionate about reaching children with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and equipping parents to be the primary spiritual influencers in the lives of their children.

I have resigned my position as the children’s pastor at Liberty Baptist Church. This has been a difficult transition for me. I have called Liberty Baptist Church my home since I was five years old and have had the privilege of serving as children’s pastor for almost fifteen years.

I will continue to be the Executive Director of KidzMatter and the Executive Editor of K! Magazine. KidzMatter will continue to produce the most innovative tools for children’s ministry just as we always have. As Executive Director of Innovative Ministries with Awana, I will lead several exciting ministry brands of Awana which I will tell you more about in the days to come.

This new ministry opportunity does not require a geographical move for me and my family. I will continue to serve as a lay pastor at my church and will volunteer in our children’s ministry. I am currently working on acquiring an office facility that will accommodate both the KidzMatter and Awana staff that I will be working with.

Awana is committed to finding innovative ways to reach children and families and so are Beth and I.  Please pray for my family and I as we make this exciting transition.

Your friend and partner in ministry,

Ryan

Londyn Grace came into this world on Wednesday, May 5, although she snuck her way into my heart way before that. She was 19 inches long and weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces. Praise the Lord we have a healthy baby girl! She has a head full of hair, the cutest smile in the world, and hey, she even slept through the night last night. (Why else do you think I have the energy to write this blog post?)

I’m back on my blog. It’s time to get back to my 101 list. If you want to see pictures of the new baby, send me a friend request on Facebook. I’d love to connect there too.

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).

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.

I first heard about using mind mapping while preaching from Ed Young. Mind mapping is simply a way of organizing your notes so that you can memorize them. The idea is that your brain works in a clockwise fashion and so your notes are laid out accordingly. With the help of some color coding and images you’ll be amazed how it will help you communicate your message.

What I have been doing is writing my messages in Pages (for you Mac-illiterate people out there it’s like Word, but better). Once I have completed my message, I transfer it to a template that I created in Pages. I try to get it where the main points or stories start each section of the mind map. Sometimes I even include images to help trigger my memory when preaching. The final copy of my notes (the mind map) is one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, front and back. You can download my latest mind map at the end of this post.

Although people have been creating maps using an image-centered radial graphic organization technique for centuries (that was a mouth-full), Tony Buzan has made a claim to the origin of the Mind Map. He argues that “traditional” outlines require that you scan the information from left to right and top to bottom, while the brain’s natural preference is to scan the entire page in a non-linear fashion.

There are several books out there about mind mapping. Michael Gelb’s book Mind Mapping: How to Liberate Your Natural Genius, is a popular one. There are also websites that will help you understand what mind mapping is all about and how it can enhance your business, your education, and about every other area of life.

Yesterday I preached a message titled “A Picture of Grace”. It was the story of Mephibosheth. Here are some links to help you see how I used mind mapping in my study:

Click here to download my original manuscript.

Click here to download the mind map that I used to memorize the sermon. Text highlighted in pink are Scriptures that I read, text in green are main points, text in yellow are points that appeared on the screen.

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.

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!

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!

• 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?

• 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?

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!