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!

Great things happen when a children’s pastor leaves work and ministry behind and jumps on a plane to network and grow. Conferences like Children’s Pastors’ Conference are staying strong and buzzing with energy in a day when the conference industry in general is struggling.

I see a trend developing in church leadership as it relates to conferences. These leaders are choosing one conference that they can all attend together, which accomplishes two things.

First, it makes good financial sense. Attending a conference can be an expensive ordeal with flights, rental cars, meals, hotels, and registrations. Since finance teams are quick to cut the conference budget in a difficult economy, it makes sense for the staff to attend the same conference.

Second, it promotes healthy collaboration in the church leadership. Church leaders like the idea of the senior pastor, discipleship pastor, youth pastor, and children’s pastor learning together and formulating strategies as a team.

Twitter may be the next big thing in social networking. Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, everyone seems to be on Twitter. President Barack Obama? Yep. Britney Spears? You bet, and on I could go. Although Twitter won’t disclose their number of active accounts, a few months ago it was ranked by Compete.com as the third most used social network.

Click here to read the rest of the article from the e-magazine.

1. Get the monkeys off your back. A monkey is something that hangs on your back day and night and won’t let go. Too many leaders procrastinate and in the process end up carrying around too many monkeys. Deal with problems and don’t let them weigh you down! It’s a lot easier to walk without a dozen monkeys hanging on your neck.

2. Get training. Go to a good conference targeted to children’s leaders. Events like Children’s Pastors Conference, Orange, Kids in Focus, and the new Napkin Conference (I will be at all of these) will help you become the leader God wants you to be. They are a real shot in the arm. Whether you are brand new in ministry, or you have been doing it for years, you can never get enough training.

3. Delegate. Get experienced people to help you. Look for people in your church or on your team that can step it up a notch and give you a hand. Look for areas in your ministry that you are weak and find someone strong in that area to assist you.

4. Renew yourself spiritually. You’re like a sponge. If you give out and give out but never absorb, you will turn dry and crusty like an old sponge. You need to absorb as you give out. Place yourself under the teaching of your pastor. Listen to good Bible teachers online or on the radio. Read books. Spend time alone with God. When you absorb you have a lot more to give away.

5. Get control of your tasks; don’t let your tasks control you. Sometimes you would breathe easier if you simply got organized. Children’s workers aren’t always the most organized people. Clear those glue sticks and goldfish crackers off your desk and start getting organized.

1. Build solid connections with leadership. Set a weekly meeting time with your pastor. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen.

2. Choose your battles carefully. As the old saying goes, “major on the major and minor on the minor.” I’ve been the children’s pastor at my church for 12 years and I still have to choose my battles carefully.

3. Set a pattern of God first, family second, and ministry third. You have to establish this pattern from week one. Guard your day off. Let your spouse and kids know that they are more important to you than your job.

4. Smooze the church secretary. I know they have a reputation of being hard to deal with, but they know everything about the church and how things work. Church secretaries can be your best friend or your worst enemy – so determine to make her your best friend from the start.

5. Expect some criticism. You won’t be at the church for 30 days before someone tells you how it “use to be done” or “what they have found that works”. Accept the criticism with grace, nod your head and listen, then move ahead with your plans.

6. Take time to assess the church. Some of the best assessment will come when you volunteer to buy the youth pastor lunch. Spend time with the other members of the church staff. Ask who the power people are in the church. Learn who the money people are (normally the senior citizens). Find out where the church is weak and where it is strong. Discover the hot topics.

7. Bring parents on board with your vision and plan. Your #1 job as a children’s pastor is to help mom and dad raise Godly kids so involve them in your plans.

8. Pace yourself. Babies are born one at a time for a reason – your new ideas need to be too. Don’t try to do everything you have dreamed about in the first twelve months.

9. Connect with other children’s pastors. You need to do this locally, at conferences, and online. Get on Twitter and follow great children’s pastors like Sam Luce and Monica Morgan. Don’t try to do it alone.

10. Subscribe to K! Magazine. You don’t expect me to leave this out, do you? It’s one of the best resource out for children’s pastors and it’s less than 20 bucks a year. Ask around – you’ve gotta have it.