Posts Tagged ‘Volunteers’

Posted on February 1, 2010 - by rfrank

American Idol and Children’s Ministry

Season 9 of American Idol is underway. Thousands of people are lining the streets of cities like Dallas and Chicago for their once-in-a-lifetime shot at an American Idol audition. This show has taken off like mad and has thousands of would-be stars giving it their all for that lucky golden ticket and a shot at fame. They range from awesome to awful and from fabulous to foul.

Over the next few days, I’m going to share some leadership tips that we can all learn from watching American Idol.

Idol Lesson #1: Everyone wants to be a somebody. A high-point in the season for many viewers are the first few shows of each season when thousands of high-hoped contestants are shocked to discover they don’t have what it takes to be the next star. They line up a mile long and a mile deep to get their chance to be the next American Idol only to be told they don’t have what it takes.

Everyone wants to be a somebody. This is a basic need that everyone has. Ready for the good news? Everyone can be someone in Christ! What a prime opportunity we have to share this with people when they are little – in children’s ministry! Do your kids know that they are special? Not because of what they do, but because of who they are in Christ?

Idol Lesson #2: Everyone wants face time with the leader. Tens of thousands line up hoping to show their goods. What a lot of TV viewers don’t realize is that less than 100 are actually permitted to stand in front of Simon, Randy, Kara and the guest judge. Those 100, as well as their other thousand-plus competitors, actually begin their audition process over a week prior, auditioning before several other layers of judges. They each want face to face time with the judges – the Supreme Court of reality TV.

Your volunteers, your kids, your parents, your staff share this in common: they want face to face time with you. Are you giving it to them? Unfortunately, you don’t have the option of picking and choosing on this one. After all, pastoral work is about people. Giving your people face to face time is vital to your ministry. When is the last time you stepped into every classroom at the church to spend a few minutes talking to your leaders? Have you been getting on your knees to talk to the kids that call you their pastor?

There you go – the first two lessons from American Idol that I’ve been thinking on. I’ll post the next two in a few days. Oh, in case you are wondering, I won’t be making any connections between children’s ministry and Pants on the Ground. Don’t even ask.

Posted on November 19, 2009 - by rfrank

Volunteer Time

I was flipping through the Nov/Dec issue of Outreach Magazine this morning. Yes, I read more than K! Magazine! I came across some interesting info on page 38.

According to the Corporation for National & Community Service (did you know there was such a place?) more than 61 million Americans volunteer their time.

Want to know where they serve? Here you go:

Religious 36%

Educational 27%

Social Services 13%

Health 8%

Other 7%

Civic 6%

Sports/Arts 4%

Let this serve as a good reminder to all of us that people like to feel needed. I bet there will be some people at your church this weekend who would like to volunteer – but they might be waiting to be asked!

Posted on November 2, 2009 - by rfrank

9 trends in CM leadership – part 4

Trend #4: Limited budgets and busy volunteers require creativity in training

Volunteers are more important than the people they serve. Stop and think about that. Do you agree? It’s not that the kids aren’t important, but it’s volunteers who interact with the children week after week to influence their lives. Consider that Jesus spent more time with his twelve than he did any other group of people.

Volunteers are important and need to be trained. Training would be easy if it wasn’t for budgets and busy schedules. You can’t afford to bring the world’s best trainers to your church; and if you could, good luck getting everyone to show up. This forces you to be creative in your approach to training.

1) Blogs. Some churches have created traditional blogs and video blogs to train their volunteers.

Justyn Smith, children’s pastor at The Church at South Las Vegas, says, “I use a ‘secret’ blog and podcast site that only my volunteers know about. I also allow my leaders/teachers to post their thoughts and encourage others to discuss them so we can all synergize to come up with solutions or better ways of doing things.”

2) Podcasts. A podcast is a broadcast of multimedia information (usually audio) over the internet. It can then be played on a mobile device or personal computer.  Churches are choosing to deliver podcasts on a regular basis so volunteers can listen on their own schedule.

Phillip Harris, children’s pastor at Lawrenceville Church of God, says, “We’ve often shared inspiring and training messages in audio and video formats. Some we’ve made on our own, but we’ve also passed along many that we got from others (like Jim Wideman and reThink). Simple and effective.”

For churches that do not want to create their own podcasts, there are other options. Two such examples are Children’s Ministry Talk and Children’s Ministry Podcast. Children’s Ministry Talk (www.childrensministrytalk.com) is a podcast devoted to providing straight talk for children’s ministry leaders, by children’s ministry leaders, on all things related to children’s ministry. It is hosted by Dick Gruber, Jason Rhode, and other children’s ministry leaders. Children’s Ministry Podcast (www.kidology.org/podcast) is hosted by Karl Bastian and his sidekick puppet, Gus. Together they discuss children’s ministry and provide helpful insights and tips for children’s pastors, leaders, and volunteers.

3) Twitter. Children’s pastors like Sam Luce at Mt. Zion Ministries Church plan to use Twitter to connect with their volunteers. “I am still working out the kinks. I think it is going to be great for my teen/college-age helpers and is much better than email. For my adult volunteers, it may be a tougher sell.”

Posted on July 7, 2009 - by edoyle

Tuesday Talk: Sam Luce

Tuesday Talk is a weekly feature on Ryan Frank’s blog. Each week, I interview one children’s ministry expert and ask for their answer to a question. Check back every Tuesday for a new interview.

This week on Tuesday Talk:
Sam Luce answers the question, “How can you use Twitter to enhance your Children’s ministry?”

1. Communicate with volunteers.
I have started the process of using twitter with my volunteers. I created multiple accounts. One is for Small group leaders, another for Logistics (the check in security crowd), a large group one for our producers and communicators, and a preschool one. At a campus level I created one for each campus for updates on a broader scale that would be helpful for parents and volunteers.

2. Communicate with parents.
This year I plan on communicating from camp primarily though twitter updates. Praise requests, fun quotes from kids, kids saying Hi to mom and dad. I hope to use it as something we can build from year to year.

3. Communicate vision, values and best practices.
As more of our volunteers get on twitter I will use it as a reminder of our vision and how they can practically put to action our vision and values through small practical tips. Another thing that is great is the ability to send links that point volunteers to blog posts and videos that will help train them to be more effective in what they do. Again making ministry specific twitter user names is essential to keep people zoned in on only the twitters that pertain to them.

4. Communicate with loads of kids pastors.
As a kids pastor if you are not leveraging Twitter to connect with and learn from other kids pastors you are nuts. Twitter is by far the best place to get instant feedback to know if an idea is good or stupid. To find out what other kids pastors are doing that is working. Also if you are using Fellowship One or 252basics there are many others that are doing the same so twitter can be leveraged in a huge way to collaborate with others doing ministry in with many of the same tools you are.

5. Communicate with Ryan!
Lastly through the power of Twitter you can learn that Ryan (@r_frank) likes hot dogs.  (Editors note: Because we always knew you cared!)

See you in the Twitterverse!

Sam Luce has been the children’s Pastor at Mt. Zion Ministries Church in Utica, NY for 11 years. He is passionate about reaching kids and equipping families. Sam is married to his beautiful wife Sandra they have two boys and their first girl. For more info about Sam (and his brief stint as a Twitter fugitive) go to www.samluce.com.

Posted on June 23, 2009 - by rfrank

What matters the most

What matters the most in ministry? I think the answer can be found in one word: relationships. Any program or ministry (I don’t care how big your budget or staff is) will only be as effective as your ability to develop relationships. Relationships matter.

Today I got a call on my cell phone from one of my volunteers. They had a golf cart accident on their street. Her daughter fell out, hit the road pretty hard and experienced a small concussion. She was calling to ask for prayer and to tell me that she wouldn’t be at VBS tonight.

Beth and I made a special effort to show that we care. Before VBS we took dinner by their house. It wasn’t homemade – we aren’t that good! It was some fried chicken and sides that we picked up in town. We stopped by and visited with the family on our way to church.

The old saying is true: People don’t care how much you know until you know how much you care. The devil wants to get us so busy that we don’t have time to focus on the important things in life – like relationships. I wish I could tell you that I always get this right. I don’t. I need to do better just like we all do.

Remember what matters most and give it your time and energy! Relationships matter.