On a Mission

Mark Forthaus making friends in Kenya

This past Sunday morning, I read I Corinthians 14-15.  God reminded me that the gifts and resources He's given to me (and my family) are not for my (our) own benefit, but for the purpose of building up the church and blessing others.  And while the hope is that others will build you up as you in turn do for them, we ultimately need to trust in God for our reward.  This is especially true since we may not always immediately reap the benefits of our efforts.  Paul writes,

"So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.  
Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, 
for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless."
(chapter 15, verse 58)

Then, during our worship service later that morning, the teacher preached from John 17, verses 6-19, and centered around verse 18, where Jesus prayed to the Father for the church,

"Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world."

Keep reading on the Mission: Allendale blog.

Having "The Talk"

This is serious stuff.  Have you had this talk yet with your kids?

7 Important Books I Read Last Year

Are you looking for something to read in 2011?  Maybe you made a resolution to read more, or you just want to learn and grow.  Here is a list of some of the better books I read in 2010.  Click through and buy one for yourself, or someone you know who could use it.

1. The Mentor Leader (Tony Dungy).  Great book on leadership principles, especially the idea that a leader's goal is to add value to other people's lives.
2. The Case for the Real Jesus (Lee Strobel).  An apologetics book that helped me think through and wrestle with a few issues.
3. Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis).  The only fiction work I read last year, this story is a retelling of the myth of Cupid.  Really captivating drama.
4. 48 Days to the Work You Love (Dan Miller).  I went through it fast, not doing all 48 days of exercises, but I loved the principles about work, giftedness, and passions.  (Thank you, Cristin.)
5. You Can Change (Tim Chester).  Not a self-help book, but a good mix of theology, principles, and practical application.
6. What Did You Expect? (Paul Tripp).  Best marriage book I've ever read, so I started going through it a second time.  I need all the help I can get.  
7. What to Say When They Say I'm Jewish (Fenton Ward).  I didn't completely agree with some of his evangelical methods (such as saying it's critical to memorize significant portions of the book), but I did learn a lot from the background material (modern Rabbinic Judaism is very different than Biblical sacrificial Judaism; and modern Judaism flows out of a Greek, man-centered philosophy). 

I just noticed that I didn't read any parenting books last year, which is a first for me in a long time.  I guess that will be tops on my list in the next couple of months.


What book(s) did you read last year that you'd like to recommend?

Don't Change the Rules

A few months ago, we introduced the "Punch Buggy" game to our kids.  The gist of this is that whenever you see a Volkswagen Beetle, you call out "Punch Buggy ______" and then the color of that car.  If you're the first one to do this, you get to punch someone in the arm or leg.

My wife and I each played this as kids, and, especially for me (with an older brother and groups of guy friends), the game would continue until the bruises and tears were too much to bear.  Fortunately, our kids have been satisfied with light taps instead of full-strength hay-makers; for them, the reward is not in the punch but in being first.

The nice part of this game is that it provides a nice challenge and distraction for them while we are in the car.  The negative part is when you're in the middle of explaining something important (which is pretty much everything I have to say), and your kids yell out, "Punch Buggy blue!!"

Recently, we discovered that our kids changed the rules of this game.  They started playing that you "win" if you just see the car; you don't have to be the first to see it.  Why?  "Well," they explained, "we kept arguing over who saw it first, so we changed the rules so we wouldn't argue."  That sounded good to them.

After all, isn't the goal for them to just get along and not argue?

No, not really.  I pointed out that what God wants isn't for us to make up more rules so we can have an illusion of peace.  He wants us to go the extra mile for our enemy (Matthew 5:41).  If we are taken advantage of, or if someone beats us in a game, we should look for ways to love that person even more.  Why is this a big deal to God?  Loving our "enemies" shows that we trust God to take care of us, more than we are able to care for ourselves.  It shows we love Him and others more than we love ourselves.  And it follows the example of Christ, who died for us while we were His enemies (Romans 5:7-8).

I explained to my kids that Jesus calls them to play the game by the rules, but even more so that they need to be willing to lose in order to be at peace.  The main goal isn't to have peace, but to have their hearts changed so that they would trust Him and love others more.


Related Links:

• Biblical Parenting vs Gospel Parenting
• "It's Not Fair!!"
• A Punch in the Arm

Read and Share Give-Away

With the holidays and new year, you might have missed last week's post about a giveaway that I'm having.  You just have to leave a comment on that post.  I'll be giving away a children's storybook Bible, and at least 1 gift card (if enough people leave comments, I'll give away more than one).

Go ahead and leave a comment here.

4 Great Reasons to Have Volunteer Coaches

I've focused my writing recently on issues that mostly relate to parenting, so I'm going to shift gears a little and discuss a subject that affects Children's Ministry programming in churches.  I'm going to write about a volunteer structure that we utilized and honed in our own Children's Ministry.  We have volunteer leaders that we call "Coaches."

First off, I want to be clear that most of the ideas that we put together are not entirely innovative.  Even before I joined the church staff, there was already a position called "Administrators," who scheduled substitutes for children's small groups (classes).  And we borrowed the title "Coaches" from Community Christian Church, a multi-site church in the Chicago area.  (You can purchase their download-able Coaching Guidebook.)

So, we took these and other principles, and decided to enhance what we were doing, for several reasons:

1. Organization and uniformity.  Previously, we were only using Administrators over volunteers in classes (nursery, preschool, elementary).  We realized there was potential to develop parallel roles in our Big Group and Hospitality teams.  And on two of our campuses, we even have Coaches over our Special Needs ministry.
2. Develop leaders of leaders.  In order to help our ministry develop and grow along with our church, we knew that we had to delegate and empower others to take on more leadership responsibilities. These Coaches are not only ministers, but equippers. 
3. Relieve the burden on the staff.  In an ideal world, we could hire as many people as we wanted, but we know this is almost never possible.  Volunteer Coaches take on a huge role, allowing our staff to focus on other areas.  They have done work that most churches pay people for.
4. Make a big ministry feel small.  Each of the children's staff could possibly be responsible for 100-200 volunteers.  Instead of having volunteers feel like they were just one out of 100, we wanted to bring about a more intimate setting.  By having a Coach over a team of about 10-18 volunteers, each person would feel more connected to others and to the vision.  As a pastor, there was no way for me to know each of our 700+ volunteers in Children's Ministry.  But I could know and pour into the staff and Coaches, and they could do the same for their teams.

Most of our Coaches have been women, especially married women with children.  This role has given dozens of women (many of whom are stay-at-home moms) in our church a great avenue to use their God-given leadership, shepherding, and administrative skills.  But we have also had men serve as coaches, as well as single women.  Don't limit yourself to thinking of a specific demographic. 

image courtesy of bigevil600 via sxc.hu

Key characteristics of a Coach:

• Good manager of time during the week.  Scheduling and following up with people outside of the weekend services are critical.
• Organization and administrative skills.
• Desire to help lead and develop other volunteers.
• Desire to encourage others to use their God-given gifts and time.
• Familiar with the responsibilities of those they are leading.

Of course, not many people excel in all these characteristics.  But one of the joys for me has been seeing how people with different personalities and skill sets have all served as Coaches.  The important thing is to maximize on the Coaches' strengths, while helping them to manage around their weaker areas. 

Keep in mind that this type of structure is not just applicable for churches and children's ministries, but any type of organization that is volunteer-dependent and where leadership development is a goal.

I'd love to hear your questions and comments.


Related Link:

• Big Group Coaches.  Real example from our ministry.
• How Churches Can Fall Short.  We need to be continually developing high-level leaders.
• Volunteer Progression (on Kidmin1124, by Matt Norman).  Good article; focuses more on the front-end (like recruiting) of volunteer development.

Scale of the Universe

Here's a cool thing that Elijah and I have enjoyed.  It's about the relative scale of everything in the universe.  Move the slider all the way to the left to see the scale of the smallest things in the universe, then slowly move to the right as you start to recognize larger objects.  Not sure how the upper end of the universe scale is measured, but pretty daggum awesome, nonetheless.