Tag Archive - parents

Guest Post: Tips from the Small Group Trenches

October 26, 2011 in Ministry, Personal with 5 Comments

Today I have a special Guest Post from my all-time favorite Small Group Leader. She happens to also be my wife, and you should know that I've never pressured my wife to serve in this way. She does it entirely of her own accord, and out of her own desire to serve somewhere at our church. And she isn't just my favorite, she's the favorite of this special group of 3rd grade boys too!

For about 25 minutes every Sunday, I hang out with 3rd grade boys. My job description is to build relationships with them, and have discussions about whatever they've just learned in Kidsplace that morning to help "make it real" in their lives.

 
Let's not kid each other: IT'S HARD WORK. It's rewarding and fun and I look forward to it every week, but it's also VERY HARD. There are 12 to 15 of them, and only one me. They are rowdy. They are loud. They talk over each other. They talk over me. They make fun of each other (and sometimes me). They can be rude to each other. They can also be amazingly kind and shockingly spiritually-minded, if given an environment in which to do so. It's my job to give them that safe, fun, and [somewhat] controlled environment.
 
So, in no particular order, here are my top 10 tips to Elementary Small Group Leaders to help you create the best environment:
 
1. Use "props" to control your small group. You should ALWAYS (I say ALWAYS!) have a nerf ball, a bean bag, or a stuffed animal in your small group area. If I have a nerf football that I'm casually tossing in the air during discussion time, and the boys know that I'm going to throw that ball at someone who will then get to answer the question, they are MUCH more apt to pay attention to me. Me in front of a room with a small group manual VS. Me in front of a room with a Nerf football. What's going to hold their attention more? (And yes, I take stuffed animals to my 3rd grade boys small group room. They think it's hilarious when I chunk a purple stuffed turtle at their head. We've had years that we've named the stuffed animal and it's become our mascot.)
 
2. Order creates order. Try this simple social experiment: Let your small group sit wherever they want to in the room VS. Make them sit in a circle. Just that simple change will bring some order to the chaos. Not to mention that you can see each face, you can "go around the circle" when it's time for participation to make sure you don't miss anyone, and it's much less likely someone can sneak out of the circle and out the door and out of the church. (Yes. It happens.) If their activity level is so high that even sitting in a circle is chaos, then ask everyone to put their "back on the wall and their behind on the floor, in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!!" I don't know why kids scramble when they hear a countdown, but they do.
 
3. Learn their names. Just do it – you can if you make it a priority. Make them hold up a sign with their name on it and take a picture with your phone if you have to. Just learn their names.
 
4. Learn what they love. Ask how they spend their weekends or time after school and it will give you a pretty good idea. Some of them will love nothing more than TV. So start there. Talk about TV with them if you have to. If that's who they are, then love them there. If you only talk to the kids who play football and baseball and love serving at the homeless shelter with their family, you'll miss out on connecting with the other half of the class who simply love TV and video games.
 
5. Make a game out of getting to know them. This Sunday, I had each of the boys tell me the name of their school and their favorite food. Then I went around the circle and repeated the information back about each boy as fast as I could. Be loud, fast, and exaggerated during these games! To keep each kid interested and listening, I made it a "challenge" and challenged anyone to try and do it faster and more accurately.
 
6. Have fun. If you're bored, then they are bored x 10. It's okay to go "off book" once in a while and tell a funny story or talk about a hilarious YouTube video you saw this week of a farting hippo. Make it fun.
 
7. It's not always fair. You want the kids to likewise be able to share a funny story occasionally, but if you let all 15 kids share then you won't have time for the discussion you're really there to have. Kids are quick to say "That's not fair! He got to tell his story!" Quickly and confidently assure the class that there was only time for Johnny to tell a story this week, it might be them next time, then move on. You will have to politely cut kids off sometimes – it's not rude when it's for the benefit of the 15 that you silence the 1.
 
8. Create routine. My examples: 1). They have to come in the door with a smile or high five, and I (playfully) send them back out to try again if they forget. 2). They tell me if they had a great week or an awful week and the reason why. Those are two things I do every week with my boys, and they know to expect it. It sets a good tone and some connection from the time they come in the room, and as they trust me more I learn a lot about them from the "good week/bad week" quick conversation.
 
9. No matter what, control your room at dismissal! As a parent, I really hate to pick up my kid from church and see a room full of chaotic kids, and a teacher that looks frazzled. My routine for my small group boys (that we're still working to firmly establish this year) is that you MUST be sitting down until I call your name to leave. You do not stand up until I call your name, even if your parent is standing at the door. In front of parents I will light-heartedly say "Oh, I'm sorry you can't have Adam until he sits back down and I call his name. He has to be sitting before I can let him go." This lets parents know that Adam has broken your rule, and lets Adam know you're serious about sitting down at dismissal time. At dismissal, I also make a point to tell parents something great about each kid. The kids will start to learn that you do this, and they'll want to be quiet to they can listen to what you tell parents!
 
A few examples:
"He was a great listener in large group time today."
"He set an awesome example during worship – he really gave his best."
"He helped me pick up all the art supplies."
"He sat by a visitor and was a good friend."
"He gave a thoughtful answer during discussion."
"He volunteered to pray out loud and did a great job."
"He had an awesome idea about how to get coats for our coat drive."
 
Find ways to praise kids! You can only take time to do this if the kids aren't running wild behind you. So have control of your room at this important time. Praise loudly and openly in front of the other kids and parents, and if you have to rebuke, do it quietly and in private.
 
10. If you have to discipline (and you shouldn't have to often) do it consistently and with love. The more fun and ordered your classroom is, the less behavior problems you'll have. If you find yourself constantly redirecting and having problems with the kids, then ask for a mentor or your children's pastor to come observe your class and give you some ideas. There are, however, times that you will have a child who is a major distraction and problem. It's not fair to your class to let one child dominate your time. So make sure you've spoken with your children's pastor and know the discipline policy, then follow thru with consistency and love. Don't threaten, just do it. (Our policy is that the child has to leave the small group area and sit quietly with an adult outside the room. My small group is fun and they want to join back in quickly, so I rarely have repeat offenders!)
 
So there you have it! I didn't include tips about making sure you know your lesson, or that you've prayed for the kids, or that you arrive on time and ready, because I assume you already know that stuff! Those are just the basics! Commit to building real relationships and taking your small group to that next level – you'll be amazed what those kids can teach you.

D6 Happenings

September 13, 2011 in Links, Ministry with 0 Comments

Next Tuesday, I’ll be heading east back to the DFW Metroplex to attend the D6 Conference.  I’m looking forward to meeting some new friends, and connecting with some old friends at the same time.  What is the D6 Conference about this year?  I’ll let them explain it in detail:

For the last several years everyone has been talkin’ family ministry, right? But the conversation is really bigger than just family ministry. It’s bigger than any trend we’ve seen come through the church or an exhibit hall at some conference.

 

The bigger conversation is really about biblical discipleship. And biblical discipleship is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

We no longer have to sell the crisis the church is facing in NextGen discipleship. Instead, our challenge is to provide NEXT steps and NEXT strategies: practical, time-proven plans to implement change within the church and in the home.

 

The primary challenge we face is implementing the strategy and practical steps to breakthrough to the NEXT level in fulfilling the mission of the church. D6 2011 is fully dedicated to equipping leaders, ministers, volunteers, and parents with practical NEXT steps and NEXT level strategies for discipling the NEXT generation.

 

Leaders at D6 2011 will collaborate on what is NEXT for the church, families, parents, students, and kids.

 

  • Radical Homes
  • Broken Families
  • Biblical Worldview
  • Growing Marriages
  • Implementing Change
  • Healthy Ministry Teams
  • Generational Discipleship

I’m really excited to be attending a conference that combines such a great group of parenting, marriage, and church experts in one place.  Every conference has their niche, and I see D6 as having a valuable voice in the family ministry movement in our churches and schools.  I feel like I live in the golden age of church ministry conferences, and I’m so thrilled to be participating with D6 next week!

I wrote about it last week, that I’ll be a part of a special writing and live-blogging group bringing you relevant information from pre-conference labs and main general sessions.  I’ll also be conducting some back stage interviews throughout the week.  Stay tuned next week for more information, and get ready to learn something new along with me!

The Legacy Path

July 13, 2011 in Links, Ministry with 1 Comment

I’m a big fan of Brian Haynes and loved his book from a few years ago, Shift: What it Takes to Reach Families Today.  Brian Haynes is a leading voice when it comes demonstrating to churches, families, student ministries, and children’s ministries that they can work together to make the greatest impact on those growing up both physically and spiritually all around us.

In the promotion of Brian’s newest book, The Legacy Path: Discover Intentional Spiritual Parenting I’ve been able to submit a few questions that he has graciously offered to answer for us.

Your first book, Shift, was helpful in getting children’s ministers and student ministers to reconsider how they should spend their energy in their ministries. How is The Legacy Path different than Shift?

As you know, Shift is written to help ministry leaders understand the role the church can play in equipping parents to lead their children spiritually. Shift addresses the issue from the church side of the coin. The Legacy Path is written to the parent. I wrote it with the parents of my church in mind and from a parent’s perspective. I needed a tool to help my parents quickly understand their role in the faith training of the next generation. I think church leaders who have read and implemented Shift principles or the milestones strategy will find this to be an excellent tool to help families take steps toward intentional spiritual training at home.

I love what you’ve written about talking to your kids about spiritual things. Could you describe further how you define “Faith Talks” in your book?

Sure. Faith Talks are an important part of training our children spiritually. I think there are two kinds of Faith Talks. There is the informal Faith Talk that could take place any time, any place, anywhere. This is natural conversation that explores life from a biblical perspective. We should go a step farther though. There is also a more formal Faith Talk. This kind of Faith Talk is planned, scheduled, and intentional. It is a time set aside for a family to gather around the worship of God and to learn from the words of the Bible. There is something forming about this kind of Faith Talk. In The Legacy Path parenting strategy, it is important to use these Faith Talks to help our children progress in their Christian development. The milestones path is just a map that teaches us what issues we need to focus on to help our children grow in their faith. My experience both at home and at church proves that leading intentional Faith Talks is the most difficult aspect of the strategy for parents to consistently practice. It is also crucial to our efforts as the primary faith trainers of our children.

What would you say to a parent who is uncomfortable talking about spiritual things with their children? How can they start?

Most parents I know are initially uncomfortable talking with their children about spiritual things. The question is “Why?” I think this has a lot to do with our feelings of inadequacy around the contents of the Bible. Often we are afraid kids will ask questions we cannot answer or that we will say something that is wrong. If we are just starting this with our teenagers we feel like they will think we are corny or stupid or something. These are obstacles that have to be overcome. I encourage parents to begin consistent personal and group Bible study so that they are growing in their personal understanding of the Scripture. Then I encourage them to use tools that their churches are already providing to lead age appropriate Faith Talks. Many Kids Ministries and Student Ministries are offering take home tools for parents to help them lead Faith Talks. Also, many pastors are now writing Faith Talks based on the Sunday morning sermon. These tools are helpful in getting started because they give you a simple plan for your conversation.

This next question is a big one for parents at all of our churches who are heartbroken about the decisions their sons and daughters are making. What happens if the child doesn’t choose to walk the path their parents are leading them on?

There will be times for all us when our children choose not to follow well. Some will experience this to a relative small degree and others will experience full-blown prodigals. I wrote a chapter in The Legacy Path called “What if It Doesn’t Work?” I wrote that chapter because I have ministered to many families in pain because their child is growing up and choosing to walk off the path. When you have tried to do everything right and they choose wrong it rips your heart out. I encourage parents to continually pursue their child in love, pray like crazy, and depending on the situation build healthy boundaries to protect your heart, your family, and to allow the prodigal to experience the consequences of sin. Remember God, the Father, loves that prodigal and He will discipline them to bring them to repentance. It’s more complicated than this short answer but the wisdom of Proverbs 22:7 gives us hope. Early in their lives, invest the truth in them intentionally and authentically. Pray that if they ever walk away that these truths you planted in their heart will lead them back.

Starting to lead your children for the first time late in their teenagers years is certainly a challenge. This is cliché but, “Better late than never.” You have to just jump in where your kids are on the legacy path. This might need to begin with an honest conversation. Something like this. “I just realized a large part of my responsibility in being your parent is to lead you spiritually. I really am just only beginning to understand what that means and I want to become intentional about it. I crave time with you and I want to teach you some things about God, the Bible, and life before you grow up and leave home. So, we are going to start doing some things like having a Faith Talks.”

What if your kids are teenagers, and you want to start leading on this path so late in the game?

A big part of this is heart connection. If the heart connection is weak then the parent has to work to mend that connection in order to be heard and followed. I discuss this aspect thoroughly in The Legacy Path.

What is the church’s responsibility in all of this? Are parents supposed to do it alone?

I would point back to my book Shift as an important answer to this question. I think the church has a massive responsibility to connect the discipleship strategy of the church with the strategy at home. So, churches need to consider their holistic discipleship strategy. What is the plan or the path for growth? We use milestones. How do you progress from one to another? How does children, student, and adult ministry align along the path? The church has to equip mom and dad for the task. The church also has to partner with parents in the faith development of children and students. I just spent a week at youth camp. I often thought how grateful I am for the investment our student ministry staff and volunteer leaders are making in our children. Our ministry at church can lock arms with the family so that parents are never alone in the process. Also, the church needs to make adult disciples. How can parents disciple their kids if they are not disciples themselves? Finally, the church becomes the primary faith influence for kids whose parents are spiritually AWOL. Discipleship is a two-sided coin: Church and home.

What is one thing that the Children’s Ministers who are reading this could be doing to take some next steps towards helping parents lead in this Legacy Path?

I think a simple step for Children’s Ministers to take is to actually lead some small groups of parents through this book. That’s what we are going to do at my church. As you might know, I see a Children’s minister as a minister to kids and their families. So I think kids pastors should be spending time with adults. I wrote The Legacy Path thinking that parents could gather in small groups, read a chapter a week, and use the discussion question at the end of each chapter as a catalyst for discussion in small groups. This is a great next step because it allows you to explain the principles in the context of your church’s unique version of the strategy.

 

Brian considers his most important ministry as loving and serving his wife Angela and together parenting their children, Hailey, Madelyn, and Eden. He is the creator of the Legacy milestones strategy designed to help the church and family work together to equip the next generation. Brian is the author of the book SHIFT: What It Takes to Finally Reach Families Today as well as a contributor to several other books and resources. Brian served for 15 years in three churches as a student pastor and associate pastor including Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, Texas. He now serves as Lead Pastor at Bay Area First Baptist Church in League City, Texas. Brian holds an undergraduate degree from Baylor University, a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary for his work in family ministry and discipleship.

My Summer Camp Secrets

July 12, 2011 in Ministry with 1 Comment

I’ve spoken about our experiences at Dry Gulch USA earlier this week, and I hope you’ll take the time to visit that post and see my thoughts on what is really a stellar Summer Camp.  In this post I would like to share many of my Summer Camp secrets from many  years of leading kids and volunteers to Summer Camp.

  • Google Voice -> This is a great tool for Summer Camp.  You can setup one local number that will ring through to as many numbers as you want.  It’s a cool way to avoid giving out 10 emergency numbers, and at the same time have 10 different people on your emergency contact list.
  • Directions -> I always give parents the physical location of where we will be.  Even though I know that parents will most likely not be making the 9 hour drive to our Summer Camp destination, it comforts them when I show them on a map where we will be with their children all week.
  • Online Updates -> I’m not sure how I ever avoided doing this in the past, but for the past few years I’ve posted nightly updates of our days activities and photos.  I avoid video’s because they take too long, and when I talk to parents they dont’ want the videos; they want to see their kids!  So I update about 100-150 pictures each night, with minimal editing, and then throw them into a Picasa slideshow that I embed on our Parents Blog.
  • Facebook -> I also make all our camp adult sponsors administrators on our Facebook Page, and ask that they periodically update the page with pictures and updates.
  • Make it Personal -> I send occasional individual image text of kids to their parents, thanking them for allowing us to spend a week with their kids.  This year, I posted a ton of individual images on parents Facebook pages thanking them for sending their kids, and bragging on what great kids they have.
  • Parents Blog -> I put all these updates on our normal church Parent’s Blog, so that after camp I still have 50+ families familiar with the online presence.  I encourage email subscriptions to the blog, and this helps us add to our list for the rest of the  year.
  • Do What I Say I’ll Do -> The policies on our camp packet are things we actually enforce.  If you register for camp with us, you will have paid 100% of your money and turned in 100% of your paperwork weeks prior to us leaving.  If I have a parent that will not return phone calls, won’t pay in full, or refuses to take ownership of meeting our deadlines; then I drop that kid from our camp roster.
  • Leave When I Say I’ll Leave -> If the bus pulls out at 8:00am, and I’ve told parents for weeks that it leaves at 8:00am…then we leave at 8:00am.  This year we actually left two kids that didn’t wake up in time.  Their mother drove them the 9 hours and met us within an hour of arriving at camp.  Amazingly, the mother wasn’t upset me.  She knew I’d keep my word, and I did.
  • Much, Much, Much More -> I have many more little things I do each year, but for the sake of time and words…I’ll end here!  For more then take me to lunch sometime, and buy me a hamburger and I’ll share more!
Calling all Summer Camp Professionals…what are your secrets?  Any travel tips for making it in a bus with 100 kids to Summer Camp?  Let’s here it in the comment section!

What I Believe about College Ministry

June 23, 2011 in Ministry with 0 Comments

When I was back in college I was very involved in College Ministry.  As a 19-23 year old, I cut my teeth in ministry by working with college aged students; and to this day students in this life stage hold a dear place in my heart.  I feel like those between the ages of 18-25 are in such a unique place, and we’re missing it as a church if we don’t reach out to them in a real way.  In Lubbock, we are home to Texas Tech University and therefore have always had College Ministry at Trinity.

I’d like to share the core values and truths that I truly believe about College and Young Adults Ministry as it relates to Trinity Church.

  • I Believe that College Ministry should step outsides the walls of the church to find students where they are living.
  • I Believe that introducing college students to World Missions is imperative to their spiritual development.
  • I Believe that College Ministry should be flexible enough to find ministry to students in the most unlikely of places.
  • I Believe that success in College Ministry is not counted in attendance numbers to our events, but in the long-term passion students learn to fulfill in their own lives.
  • I Believe that it is our duty to college students to encourage them to invest in the local church they attend by serving.
  • I Believe that it is NOT a waste of resources to invest in a student that will graduate and move away from the local church.
  • I Believe that what college students really need to grow are mentor relationships with mature Christians, and I Believe that they need this more than another weekly College Ministry worship service.
  • I Believe that adults willing to invest time and offer thoughtful advice to college students within a trusting relationship are making the most important investment in that college students life.
  • I Believe that it’s allright to criticize our methods, programming, and systems in order to improve and upgrade what we do to reach college students in a more relevant way.
  • I Believe that College Ministry can work within the Family Ministry team dynamic in the local church, and is most effective when they are supported by both Children’s Ministry and Student Ministry.
  • I Believe that parents carry the primary spiritual burden to disciple their own children, and that we help parents with out-of-town children by investing in their college student while they live in our town.
  • I Believe that every College Ministry experience holds within it the opportunity for life change in the heart of a college student.

 

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