Archives For volunteers

YouLead Opportunity

May 11, 2011 — Leave a comment

As a reader of this site, I have a special offer for my readers.  If you’re working anywhere in the context of family ministry, children’s ministry, student ministry, college ministry, or just interested in Leadership; then I have a deal for you.  Right now I can get you a free 2-month trial offer to YouLead.  Normally, YouLead is the very agreeable price of $249 for a 5-member leadership team per year, but right now it’s free for 2 months!  Go ahead and read the description of YouLead, and then find the instructions to get your own 2-month trial offer to YouLead.

YouLead is a simple curriculum designed to develop the leadership skills of yourself, your team and your volunteers.  It centers on answering three basic questions:

  • What can I do to continue learning as a leader?
  • How can I be intentional about connecting with my volunteers consistently?
  • What can we do to stay on the same page as a team?

As a leader, your time is probably filled to the brim without adding one more item to your list.  That’s why we have made this development plan E-A-S-Y. In fact, explaining it will be just as easy…

With YouLead, you get:

  • Personal Leadership Development

    • Book reviews, podcasts, videos, case studies…all around a center topic each month
    • Involves no more than 20 minutes of your time each week – THAT’S IT!

  • Volunteer Leadership Development

    • Intentional communication plan around a central theme each month
    • Weekly email messages designed and ready to send to your entire team in less than 5 minutes

  • BONUS – Staff Leadership Development

    • Book review with staff discussion starters
    • Guided meeting schedule through concepts in The Orange Leader Handbook
    • Podcast for senior leadership

Remember, the goal of using YouLead either as an individual or for your entire team is to have an EASY, INTENTIONAL, ACHIEVABLE leadership development plan.  To get your free 2-month offer just send an email to me at jc @ jonathancliff.com and I’ll be glad to tell you what you need to do.  It’s easy, sneezy; and you won’t regret the opportunity to Lead Yourself in a more deliberate direction of God’s Best!

 

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Let’s Illuminate this Thing

April 20, 2011 — Leave a comment

Last year I had the privilege to participate in a new volunteer conference called Illuminate. It was something Kenny Conley and his team at Gateway organized.  In an easy to read way, hear from Kenny’s own heart on why he wants to do this:

Essentially, the idea was to create an incredible experience for our volunteers at Gateway. Many times I’ve walked out of an incredible breakout at a national conference and said, “Wow! I wish all my volunteers had experienced that!” Unfortunately, most churches can’t provide a “national conference” experience for all the volunteers… unless that church brought the national conference to their volunteers. That’s what Illuminate is.

So at this time we’re all happy to announce that Illuminate Austin is coming back!  On Saturday, November 12, 2011, Gateway Church in Austin, TX will host Illuminate for the second time. We are expecting 600-800 kidmin volunteers/staff for this incredible experience. The breakout and speaker lineup is amazing!

But wait… there’s more!

Illuminate is a huge blessing for kidmin volunteers in Central Texas. Why limit it to just Central Texas? Once all the content and program is developed, doing it again in a new location isn’t really that much work, right?

So on Saturday, August 27, 2011, Westwood Church in Birmingham, AL will host the first Illuminate Conference outside the great state of Texas. How exciting is that? We’ll pack in the same great stuff that made Illuminate successful in Texas, but serve it up Southern Style.

But wait… there’s even more!

Last year Kenny recorded every session and breakout of Illuminate.  I hear that he had intended to record every session and breakout from Birmingham and Austin in 2011 as well. So, what is he going to do with all this great video content? You guessed it. Illuminate is going online! He doesn’t yet have specific dates and details yet, but plans are underway and concrete dates will be set this summer. Not everyone can get to Austin or Birmingham… but this video content can help anyone, regardless of where they’re coming from.

This year for Illuminate, I’ve gathered some of the greatest minds in Kidmin: Jim Wideman, Sam Luce, Jonathan Cliff, Gina McClain, Dan Scott, Matt McKee, Amy Fenton Lee, Michael Chanley and more to be announced. That’s a Kidmin Powerhouse!

So, whether you live in Texas or Alabama (or within a couple ours of the locations) or whether you have a computer with high speed internet, plan to connect with Illuminate this Fall. It could be exactly what you’re volunteers need most. Stay tuned for more details soon.

Don’t hesitate. Click here to visit the illuminateconference.tv

Click here to follow Illuminate on twitter

Click here to visit Illuminate on facebook

 

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Hope

January 3, 2011 — 2 Comments

Hope. It’s what drives me to keep doing things that I don’t enjoy.  The hope that one day it will be better, be over, be finished, be [insert word here].  Hope is what helps me on a Monday morning after what seems like dozens of volunteers didn’t show up for a Sunday morning.  Hope is what encourages me when I think of all that could be done, but see how much further there is yet to go.  Hope carries me through when I remember how totally unequipped I am for what my own dreams are.  Hope is Monday Morning.

This new day, that starts a new week, that starts a new year is dripping with Hope.  This day is completely saturated in Hope, and nothing can hold it back.  No matter the circumstances or situations you find yourself in…today is a hopeful day.

Psalm 71:14 But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.

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Dumb Things #2

November 3, 2010 — 8 Comments

This week I’ll be covering some of the more dumb things I’ve ever done as a Children’s Pastor.  Be sure to visit www.jonathancliff.com/tags/dumbthings to keep up with all the dumb-ness happening here this week!

Again while in Dallas I pulled one of the most stupid stunts ever.  As a not-lover of puppets (is that a phrase?), I decided instead that it would be cool to have a costumed character visit the kids each week.  Great idea so far, right?  It all started when I saw this super great, and super cheap gorilla costume at Party City.  I lost you with the word gorilla, didn’t I?  All the costume consisted of was a pair of gorilla feet, gorilla hands, and a scary gorilla mask.  So easy to pull off, and makes for a super quick costume change.

So our friendly Kidmin gorilla makes his first apperance on Sunday morning.  I had some accompanying music that was light and cheery; and I prepared the kids beforehand that we had a gorilla friend making a visit.  Here is how it goes down:

  • The gorilla appears on stage.
  • Children scream hysterically.
  • Girl on the front row goes into a horror stage of shock.
  • That same girl pees on herself.
  • The volunteers in the room freeze and don’t know what to do.
  • I’m stuck with my friendly gorilla on stage, trying to carry on a conversation while children begin to cry and run from the room.
  • I finally tell the gorilla to leave stage, and have to yell at some volunteers to please help our peed-on girl up front.

Is this less scary?

I’m still so ashamed.  Can’t believe how stupid I was to think this was a good idea.  However, this gorilla costume did make a great scare toy for me to freak out my kids at home.  Score!

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Children’s Ministry Academy

August 3, 2010 — Leave a comment

You might have noticed that there are a few business, and organizations that I would recommend; and therefore allow them the opportunity to sponsor space on this here website.  Today I would like to introduce you to the newest sponsor at www.jonathancliff.com.

I recently did an interview with ChildrensMinistryAcademy.com about ways that my team and I are transitioning our established church to be a more modern family-friendly environment.  When the interview was over I was given an opportunity to learn more about what Children’s Ministry Academy offers those of us out here in the world of Children’s Ministry.  I have walked away impressed!

Here is how www.childrensministryacademy.com would describe themselves:

The CHILDREN’S MINISTRY ACADEMY was created to aide leaders, pastors, teachers, volunteers, and parents in their efforts to nurture faith in youth. We are strong believers that faith doesn’t grow in a vacuum; instead it requires a community of support and encouragement. If you are in a position of authority in a Children’s Ministry program, it is your job to lead your community.

All too often, Children’s Ministry Leaders are tossed into a classroom with little else than a “good luck” pat on the back. Seventy one percent of the teacher’s we’ve certified received NO FORMAL TRAINING prior to enrolling in our program. This is a dangerous statistic. Children have little patience for “on the job training”. In this day and age, when Sunday School is competing with sports, video games, and violin lessons, can we afford to let teachers struggle along until they discover how to manage a class on their own?

It’s time for a change.

I took the class titled, “Secrets to Effective Classroom Management” and I must tell you that it was well worth my time.  The material was presented in a very real-world type of situation.  The entire class is taught while you pretend to be a Children’s Director at a fictitous church.  Your Senior Pastor even sends you emails with advice, and it’s through these that the lessons and materials are taught.  After reading through your Senior Pastor’s advice, you are then given a scenario of a situation happening in a classroom.  After observing (or more honestly reading) you take a quick 3 question test to see what you would recommend to your teachers.

After going through 7 different teaching segments (all outlined on the left), I took a 30 question test about all that I had learned.  I had to score 24 out of 30 correct to PASS the course!  (No worries, I passed.)

I must say that I had a recurring thought as I read through the materials and browsed through their website…I sure wish I had this when I started in Children’s Ministry!  I can think of three distinct Children’s Ministry Leaders that need to look into this resource:

1. NEW Children’s Pastors.  If you are new to what you’re doing, then take the time to invest in yourself by getting a subscription to CMA.  Just lock yourself in your office for a day and a half and learn, learn, learn!

2. Ministry Leaders. I think this material would be fantastic for the person leading others within my ministry.  I often struggle to find time for my leaders to learn, and this might be a great go-between.  It would be an answer for the question I get sometimes from my leaders, “How can I get better at what I’m doing?”

3. Part-Time Children’s Pastors.  I know you are out there!  There are 1,000′s of lay staff working with kids all across the country.  They struggle to have budgets to travel and learn, and CMA might be your fix.

So what’s next?  Children’s Ministry Academy is currently offering a $50 scholarship for sign-up, thereby reducing their enrollment fee to only $50.  After that you pay $20/per month to continue learning and taking new classes.  They will even send you a ton of free stuff just for signing up!  Go today and visit www.childrensministryacademy.com and see if it would be a fit for you and your ministry.

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