The Newest Luce

Santino 9 pounds 1 ounce 21 1/2 inches

Shameless Plug

Generation Conference is our annual youth conference, this year it will be July 25th through July 27th. Guest speakers will be Ed Young, Joyce Meyer, and Actor Stephen Baldwin. Check it out.

We’re going old school, baby!

Back
to what it’s all really about. We live in an age of information. We’re
bombarded with it. More information than any of us have the capacity to
filter and as a result we so often do nothing; MySpace, You Tube,
iPods, Podcasts, blogs, school, text messaging, advertising the list
goes on… Even within the church there’s more information than many of
us have the opportunity to process, much less apply.

The
many messages can be overwhelming…we see how far from perfect we are.
To onlookers it appears we Christians have a list of do’s and don’ts to
follow. It’s not how it should be.

What
if, for three day this summer, we went old school – RETRO – back to the
way Jesus lived it out, and apply the filter that He used to define His
followers – Simply: Love God, love people!

Are you in? Join us for three incredible days this summer and we’ll get back to all that Jesus had in mind for you…

Extreme Makeover Links

Here are some links to check out:

Children’s Theming:

Worlds of Wow
Wacky World
Shane Grammer
Little Mountain Productions
Real Fake Buildings
Jonathan Martin Creative
Starry Hoast Design

Indoor Playgrounds:

Orca Coast Playground
Prime Play
Soft Play
Kids Are Kool

Cool Extras:

Yvett Helin Studio
Maydwell Mascots
KidzPace

Moving….

Moving my Blog.

I have weighed the pros and cons and have decided to move my blog. I wanted to make a decision before it became a very combersome task. I have used both Typepad and WordPress. They both have their advantages and disadvantages . The one thing that was going to keep me from WordPress was the writing had to be done in html. Of which I know nothing. Lucky for me Zoho offers a wonderful online wordprocessor that publishes directly to your blog fully wrapped in html.

Advantages of WordPress – flexablity, freedom, better internal stats and it’s free99.

Disadvantages of WordPress – somewhat of a learning curve

Advantages of Typepad – Ease of use

Disadvantages of Typepad – Price, not as flexable

I will be moving my blog to samluce.wordpress.com

Extreme Makeover?

Customized spaces and themed environments for children has become quite popular lately. But is it worth the time, money and energy.

I say YES, YES, and YES.

"Barry notes the enjoyment of the experience that theming helps create
leads to steep increases in attendance. "We see 35-percent to
120-percent increases in attendance after themed environments are put
into place," he says."

Again it is not all about numbers but numbers represent people and life change. Which is why we do what we do. We want to engage children and families.

There are always detractors who will say that church should be a somber
affair and that theming is too garish in such a setting. Yet Greg L.
Barron, CEO and president of G.L. Barron Co. Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas,
says theming is nothing more than a design approach that involves the
human senses.

"Ministry is about people. People of this generation are affected by
their senses more than any other time. Utilizing sound, taste, smell
and sight increases a ministry’s opportunity to connect and affect
people for Christ," Barron says.

We want to follow the example of the greatest teacher of all times, Jesus. He engaged his audience through non conventional means. We MUST do the same. We as a church are in the beginning process of Theming our children’s wing not because we are tying to do the vogue thing in children’s ministry but because we care about reaching every child and every family live in our region.

The rest of the article on Themed Environments from Worship Facilities magazine

(More tomorrow)

Creative Evangelism

What are some unique creative ideas for reaching children?

1. Make your weekend service powerful, exciting and lifechanging
2. Customize you children’s space. (More about this tomorrow)
3. Host Birthday Parties at your church.
4. Go out of your way to make every kid feel special.
5. Send Mail. Kids love mail, anything with their name on it.
6. Don’t think just kids think family.

Let me know what your ideas are?

1 vs. 100

I was reading Luke 15 the other day and was impacted afresh by God’s heart for people who have yet to find Him.

I was challenged to leave the 99 and go after the one that is strayed hurt and searching. I think in ministry and especially children’s ministry we can very easily fall into a care for who comes mentality instead of what can we do to reach every seeker in my city?

What are we doing that is impacting, reaching beyond us?

I think that sometimes it is easier and more comfortable to stay with the 99 and leave the 1 for someone else. Jesus didn’t see it that way.

To be a church that impacts your city you need to have a "white hot passion for evangelism" Ed Young Jr. I think that evangelism looks a bit different in children’s ministry.

What are some creative ideas to reach that 1 kid that Jesus was referring to in Luke 15? We will go over that tomorrow.

Why Church?

Why do you go to church?

These are the reasons the 26th President of the United States believed it was important.

10 REASONS FOR GOING TO CHURCH

By: The 26th President of the United States – Theodore Roosevelt
"Ladies’ Home Journal" 1917

1. In this actual world a churchless community, a community where
men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is
a community on the rapid downgrade.

2. Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the
habit of feeling some responsibility for others and the sense of braced
moral strength which prevents a relaxation of one’s own moral fiber.

4. Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the
Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by
a running brook, or in one’s own house, just as well as in church. But,
I also know as a matter of cold fact the average man does not thus
worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays away from church he does
not spend his time in good works or in lofty meditation. He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper.

5. He may not hear a good sermon at church. But, unless he is
very unfortunate he will hear a sermon by a good man who, with his good
wife, is engaged all the week long in a series of wearing and humdrum and important tasks for making hard lives a little easier.

9. I advocate a man’s joining in church works for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

10. The man who does not in some way, active or not, connect
himself with some active, working church misses many opportunities for
helping his neighbors, and therefore, incidentally, for helping
himself.

The rest can be found here.

“Jesus Junk”

Is church marketing evil?

Many people think that it is. I have a different take.

1. You are already marketing yourself whether you know it or not.
(If you don’t think you are. Ask someone in your city what he or she
thinks of your church.)
2. I personally think a bigger waste of time
an energy are "fish shaped breath mints" and WWJD anything. We have
created a separate market for people to sell us, as Keith Green calls
it "Jesus Junk". Our focus needs to be on doing what we can to reach
the cities God has called us to.

So let’s forgo the mints and bring on a TV ad or printed piece that actually
reflects our creative……Creator.

I think a great example of this is Lifechurch.tv’s new
ad campaign satanhateslife.com 

Sanjaya the next American Idol

Why do we love and hate Sanjaya? Anyone who knows anything about pop culture will tell you they either love Sanjaya (mostly under the age of 12 and female) or hate him (everyone else). A wise man once told me the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.

PERMALINK (http://www.pudgehuckaby.com/archives/125)

Why do i love Sanjaya?(I by the way am older than 12 and not female) Because I can learn a lot from him.

1. He is not afraid of change. Different hair every week, different outfit and song every week.
2. Buzz, Buzz and more Buzz. He is memorable. He can’t sing and he is still around because you can forget Sanjaya. Believe me I have tried.
3. He maximizes his strengths. He knows who his fans are and reaches them every week.
4. He doesn’t let Simon define him.

So ask yourself are you afraid of change, are you memorable, do you maximize your strengths do those who you don’t like define you?

What we do is way more important than a singing competition. I think however, we can learn from Sanjaya’s amazing Idol run. To reach as many people for Christ as we can you don’t have the be "the best singer" you need to be the best with what God has given you. Don’t focus on what others have use what God has given you in the most creative passionate way.