What does it take to be a children’s pastor?

In my previous post I was talking about the lack of desire from young people to be a children’s pastor. Of all the teens, young adults and especially those in Bible college I have asked what they want to do in the ministry almost all say youth pastor. I don’t say this in a bitter way at all because I was one of those who said the same thing I want to be a youth pastor.

Before I post my thoughts I do want to back up a bit. At age 13 I had a dramatic experience and knew that God was calling me to full time ministry. I went to four years of bible college took classes to prepare for youth ministry. I did a youth pastor internship for a summer in the church I currently serve as a children’s pastor.

My pastor approached me at bible college and asked me to work full time at the church with the youth. I moved out to utica right out of bible college. I arrived in Utica helped my friend Mike Servello start the youth group. I was here for about a month when one of the pastors sat me down and explained to me that I was in charge of all the kids ministries.

Honestly I was devastated. I felt I was called to work with youth. I just moved across the country. I prayed and asked God if this is what you want me to do then you have to give me a passion for it. It didn’t happen overnight but it did happen. I now feel so passionately about kids ministry that given a choice I will always choose kids ministry.

To be a children’s pastor you need the following:

1. Passion for God
2. Need to be very administrative. You can’t be a children’s pastor without some level of administrative ability.
3. You must be more kingdom minded than department minded.
4. You have to realize that what you do may not be seen by man and be genuinely ok with that.
5. You have to know how to recognize the gifts that people have and know how to implement them.
6. You have to know how to reproduce yourself in others.
7. You need to be able to communicate truth and vision to adult and kids in a simple manor.
8. Work well with the youth pastor. I love our youth pastor. He loves God, so do I and loves Guess again so do I. Check out his blog.
8. You need to have ADD - well that may not be a requirement but it does help, and most children’s pastors I know have a touch of ADD if they were really honest.

Let me know what i am missing.

The cool-aid tastes great!

I love apple! I have been geeking out watching the WWDC on my day off. This December my Verizon contract runs out. Merry Christmas to me here I come At&t.

So you want to be a children’s pastor?

I have been thinking about a few things the last week or so. I have been talking to some good friends of mine as wells as pastors I know in the region they are all looking for children’s pastors. It got me thinking, why is there such a lack of quality children’s leaders? I realize this may be a perception thing on my part but I don’t think so. I think children’s ministry is 20 years behind youth ministry but is catching up.

Let me know what you think?

This week I want to discuss and get your take on the following:

1. What does it take to become a children’s pastor.
2. Why most children’s pastors wanted to be youth pastors.
3. What churches are looking for in a children’s pastor.
4. Misconceptions that keep people from pursuing children’s ministry.
5. What makes a children’s pastor last.

Youtube Friday: Apple Coldplay Ad

My good friend Gareth posted this video I have to agree as a fellow Apple coolaid drinker who loves everything they do . I love this commercial. If you are wondering 11 days till the new Coldplay record comes out.

Seth on Email

All I can say is wow. This is a prime example why Seth Godin is the man. He wrote a great piece on permission emailing with loads of fantastic rules for the sender.

My rules are simple if your email is a touching story, selling something, or is some joke i delete them (Dan Buck is the only exception because the jokes he sends are funny, as opposed to the unfunny pictures of cats sleeping on TV’s or otters holding hands.)

Before you send you next email read his post.

The Holy Spirt and Recruitment

My friend and fellow blogger posed this question to me. What is the Holy Spirits role in volunteer recruitment?

I thought it was a great question. Here are my thoughts let me hear yours.

When I first became a children’s pastor (after everyone quit) I promptly went out and started to make my bulitin plea. I felt the Holy Spirit tell me that I should not look for hirelings but true shepherds. I then started to pray very hard. God has supplied all I need. I still have needs he still supplies.

In the process I think the Holy Spirit is invaluable in the leading and guiding of finding the right people and then putting them in the right place. Finding a willing person is the easy part. Figuring out how the Holy Spirit has wired them is a bit tougher. Where will they fit where they will flourish and not just be a temporary fix. For me if my volunteers don’t get something out of what they are doing I have failed them on some level.

I feel holy spirit leads to the “right” people, helps me discern their gift mix, and lastly place them where God wants them and where they will be fulfilled.

What a win looks like.

One of our amazing volunteer is Kim Maxwell. She is amazing she is so talented in so many ways. She has a passion for helping first time guests find their way around the building and have a great experience. We are so blessed that she is apart of Uptown.

A mother came to our check in counter and was checking her daughter into Uptown for the first time. After checking her daughter in Kim offered to show mom and daughter where the 4 and 5’s class was. Kim let the mom know that she could stay until her daughter felt welcome. Her daughter was fine in just a couple of minutes. As Kim and mom were walking back toward the sanctuary the mom explained that she used to attend church and was thinking about going somewhere.

After the service the mom came to get her daughter. Her daughter was all smiles she said “mommy I love it here.” The mom eyes were almost to the brink of tears told Kim that the adult service was amazing and that this was the most amazing experience she had ever had at a church and that she was definitely coming back.

Yea God and Yea Team.

iTwitter

Just jumped on the twitter bandwagon. So far so good. Here’s the link to my twitter site.

Lighter Fare: Blogs I read.

For my last list I will do for the week I would like to give a shout out to my fellow blogging CP Kenny Conley. He has a great blog you should definitely check it out. His thoughts on ministry and life are very enlightening and entertaining. He came up with a fantastic list of blogs he reads on a regular basis. I found it enlightening. There were quite a few blogs I had never read before but will be in the future.

Here are some the blogs I read most often. I read tons so these are my greatest hits (no pun intended).

Church Marketing Sucks - Great blog that helps me not suck.

Church Relevance - Great blog about….well relevant issues facing the church and church leaders.

Swerve - Craig’s leadership insights are second to none.

Children’s Ministry 1234 - I love the way Rob’s mind works would love to meet him someday. I love how he uses culture as leverage to communicate the never changing truth of God’s word. Did I mention I love his CM website very cool stuff Rob keep rock’n the island.

Children’s Ministry and Culture - Larry has a great blog. I love how he incorporates articles that have to do with practical side of who kids are. Very informative and challenging stuff.

How to Change the world - Guy is a blogging genius.

GarethGilpin.com - My good friend, fellow creative, free thinking, marketing loving, pbc grad. He is also our churches Albany campus pastor. Plus he has the coolest shoes out of all my friends.

Jim Wideman - What can I say. He is the godfather. Seriously I met Brother Jim once at a come spend a week with us conference, he is a great guy that is an inspiration to us all.

Kem Meyer - Love her funky creative perspective the church needs more people like her.

Karl Bastian - I have been so blessed by his website. I found it years ago pre subscription days. I find it encouraging, and a great hub for communication and information and just overall idea jump starting. Plus he hates the great satan Microsoft.

Lifehacker - Generally not a big fan of anything called hacker but I have learned tons of helpful stuff from this blog. My fav is how to link ical and gcal.

Baseball blogs - MLB Rumors - Seamless Baseball - Roto Authority.

Seth’s Blog - Marketing Genius, his perspective is second to none. I would love to have coffee with Seth someday and pick his brain about church/non-profit marketing.

Techcrunch - Tech geek blog.

Thewayweseeit - Great blog. Great resources.

Tony Morgan - Has a pulse on where the church is at, plus he has hugged Andy Stanley.

Philvischer.com - Bob, Larry and Jellyfish

Jason Boucher - Another one of my creative, free thinking friends. Rock’n it in Canadian eh?

Mike Servello - My best friend. Great guy, excellent communicator. Has a flat out passion for reaching seekers. He is the reason why Uptown exists. I am grateful for his example. People say you are the reflection of the 5 closest people to you and I am blessed to call him one of my five.

Katya Andresen - Read her book. Loved her book so much I started reading her blog. Good stuff.

JustPudge.com - Pudge is a crazycoolfunnutsfreakyJesuslovingsuperkidguy. Love his insight.

Mark Schilling - Another one of my good friends. He is the youth pastor at our church. He has such a passion for this generation and is a fantastic speaker and is a very short list of the funniest people I know.

MattMckeelive.com - My fellow marketing loving, crappy sign hating, children’s pastor who sees the ministry through different eyes than most and I love that.

Phil Cooke - THe is a christian marketing guru and is coming to our church very soon. Can’t wait to meet him.

Scott Hodge - Has an amazing and inspiring story of how his church changed to become seeker obsessed. He is also a fellow lover of St. Arbucks.

[Kid Inspiration] - David and they guys at hillsong inspire me to take kids ministry to the next level. I can’t wait to one day see it for myself, I am just afraid I won’t want to leave.

jabberfrog.com - Gina has a great sense of humor and insight to multisite kids campus. Her stories about parenting help me feel normal.

cultivating Home - This a blog by a couple in our church. They are amazing great friends great servants, great parents.

Lighter Fare: Who am I.

Another list I found enlightening and somewhat professionally satisfying to know that as a children’s pastor I don’t have to fit the mold most people have in their minds of what a children’s pastor should or shouldn’t be.
The list is found in this blog post “an abnormal children’s pastor”. Over at Jonathancliff.com. Jonathan has a great blog he has great insight and speaks in a very candid why that I as a new yorker find very refreshing. Go check out his blog good stuff.

I am not sure what his inspiration for this post came from but it reminded me a very funny commercial about a guy explaining why he was proud to be a canadian.

So heres me. My attempt to explain away my abnormalities.

I am a children’s pastor - never wanted to be one, would never want to NOT be one. I always wanted to be a youth pastor growing up, now would not be anything else. It is a dream come true. to work with kids and families. I LOVE IT.

I am a man - this may seem obvious but there are not tons of us. I found this out the hard way. At a Children’s Pastor conference I went to in the midwest all the men’s bathrooms were converted to women’s bathrooms (ouch) and there were still lines for the ladies room!

I hate flannel graphs - My rule is if you have electricity in your building, city, village. You shouldn’t be using them EVER!

I Love Punk Rock. I know it’s a long way from father Abraham. I like other music to, actually anything but rap or hardcore. I do love worship music as well and my favorite kids worship albums by far are anything hillsong kids.

I think Walt Disney was a genius. Some people would consider it heresy. I am so amazed at his ability to tap into the child with in all of us and create experiences that are so amazing then when you have kids you want them to share the same experiences you had as a kid. There are definitely some things the church could learn from Walt.

I believe that youth ministry and children’s ministry should be and are inseparable.

I believe that kids ministry today is where youth ministry was in the 80’s - Speaking of which the 80’s was the best decade so far a deadly combination of Hair and spandex. I believe children’s ministry is beginning to move in the minds of the masses from child care to authentic ministry much like youth ministry did starting in the 80’s moving into 90’s.

I like dogs not cats. - Don’t like cats to moody, to freaky.

One day I would love to make a documentary. - it may not be christian or a cartoon and it definitely won’t have Kirk Cameron in it.

David letterman is way funnier than Jay Lenno - even though Jay Lenno is a much nicer guy. Who I met 13 years ago at an in-and-out burger joint in LA.

I think that church should engage each sense in a positive way at every age but especially kids. - Please note positive way and no moth balls are not a positive engagement of the senses.

I believe children’s ministry is the most important ministry in the church.

I read blogs not magazines. - I guess I would chalk it up to interactivity being able to interact with the author of the article something magazines don’t provide.

I have never worn and never plan on wearing a larry the cucumber tie or bob the tomato t-shirt. - actually my favorite clothing store is Guess.

I talk to people like people - one of my biggest pet peves is when I meet someone who can’t turn off they good morning boys and girls voice and they use it in private conversation and when talking to the whole church.

I don’t believe in announcement recruitment. I believe in relevant exciting programs, compelling vision, and the power of the “the ask”. Most leaders don’t use sign up sheets, most if not all of my top leaders came because of a personal invitation.

I think creating a fun, holy spirit, lifechanging, everlasting environment is not about what you have, but who you are and most importantly who you know.