Today is a big day in my life. Today I turn 30; the big three-oh. I’ve learned a lot of great lessons about life and Children’s Ministry in those years, mainly though trial and error. So to help all of us celebrate the anniversary of my umbilical cord separation here are lessons 1 – 10 of “30 Things I’ve Learned At 30″ (yes, unfortunately, some of these are from my actual real life experiences):
1. Don’t put soda in the freezer. The can will explode and your wife will make you clean it up and it will take you a long time.
2. People always get angry at funerals when you forget the name of their loved, one especially if you are the pastor performing the service (so I’m told).
3. Kids are like the mafia: you forget their name just once, and you’re dead to them for life.
4. When you dislocate your knee while teaching in your preteen ministry, don’t tell the atheist doctor in the ER that you’re a pastor. He’ll make you wait a really long time before he puts your knee back in place and “forget” to give you any morphine. You can scream in pain all you want, but he won’t care.
5. When someone breaks up with you and says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” what they really mean is: “It’s not you, it’s me…in the sense that I actually agreed to go out with you in the first place. I should have known better. Don’t worry; I am about to correct that mistake right now.”
6. You know you’ve run out of things to talk about with a parent in your ministry when one of you brings up how nice/terrible the weather is.
7. When you have someone teach in your Children’s Ministry, always preview their talk first. Otherwise he may tell a very inappropriate story from his days in Vietnam which will forever traumatize your class of 3rd – 5th graders.
8. When someone on one of your #kidmin lists tweets more than 10 times during a single day, you can be sure that they spend the majority of their life trying to convince others that they actually HAVE a life. Don’t be afraid to let them know that you are in on their little secret. They’ll be angry now, but thank you later (probably not though).
9. It’s OK to be afraid of clowns after midnight. If you see a clown fully dressed in his clown garb walking down the streets of your city at midnight, you can be sure that he is up to no good.
10. If you ever dislocate your shoulder at summer camp it is always best to pop it back into place within the first 30 seconds. Otherwise you will have a three-hour wait from the time that you dislocated it to the time that it is relocated (not sure if that’s the correct medical term) that will be filled with the most intense pain of your life (unless you are having a baby, in which case it will be the second most intense pain of your entire life).
Look for lessons 11 – 20 of “30 things I’ve learned at 30″ tomorrow. In the meantime, fill up the comment section below with some of the big lessons (be they silly or serious) that have added value to your life.
–Jeff
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I’d add to #2. It’s also inappropriate to use the wrong name for the deceased person when conducting a funeral. It’s double-inappropriate when its the wrong first AND last name!
You’re right Jonathan, saying the wrong name is probably worse than forgetting the right name. At least with forgetting, you can substitute appropriate pronouns like “he” or “she” or “You-Know-Who” or “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” That way you can protect people’s feelings and your reputation as someone who cares enough about people to remember their names when people pay you to.
Not that I’ve done that.
Oh wait, I have done that.
#7 reminds me of when Ruben spoke to the elementary kids in December and let the kids know that Santa Claus isn’t real. You should have heard the gasps.
(In his defense, he said that the kids in Holland discover that secret at a much younger age and he thought everyone already knew.)
That sounds like a very Ruben thing to do. He’s just not happy unless he can get at least one child to cry in his message. So sad.