Last week I talked about the first five commitments of a kidmin that’s more than babysitting. I got a lot of positive feedback about them (at the risk of tooting my own horn, which is difficult, especially since my car is currently in the shop).

So it seemed only fitting to wrap up the series with the second half. Otherwise it would just be the “5 Commitments of a Kidmin That’s More Than Babysitting” and that just doesn’t have as much pizazz as 10, don’t you think?

So here they are:

6. Align with adults
If your adults have a killer weekend service targeted to seekers, make sure your kidmin weekend service is awesome for those seekers kids. If your adults are in small groups, plug your kids into small groups with other kids. If your adults can volunteer for a ministry, create opportunities for your kids to serve. This shows that you’re a team player, which senior pastors love. It also gets everyone at your church on the same page. And it shows your Kidmin is ready to be taken seriously in the life of the church.

7. Do more than just the weekend
If all you do is the weekend it really makes sense that people would only consider your Kids’ Ministry as just babysitting. Provide outreach opportunities as entry-point events for kids to bring their Not-Yet-Christian friends to church. Develop yearly programs that kids and parents can attend and serve at together. Establish discipleship-oriented classes to teach kids how to use their Bible. Don’t let kids grow up thinking that church is just that thing they sometimes do on the weekend.

Click here for 8 tips to help plan your Kidmin calendar.

8. Have margin in your calendar
As important as it is to do more than just the weekend, don’t go overboard. It’s better to do a few things really well then a lot of things badly. Remember your Kidmin Calendar affects more than simply you and the kids. It implicates their parents by default because they’re the ones who have to act as chauffeur and broker for everything their kids do. Going light on the extracurriculars will ensure happy parents, who actually WANT to bring their kids to your stuff.

9. Over communicate
Had a kid accept Christ? Brag about it at your next team meeting. Had a record attendance last weekend? Email the staff to share how God is growing the Children’s Ministry. Have a volunteer who went above and beyond? Point them out at your next volunteer gathering and spotlight them to your senior pastor. Good things are happening in your Kidmin. Don’t be shy about letting people know it.

10. Are sometimes about babysitting
Let’s be honest about this one. Sometimes we do provide babysitting services, and that’s OK. Maybe it’s watching the kids for your worship team’s practice each week. Or watching parents kids so they can attend their recovery group or ministry team meeting. It may even mean watching the senior pastor’s kids so he can make hospital visits. There’s nothing wrong with being “just” babysitting here. We’re enabling the church to succeed with the work of the gospel. And that is always more than babysitting.

What would you add or change about these 10 commitments?

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As a Kidmin Leader of 15 years I cringe whenever someone refers to Children’s Ministry as childcare in much the same way most people cringe whenever chalk is dragged along the chalkboard, when your finger slams agains a door, or whenever MTV announces another season of Jersey Shore. It’s just how I’m wired-up.

But sometimes I think we bring it on ourselves.

How we run our Children’s Ministries shapes people’s perceptions of them. If there’s nothing to suggest there’s more than just dropping kids off and picking them up, why should people think we’re more than just babysitting?

If you’re reading this you know better (or are a really caring family member or friend whose trying to boast my blog stats, in which case I thank you. Remind me to take you out to lunch). But how do we change the babysitting perception that causes people to check-out of what God’s called us to do?

I’m glad you asked.

Over the years I’ve observed lots of Children’s Ministries. The ones that are really serious about growing God’s Kingdom by ministering to kids, the ones that aren’t messing around, the ones that are more than babysitting all make these 10 commitments:

1. Never beg for help
Failing to make this commitment is the number 1 mistake I see Kids’ Ministries make. To be fair, I get why most don’t really commit here. There’s lots of needs and not a lot of workers. That’s fair. I’ve been there. We all have. But begging never really got any of us anywhere long-term, has it? If we’re honest we all know this to be true. What begging REALLY does is give others the impression we’re captaining the Titanic and need people to plug holes. Nobody wants to do that.

2. Cater to guys
Let’s be upfront about this one: Children’s Ministry is predominetly filled with women. Nothing wrong with that. The problem, though, is when everything from the fonts on flyers to the color of the volunteer shirts (and everything in between) is picked soley with ladies in mind. At most churches it’s hard to distinguish between the Children’s Ministry and the Women’s Ministry. No straight guy wants to be a part of that. If you want to get more guys on your team (and I’ve yet to meet a Kidmin that didn’t) then you’ve got to look at everything you do from a guy’s point of view (3D glasses can help with this).

3. Have a process made of programs, not programs that make the process
Most Children’s Ministries are know for their VBS and Halloween Programs. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these kinds of programs. The tension comes in when the ministry revolves around supporting these programs (sacred cows) rather than the programs working to support the vision of the ministry. If you’re main reason for holding on to one of these sacred cows is “We’ve always done it that way!” Then you’ve got a problem. Isaiah 8:11 (NLT) says, “The LORD has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does.” It may be time to hold a BBQ at your church for some of these sacred cows.

4. Program for more than just kids
Having a Children’s Ministry that’s more than babysitting is about the kids. It’s also about more than only kids too. You need to have a plan for how you’re going to engage and add value to parents. Click here for 7 practical ways you can start doing this.

5. Have leaders who know when to say no
This goes hand in hand with #3. We can’t be everything to everyone. We need to have clear boundaries that stem from our purpose and vision. We need to say no to lots of good things to say yes to the few great things that are in our wheel house. Bottom Line: You can’t make everyone happy, so stop trying.

I’ll cover the other 5 next week. In the meantime I’d love to hear from you. What would you add or change about this list?

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They may be a complete strangers to you, but you may not be to them.

A few weeks ago our Family Pastor and I were at Ontario Airport. We were headed from California to Colorado to interview someone for a spot that’s open at our church.

As we finished going through security (which is about as much fun as when the dentist accidentally cuts into your gums while trying to clean your teeth, making his instrument feel like the white-hot blade of a 19th century Samurai from Feudal Japan) a man walked up to us and asked if we worked at High Desert Church. We told him we did.

He went on to explain how he thought we looked familiar, that he knew our Senior Pastor, and had been attending our church for years. We chatted for a few minutes, then left to catch our flight. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.

Or so we thought.

The next day we were at our hotel in Colorado, having breakfast, and getting ready to head to the airport to board our flight back to California. As one of the kitchen staff was taking our plates he asked us if we worked at High Desert Church. We told him we did.

He went on to explain how he thought we looked familiar. It turns out he had moved to Colorado not long ago from the High Desert and was looking for a new church. We talked for a little bit, gave him our contact info, and told him we would try to help him find a new church.

Ever since these two encounters I’ve been thinking how small the world has become. How what we do at home people hundreds, even thousands of miles away can know about. Just because we don’t know someone doesn’t mean they don’t know us.

It’s a good reminder to keep us in check. Not in a “Big Brother is Watching” kind of way, but more in a “My ‘secrets’ may not be so secret” kind of way. I should probably be more thoughtful about my words and actions. I know this is true of me. And I think it’s probably true of you from time to time too.

Have you ever bumped into someone who knew you but you had no idea who they were? Did you come clean or did you try to fake it? What happened afterwards?

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Last month we threw a Christmas Party for the Volunteers in our Children’s Ministry. These are great people who serve all year long mentoring kids in our community. They work hard and do what they do on top of their jobs, families, and other commitments.

We were going to meet up at the church and bus everyone down to Alto Loma, which is about 40 minutes from where we’re at in Victorville. Alto Loma has a few neighborhoods with Main Street Electrical Parade style Christmas lights covering the landscape. It’s like stepping into another dimension. The people who live there spend half the year getting ready for Christmas.

Our staff was excited to take out volunteers and their families to experience this. We put together a great event, filled with games and prizes to give away on the bus ride down, snacks and drinks while they toured the sights, and a few short Christmas movies to watch on the ride back. Everything we wanted to do was coming together, except for one thing.

It was scheduled to rain, with a chance of snow, all day Monday when we were planning to go down the pass to Alto Loma.

We had charter buses already chartered. We had games, prizes, and refreshments ready to go for hundreds of people. The linchpin to our plan, visiting Alto Loma, now stood a really good chance of falling through.

When I saw the weather report Saturday morning I started making calls to my staff immediately. We still wanted to do something for our volunteers but how in the world were we supposed to throw something together so soon? We already had weekend services to get ready for leaving only a couple of hours on Monday to really work on it. So we made a bold decision.

We told our volunteers, who were also worried about the weather report, that we would still have something for them and their families at the church on Monday, rain, shine or snow, even though we had no idea what it would be.

We met Monday morning and started working on Plan B. By the end of our meeting I think we ended up with Plan G.

We decided to have everyone meet in the chapel. We set up all of our food and drinks there, along with a few last-minute Christmas decorations (thankfully it was already pretty decorated for Christmas as it was, so we didn’t have a lot to do there). Everyone had some time to mingle and hang out with some Christmas music playing in the background. Then we loaded everyone up on our buses (did I mention that our deposit was non-refundable?) and, instead of going down to Alto Loma, we simply bused around our local community and enjoyed some of the lights there.

We did some of our bus games and gave away some cool prizes along the way. The lights around our area weren’t half as good as the ones we would have seen in Alto Loma, but some of them were pretty cool. When we got back to church we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and called it a night. Even thought things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, everyone still seemed to have a good time.

This little snafu was a great reminder to me of two assets that everything in our lives need:

1. Planning
Our staff had a great plan in place. We used this planning form that has taken me years to perfect. It’s got spots for pretty much everything you’ll need to think through for an event. It even has a spot to help you think through what to do if it gets rained out which, ironically, I overlooked. But sometimes a good plan, no matter how good it is, is not enough. Every good plan needs…

2. Flexibility
I hadn’t planned on rain. That’s a detail I definitely should have thought more about with our outdoor winter event. No question there. Truth be told, though, no matter how well you plan for something there’s always something else that will happen, requiring some kind of change in what you want to do. Always. It seems to be an immutable law of life that none of us can ever fully escape.

And that’s OK. As hard as it was for us going through it, we still had fun and came out of it better on the other side. It wasn’t easy, but great things in life never are.

As you think about what you have going on in your life right now, it’s always good to go into it with a plan. It would be irresponsible not to. But leave some space for something to go wrong, because it probably will.

Being willing to flex when life happens to your plans will help you relax and have more fun during the process.

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1. Kids’ Ministry Budgeting Templates & Tips
2. The Secret to Powerful Communication
3. How I Lost 60 lbs, Pt 1
4. Why You Need to Say “No” More Often
5. Free Kidmin Volunteer Orientation Kit
6. REVIEW: “Read and Share Bible”
7. 5 DOs and DONTs of Teaching Kids
8. Why Your Volunteers are Miserable (and what to do about it)
9. The Mistake Every Kidmin Makes
10. How to Write Emails that Your Team Will Actually Read

What were some of your best posts last year?

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I loved becoming a dad for the very first time.

I learned how to lose over 60 lbs and keep it off without starving myself, spending lots of money, or having to step foot in a gym.

I loved being able to buy a great house at a very low price.

I learned there is more paper involved in buying a house and adopting a baby than in 1 complete volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.

I learned that bacon-flavored jelly beans taste about as revolting as they sound.

I loved cancelling our cable and switching to Netflix and Hulu Plus. Not only has it saved us a ton of money but we pretty much get to watch whatever we want, whenever we want.

I loved seeing 28 kids come to Christ this year at High Desert Church and dozens more get baptized.

I learned you can complain about the obesity problem in America all you want but it isn’t going to stop iHop from offering unlimited pancakes for $4.99 or people from making cookies within cookies.

I learned the down economy has had little effect on the vast array of tasteless and unneccessary products infomercials will make available to the public, like this, this, this, this, and this.

I loved seeing kids come up with crazy stuff like…

• The 10-year-old who told me his whale made of Legos was meant to represent man’s eternal struggle with nature. Art like that is always lost on me.
• The 4-year-old who said: “If you ever find a green Chicken McNugget, throw it away. Don’t eat it.”
• This 7-year-old: ”After I was bit I got a shot in the butt and the doctor didn’t even give me a cool band-aide.”
• This 3-year-old girl: “Nobody wants me to take off my shoes because of my stinky feet”

I loved seeing a guy get baptized in his street clothes because he forgot a bathing suit and towel. It was both funny and inspiring at the same time.

I loved having uncrustable sandwiches for lunch. Why aren’t more sandwich companies doing this?

I loved the weird conversations my wife and I have:

Sarah: My Bible doesn’t work anymore.
Me: You mean the app on your phone?
Sarah: Yeah.
Me: Might want to clarify that next time.

Sarah: What’s that?
Me: Miami Vice.
Her: Never heard of it.
Me: It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore.

Me: I’m taking a chance with this expired milk.
Sarah: I took a chance on you and it turned out OK.
Me: Yeah…not the same thing.

Me: Whatcha reading?
Sarah: Baby Poop: A visual guide.
Me: Oh…
Sarah: Not what you think. It’s a slideshow.
Me: That doesn’t make it OK.

I learned I can not let those who know me least define me the post.

I loved having a Subway with a drive-thru less than 5 minutes away from my house.

I loved this quote from a dad in my adoption class: ”Nature may determine the cards you’re dealt, but nurture is how you play the game.”

I loved getting (and using) my very first BBQ – for free!

I learned God gives people influence for one reason: to speak up for those who don’t.

What about you?

What did you learn/love in 2011?

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Last week I talked about the biggest catalyst that helped me lose over 60lbs this year: the right motivation. I’ve struggled most of my life with weight. It wasn’t until I got to the root of those issues and framed losing weight in a larger context than just a goal to meet that I was actually able to lose the weight I wanted and keep it off.

Today I’d like to share what I did to lose the weight once I decided on what story I wanted to tell:

1. I started counting my calories.
Like most people, my problem was that I was eating too much food. So my first step was to figure out what my ideal weight was and how many calories I need to eat per day to get there. I used LiveStrong.org to help me out with this. I told the website my height, build, current weight, etc. and where I wanted to go and it told me how many calories I need to cut back to get there. The first part of this step was simple, easy, and free.

Once I got clarity about this I was able to track my calorie intake each day with the Live Strong app for my iPhone. The app is pretty cheap and easy to use. It has most foods and restaurant menus already in it, so there wasn’t a lot of manual data entry I needed to do here. I would just type in what I ate during the day and it told me how many calories it would cost me.

This was a HUGE eye-opener for me. I quickly realized I was eating over twice the recommended amount of calories I was supposed to on a daily basis. Seeing this visual really helped me make better choices for meals and snacks each day. At first it was really hard, but after a while my body acclimated to having a healthy amount of calories each day. Now I don’t have to think about it so much, but I still track my food every day so I don’t fall back into those old habits.

2. I drank 64 oz of water every day.
While I was having twice the amount of food I was supposed to have, I discovered I was drinking less than half the amount of water my body needed to stay hydrated. So I started carrying around a water bottle with me everywhere I went. I measure out that I would need to drink three full bottles worth every day to give my body the water it needed. The downside of drinking this much water is that I had to go to the bathroom much more frequently. A LOT more frequently. The upside was I started having more energy, I wasn’t as hungry throughout the day, and I was getting a bit more exercise (because of all the trips to the bathroom).

3. I began exercising every other day.
A good friend of mine turned me on to using burst training for my every other day work out. Basically, burst training is a 10 minutes a day, every other day, high-intense workout. It’s tough to do, but it only takes 10 minutes, three or four times a week. You can do this in a gym, on a track, or at home on a treadmill or running around your neighborhood. I did this at home, just running in place in my living room. Here’s the video I watched to help me get started:

4. I evaluated my progress on a daily and weekly basis.
Like I said in #1 I tracked my calories and water intake every day. After each burst training session I weigh in and recorded my progress on the Live Strong app. This helps me see what progress I am making and if I needed to work harder or simply continue at the pace I’m going at.

5. I didn’t go it alone.
The biggest mistake I made in the past while trying to lose weight was doing it on my own. I think some people can do that just fine, but I’m not one of them. My wife and I decided to work this plan together. We’re doing the same exercises, using the same app, and are committed to drinking the same amount of water and tracking our calorie intake every day. She has been the biggest factor in my weight-loss success (she has lost over 35lbs). I couldn’t have done it alone.

The secret I’ve found to losing weight is having the right motivation and coming up with a plan that will help you eat a healthy amount of the right foods, stay hydrated throughout the day, and give your body a good workout a few times a week. However you decide to do it, these are the crucial ingredients that will help anyone get in the right shape.

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To give you an idea of where I was at and where I am now, because that’s always fun to do with stories like this, here’s a before and after shot of me:

A lot of people have asked me how I finally did it. I say “finally” because I’ve spent most of my life trying to be not fat. I’ve always wrestled with a weight problem, stemming from working too much, eating too much of the wrong foods, and rarely exercising. I was always the fat kid in class. But not anymore.

“So what’s your secret?” people ask.

When they say that what they really want to know is what dieting techniques I used. But that’s not start when wanting to lose weight.

I’ve spent years, decades really, wanting to be thinner, to be in better shape. I wanted to eat better. I wanted to want to exercise. I wanted to say no to the wrong kinds of foods. But wanting never got me, or anyone else for that matter, anywhere.

The BIG secret to how I lost 60lbs happened about a year ago. I was at some clothing store (probably Kohl’s, but I’m not sure). I went to try on a shirt that I really wanted and, as the story of my life went, it didn’t fit.

I went to ask one of the store workers who happened to be walking by if they had any shirts like the one I wanted in a bigger size. He look at the tag in the shirt, he looked at me, paused for a minute and then said:

“We don’t carry sizes that big, sir. You’ll have to go to a Big and Tall store for that.”

He handed me back the shirt, turned, and continued on his way, not realizing that he had just taken a sledgehammer to my world and shattered it until it was a fine powder.

I was visibly shaken and taken aback. “The Big and Tall Store?” I said a loud to nobody and everybody.

For me that had always been the line. Up until that point I had always been the largest size at Kohl’s. That wasn’t great, but it was better than having to go to the Big and Tall store, which, you may have deduced, was not because I was tall. The Big and Tall store was always the line for me, the line I swore I would never cross. But that day I was at the threshold.

It was then I realized I was at the proverbial fork in the road. I could keep going the way I was going, doing what I always did when I got depressed or discourage about my weight, which would be to down a couple of bowls of ice cream (extra fudge) with a side of Coca Cola. Or I could do something different, something better. I could change my trajectory. And that’s what I did.

I decided I was done being fat. I was done being a size 42 waste that wears a XXL shirt (Now I’m a size 36 that wears a Large). I was done being ashamed to look in the mirror and be in pictures. I was done making excuses.

I also had a future to plan for. Not just for my wife, as important to and me as she is, but for our daughter. When I had this epiphany a big piece of it was realizing that I was in no shape to be a dad. My energy level was dangerously low, I couldn’t really run, and I had frequent bouts of heartburn and sleep apnea.

I was getting ready to be a dad and it was time to get my act together. I didn’t want my daughter to be ashamed of her dad or disappointed because I wouldn’t have the energy to play with her. That was not the story I wanted to tell.

And that’s been my secret to losing over 6olbs in less than a year: The right motivation.

I realized I was telling myself a bad story. I realized I was telling myself that I had always been a fat kid and so I always would be. I was telling myself I needed food to make me feel better. I was telling myself that losing this much weight was something only people on TV with million dollar trainers and all of America watching could do.

I was involved in cycle of pain and self-loathing that was keeping me trapped in a body and a life that I didn’t want or need anymore.

That trip to the store probably saved my life. If that salesmen hadn’t showed me where the road I was on was going I would still be headed that way, like a man driving in the middle of a snowstorm at night without any headlights.

But now I’ve got a new direction to walk in. And it’s not just for me. Every day I make healthy choices is a day I say yes to my daughter. I am saying, “I value your love and our life together, a life filled with running and playing and dancing and enjoying life together more than I value food. My health is more than just my health. It is part of the story of your childhood and it will affect how you look at food and your image of self. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it’s a good one.”

Next week I’ll talk more about the techniques I used to lose the weight. And it’s not as hard as you might think. I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars, or starve myself, or even set foot in a gym. But more about that next week.

If you are feeling good about your weight, that is awesome. Whatever you are doing you should probably keep it up. Never take it for granted. It doesn’t take much to gain weight, but it takes forever to lose it!

If you are like I was, not feeling too great about your body, I get where you’re coming from. I don’t have six-pack abs. I don’t even think you really should make that your goal. Living from a place of health, of being able to run and walk and dance and enjoy life. And maybe most important, being proud of who you see in the mirror.

All of that starts with finding the right motivation. More than a goal, it’s your new story; the life that you’ve decided you’re tired of waiting to live.

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“Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways.” – Proverbs 20:30 (GNT)

The biggest mistake parents make is so much easier to see in other parents than in ourselves.

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with a mom and her kids. We were talking about baptism and whether or not they were ready to get baptized. At the end of our talk I asked the kids if it would be OK for me to talk to their mom outside for a minute.

We stepped out of my office and I told mom that, based on our conversation, I thought it would be a good for us to wait to have her kids get baptized until they were ready. I explained that by ready I meant that they understood what baptism is and they wanted to do it, that it wasn’t something she or I forced on them, but that it becomes something they get and chose to do on their own.

Their mom agreed, but then said this:

“I know that’s the right thing to do, but I don’t want to do it because telling them no will hurt their feelings.”

And that’s the biggest mistake I see a lot of parents make: not wanting to hurt their child’s feelings.

I’ve been in Children’s Ministry, working with parents for fifteen years. I’ve heard parents say this hundreds of times. And this kind of statement is always followed up by something like:

“Because I just love my kids so much,”

Or

“When you’re a parent, you’ll understand.”

Now that I am a parent I do understand. As a dad of course I don’t enjoy when my daughter hurts. No good parent does.

But there’s a false assumption we parents have about pain: that it is always a bad thing, when it fact it can be a good thing. Pain is more than a reminder we are still alive, that we have not grown numb to the world and to life and being a live. Pain is an indicator something isn’t right. It is a road sign along the path we are traveling that says, “Something is wrong up ahead. Don’t go this way. It’s not good for you.” And we must learn to listen to pain because it is good.

My daughter is three weeks old. Before I put her to bed I change her out of her clothes into her pajamas. I do this every night. And every night she cries and screams until I’m done. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable. Even babies get change is hard. But it’s for her own good.

As parents we need to get comfortable with our kids being uncomfortable sometimes.

What is best for my daughter is not always what is going to make her happy. She probably wouldn’t mind staying in the same outfit forever. But as the day goes on it slowly gets formula and pee stains on it. When that happens, it’s time to change. The pain associated from moving her around makes her uncomfortable for a short time, but once she has clean clothes on and a fresh binky in her mouth the pain is gone. What was wrong has been made right.

Choosing a child’s comfort over their character is never a good idea. It’s selfish not to do what you know is right because your child won’t like it. That’s how babies turn into spoiled children. That’s how spoiled children turn into entitled teenagers. And, if you’re not careful, that’s how entitled teenagers become jerks as an adult.

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