You need to start with the end in mind. What is the goal of a successful children’s ministry?

I have had a few conversations with children’s pastors who seemed happy that kids don’t want to leave their ministry. To me that is very self serving and unnatural. I believe a successful children’s ministry works hand in hand with the youth ministry.

What success looks like to me.

1. How well do kids transition to the youth ministry
2. Are we preaching the same values the youth department is.
3. What is my relationship with youth pastor like?
4. Am I genuinely happy when the youth ministry is successful?
5. Are there places where young people can be involved in ministry?
6. Am I helping the Youth Pastor develop leaders through their ministry involvement.

I know, I know I am starting to sound like a Hillsong groupie. I saw this video last week and was blown away. It is a fantastic, fun, out of the box camp promo. It is a great take on how guys view camp vs. how girls view camp. I would say that I am drinking Hillsongs’ cool-aid but that analogy hits to close to home for religious institutions. Needles to say I am a huge Hillsong fan, I love that they successfully think outside the box and realize that if doing things different is what it takes to reach seekers than so be it. Definitely have to visit some time and look up Dave and his crew.

We are hosting our first ever Youth Worker/Children’s Worker conference. Very excited.

What is this conference all about?

Context is everything. As youth and children’s workers we need understand the proper way embrace culture and use things from culture to communicate the lifechanging truth of God’s word. Jesus did this all the time. He understood the power of proper context. He used what his audience knows and understands, fishing, farming, ect to communicate the unchanging truths of the kingdom.

It doesn’t matter if you come from a church of 100 or 10,000 we all need life giving realationships Pipleline started from a philosophy that Youth and Children’s ministries are inseparable. We need each other. This conference will be more than just some great ideas but our hope is that it will birth strategic alliances between Youth pastors, and Children’s pastors.

Who is speaking?

Aaron Reynolds
Bill Wilson
Jude Fouquier

When is it?

November 14th and 15th, 2008

Who should attend?

1. Senior Pastors
2. Youth workers
3. Children’s workers

It will be cheap enough that whole ministry teams can afford to come.

Went to this store called “Rice to Riches”. First off I hate rice pudding, but went into the store because I love great design. I went in was impressed by the design tried the pudding and was surprised how good it was. What I liked most was in this day and age of we are green, we are low-fat, no animals were harmed, they were non-PC. Loved it look at this sign.

We are pounding it out at our yearly staff meeting, in the heart of NYC. Good stuff