Uncategorized

Ask vs. Beg When we need volunteers I think we tend to come across desperate. I used to do this all the time with that frazzled look in my eyes and say “can you help with the kids”. I have learned and am still learning when it comes to recruiting: 1. If you are begging […]

Praying Vs. Pulpit Pleading. When I first became the children’s pastor at my church everyone quit. I was faced with my first servanteerism dilemma. What is your main recruitment tool? Everybody has a fail-safe method for when you get hit with mass volunteer exodus. I had always grown up in church and had seen mostly

We are redoing our kids wing this winter. We were planning on doing it for the fall but had to push back due to budget and contract issues. In redoing the kids wing of our church we going to be adding around 60 new volunteers. So as you can imagine I have been thinking a

I did do youtube Friday last Friday because I was working on video that is a recap/promo video for our youth conference. Every year about 1800 young people come to little ol’ Utica, NY from all the northeast. In the past 11 years we have had some fantastic speakers. This last one was special for

Excerpt form my daily devotional from a couple of days ago. I thought it was excellent. “The incarnation of the Father’s freedom calls us beyond admiration to transformation. A recent convert to Jesus was approached by an unbelieving friend: “So you have been converted to Christ?” “Yes.” “Then you must know a great deal about

I have recently finished my office makeover. It was long overdue and I love it. I have made a decision against clutter (as a creative non-traditional organizer, this is a tough one) and have decided to try to file stuff. Most everything now is electronic and so filing is not needed. Just a couple of

One last thought on the wisdom of tenderness. I read this story and it really impacted me. “In the winter of 1947, Abbe Pierre, known as the modern apostle mercy to the poor of Paris, found a young family almost frozen to death on the streets. He scooped them up and brought them back to

One of my favorite authors is Brennan Manning. I haven’t read a book of his in a while so the other day I picked up one I haven’t read yet. It’s called “The wisdom of tenderness.” This book talks about the radical power of God’s mercy in our lives. Some of my favorite quotes from

Before I get to that let me explain how I picked the winner. We now live in the 21st century I am a fairly computer savvy person. So I decided I would download a simple computer program that would allow me to enter names than randomly highlight or select one of them. To my shock

This time of year there is always a bit of a hub bub about all saints day. As a children’s pastor I am frequently asked about child related controversies, Harry Potter, Pokemon, and every year Halloween. How I feel about it is best illustrated in a recent event that took place in my house. My