June in Review

a bit for me to remember june:

• we're thoroughly enjoying our backyard these days - so relaxing!
  
• grew stuff successfully in my brand new garden beds!
  
• threw a big dinner for our kids ministry team
  
• celebrated matt's birthday!
  
• did a bunch of house projects, including cleaning out the front flower bed, finishing painting the shutters, patching the drywall where the "fireplace" used to be, some touch-up painting, etc.
  
• had a bunch of kids and some of our leaders over to celebrate our new 5th and 6th graders.
  
• said goodbye to our 7th graders and shipped them off to student ministry... i have mixed feelings. ;)
  
• preparing for my ordination exam
  
• planning for our big kids summer overnight at the end of july!
  

leaders lead in morale

recently, i posted about getting back my vision for ministry after a season of hard but passionless work. this got me thinking: leaders need to lead in every area. you can't ask someone to do something you're not willing to do. leaders set the example in everything.

and that includes morale. i, as a leader, must manage my own morale. good attitudes and sunny dispositions are contagious. so are bad attitudes and crankiness.

leaders, (whether you lead children or adults, employees or volunteers) don't fool yourselves. if you're frustrated, exhausted, tired, cranky, angry, bitter or dried up, the people you lead can sense it. if your morale is low, theirs is too. the team morale will never be higher than your own morale. so, lead.

what i read: courageous leadership by bill hybels

i love this book and feel like it's a must-read every two years or so. while it's definitely not without it's dry parts, it does include lots of useful training in leadership...

what i liked:

• stories - hybels has an allegory or illustration for everything, and sometimes multiple (see below). i do enjoy the illustrations for the way they help you imagine his principles playing out.
  
• hybels helped me identify the kind of leader i am from a list of 10 different descriptions. i like self-assessment.
  
• doesn't just talk about vision, but talks about how to turn vision into action.
  
• gives great coaching on raising resources.
  
• spent more time focusing on the internal disciplines and the spiritual health of the leader than he did on the principles.

what i disliked:

• some dry stretches...
  
• stories - two-edged sword. toward the end, when i just needed to reach the finish line, i started scanning and skipping over the illustrations - which are quite numerous.

what i read: practicing greatness by reggie mcneal

another leadership gem, with the "self help" style that i do love... i'll confess up front that i only scanned and read the bits that stuck out and grabbed my attention, because i was on a tight deadline. what i read was helpful and really good, so i've stuck it back in my "must-read" pile for a more thorough study.

what i liked:

• helped me identify areas i need to focus on in my own self-development.
  
• it's an intellectual read - there's some psychological discussion and you definitely have to have your thinking cap on.
  
• the guy who owned my copy last highlighted all the right parts. ;)
  

no "dislikes" on this one... next time i read it, i'll have more to say, i'm sure.

getting my vision back

an exciting thing happened last month: i got my vision back. not my eyesight - that's fine (mostly), but my vision for ministry - the long-distance heartsight that can see the future and knows where we're going.

and i have to say, it feels really good.

i've been on staff at creekside for four and a half years. at first, it seemed like an easy kind of hard. i knew what needed to be done, we did it, and ministry was amazing. but over time, especially within the last couple of years, it just became a hard kind of hard - like slogging through jello (not that i've ever tried that). i still loved ministry, but i wasn't "in love with" ministry. ("it's not you, it's me.")

it took a while to put my finger on why i felt passionless for so long, and then last month, just a day into my trip to california, i realized it: i wasn't on fire for anything. nothing was burning inside me. and that realization haunted me all weekend long...

so i began to pray specifically for vision: God's direction for our ministry, our team, and my leadership. i asked God to confirm that i was still the right person for the job. and i asked Him to tell me what the heck i was supposed to be doing.

and He did. not long after i returned home, i woke very early on a thursday morning. all attempts to return to sleep were in vain, and my brain was moving at lightning speed. suddenly, i could see where we were going. i grabbed my iphone, laid in bed, and took notes. as i wrote it down, it became clearer and clearer, and before long, i had a complete picture of what our kids ministry team would be focusing on for the next year.

proverbs 29:18 says "where there is no vision, the people perish."

you could say i was perishing in that time when i had lost my passion. i had lost my vision. and i know that if i was passionless and perishing, those on my team - those that stuck by me, that kept slogging - they must've felt it and had their own drink of it too. i regret that - not discovering it earlier... or maybe God allowed for that, i don't know. but i do know, He won't waste the experience in how He builds our character - mine or anyone else on our team. and i do know, now He has given us vision again. i am ready and raring to go, and incredibly thankful for the team of people who are going with me!

Rich in Relationship, or Rich in Stuff?

What's more important to your family - your money and stuff, or your relationship with God?

Today, kids in our NEXTgeneration Kids Ministry in grades 1-6 learned about Jesus' parable of the "Foolish Rich Man" (Luke 12:13-21). In the take-home sheet, we challenged families to test their hearts and make sure their relationship with God is #1.

Kids are naturally selfish (so are most adults, but life experience often shakes that out of us over time) - so you as a parent have to work intentionally to teach your kids selflessness. It starts early when you teach your toddler how to share and take turns. But if you stop there, you may have kids who are willing to share - but will you have kids who are willing to give away?

And that's the test: Are your kids willing to give away? If you're not willing to give away, they aren't either. You can teach them to give away, but if you're not modeling it, they won't become it.

So let's see how important your stuff and your money is to you... When was the last time you bagged up stuff you weren't using to give away to someone who could use it? Harder question: when was the last time you gave away something of value to someone who would appreciate it? Turning away from stuff and toward money: how do you really view giving financially? Are you generous? Or do you grit your teeth and do it because you know it's right?

Next: give away as a family. Most of us have too much stuff at home anyway. Work together to give away the things you're not using to someone who will use them. Help your kids get excited about giving to others, then give them a paper bag and help them work through the emotions of choosing toys to give away. Let them be a part of the process - all the way to delivering the toys to their final destination.

Finally: be intentional about your financial giving, and teaching your children about financial giving. Help them set aside a portion of every allowance or every payment for a job, and help them see how to give it cheerfully!

Now, this is all great for teaching about generosity, but that's not the most important thing. I know some incredibly generous people who don't have a relationship with God. Fostering your child's relationship with God has to be #1, or these are just techniques. So before you get into any of these, ask yourself this question: what are you doing to foster your child's relationship with God? This is more than I want to address in one blog post, but give some prayer to this. You are the loudest voice in your child's life, and their primary pastor. How are you teaching them?

the value of journaling - or "here i raise my ebenezer"

I keep a journal - separate from my blog. Where as my blog is for journaling what I'm reading, learning, and doing, my journal is very much for what I'm hearing, though sometimes the two are blurred.

And I think you should keep a journal too. Why? Because God will speak to you in your walk, and it's worth writing these things down. I'm not talking about big "burning bush" moments (I've only had one of those, and there was no burning bush). I'm talking about the quiet little everyday words that are whispered in your heart, the voice that convicts, encourages, teaches and guides. Consider why you should journal:

1. Journal for yourself.
   I have an awful memory. My best friend tells me stories from our school days and I stare at her blankly and say things like "Are you sure I was there?" If I didn't journal, I wouldn't remember much of what God has done or said to me, and that's tragic. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were instructed to build "ebenezers" - stone monuments to mark what God has done, so that they could teach it to their children. You can't teach to your children what you can't recall, so let your journal be your ebenezer.
   
   
2. Journal for your progeny.
   About five years ago, my grandmother gave me a stack of letters she had written as a new army-wife of 18, far from home with her new husband on the Alaskan frontier. These letters were directed to her mom and younger brothers back home, and told of her first two years of marriage, including her pregnancy and the birth of her first child. These letters were deeply meaningful to me as a new bride. While she never really delved into the trials of the early years of marriage, it was exciting for me to see what a young couple looked like 50 years ago.
   
   
3. Journal to give your poor brain a rest.
   All warm-fuzzy memories aside, sometimes we just need a place to process and work stuff out. Journaling is cathartic. I have journaled through: my husband's unexpected 5-day stay in the hospital, our most challenging year of marriage, difficult circumstances with co-workers, expected and unexpected deaths of loved ones. In every scenario, writing it out gives me a chance to spew and find words for my feelings. I bounce back more quickly, because my brain can take a rest from all the jumble rolling around inside.
   

So that's why I think you should journal. Need a simple method to get started? I've got two:

1. Faith-based journlaing - S.O.A.P.
This is my current method, and the method I've used the most over the years. Because it's scripture-based, it doesn't get old if my life is unexciting for a season. Here's how it works: you crack open your Bible and read. Read until something stops and makes you think. It might convict you, it might encourage you, it might embolden you, it might be the guidance you're looking for. Doesn't matter. In your journal, write out the Scripture that caught you, then an Observation about that (what caught your attention?), then the Application of it in your life, and finally a Prayer. The prayer is typically related to the application, and in my journal, the two are often one.

2. Life-based journaling
If you're particularly humble, you might think your life isn't exciting enough to document. My step-dad's father journaled every day. Sometimes it was in great detail about their travels or their grandkids. Other days, it was just the weather and what his wife made for dinner. (But it was always the weather! That became something of his signature journal entry!) Write down what's happening, but if you really want your journal to be an "ebenezer", pay attention to what God is doing in your life and record that.

That said, there's no reason why you can't do a combination of the two. When something "newsworthy" happens, or when I can look back and see God moving, I quickly write it all down before I forget. Sometimes in the journal, sometimes in the blog. Either way, it's safe!

Kids Ministry Team Dinner

For the last several weeks, we've been busy with preparation for a big event - a dinner, celebration and training gathering for our entire Kids Ministry team. Our team includes 70 volunteer leaders who give their time and their hearts to ministering to kids at Creekside. They're an outstanding team, I feel enormously blessed to work with them.

I have to admit, when I was sitting around a table with a handful of other team leaders from our Kids Ministry, and they brought up this idea, it struck fear into my heart... All I could see was how much work it would be, and all I could picture was me doing it alone.

But truthfully, the end result was anything but that! These ladies saw the vision for the dinner (perhaps better than I, at first), and we ran with it - together. They shared the burden, they had brilliant ideas, and in the end, I know I couldn't have done it without them. I'm so proud to serve with them!

The event was a hit. Well-decorated, colorful tables, balloons, sidewalk chalk artwork created by kids to welcome the leaders to dinner, even a cheer team of kids who waved pompoms and thanked every person who walked in the door. Dinner was catered by Red Onion Burgers, one of my fav local restaurants, who went above and beyond to provide an excellent meal - they really outdid themselves! We enjoyed each other's company over dinner, then I shared on how God has refreshed my vision for our kids ministry, and where He is guiding us for this next year. We gave away raffle prizes, and handed out coffee cards and cute little appreciation candies to everyone. Then our teams split into break out sessions to go over training stuff. What a night!