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Two Principles for Delegation: Part 2

One of the challenges every leader faces is delegating responsibility and authority.  In Children's Ministry at CCC we're at a stage where myself and our environment directors probably need to delegate more of what we do.  In approaching that challenge, there are 2 principles for delegation that I think are important to remember.  I talked about the first principle in the last post, and the other principle is...

#2 Let it Fail

Another principle is to let it fail.  Often times we never delegate certain responsibilities because we feel like nobody will take them on.  Obviously one way to hand those responsibilities off is to ask someone if they will take it on, but sometimes people are already aware that you need help with something (usually because you aren't doing it well).  In those cases, it's best to let it fail by not doing it.  Clearly there are some things you can't let fail, but many things you can, and people will surprise you by stepping up and taking on that responsibility.  I have found this to be true especially when I didn't feel like anyone was trained/equipped enough to take on the responsibility, but by letting it fail (not doing it), they learned on their own and made it happen.

In some ways I think delegation requires a little faith, believing in others and believing in God's plan that is based on everyone in the Church using their unique gifts and abilities to contribute to a shared vision and purpose.

Two Principles for Delegation: Part 1

One of the challenges every leader faces is delegating responsibility and authority.  In Children's Ministry at CCC we're at a stage where myself and our environment directors probably need to delegate more of what we do.  In approaching that challenge, there are 2 principles for delegation that I think are important to remember.

#1 List it Out

I think we have to list out everything we are responsible for if we ever hope to delegate any of it.  Much of our busyness comes from not having a good understanding of all the things we actually have to do.  We just get them done when we need to and underestimate how much of our time it takes.  Our team is listing out everything we are responsible for, and then dividing those responsibilities up into 3 categories: 

• Things only we can do
• Things other people could do
• Things nobody needs to do

Even if we can't hand off a ton of our responsibilities, every little bit helps us be more effective and gives other people opportunities to contribute in a bigger way.

In the next post I'll share what I think is another important principle to keep in mind when trying to delegate.

Music Video Tribute to CCC Kids Volunteers

This past May we gathered all the CCC Kids volunteers for an event we called Heroes.  It was a time to celebrate everything they do for CCC by having fun and sharing stories.  Below is a video our worship arts team created that was part of the fun:

Yeah, I know

I know it's been a long time since I blogged anything, almost a month in fact. It's been more than a month since I blogged anything besides a video link. August has been a CRAZY month and I just haven't had the time.

For our church and our staff August is typically a down month, and we avoid scheduling things as much as possible. But, we actually had a lot going on this month (not in any specific order):

• Made big changes to our auditorium and some other rooms to make room for more people
• Worked on a new website that will be unveiled soon
• Planned Kindergarten Confidential (orientation for incoming kindergartners and parents) from scratch and launched it today (We had a great turnout and from my perspective everything went well)
• Wrote the children's ministry portion of a new book for parents we are creating that explains our strategy for families
• KidStuf tech workday to prepare for a new KidStuf season

On top of all that I had to write a 10 page paper that was due last Monday. I was actually on vacation the first week of August but even with that it felt like one of the busiest months ever.
On one hand I'm just whining, but on the other I'm setting the stage to say that we have an awesome team of people (staff & volunteers) who have done a lot of great work this past month to help CCC do a better job of helping people find their way back to God.

Message Application & Spiritual Gifts - Part 2

In my previous post I talked about the CCC message from 2 Sundays ago and the two thoughts/ideas I had coming out of that.  I talked about the first idea in the previous post and in this one I want to talk about something cool I learned from Darrin Patrick at the Exponential Conference this year.  

Darrin referenced something he learned from David Fairchild, that I will summarize here but can be found in better detail in David Fairchild's post.  In talking about spiritual gifts, and abilities, David talked about the 3 "offices" that Jesus held:

Prophet, Priest & King

In looking at those, Darrin was sharing how we all probably lean heavily into one area, partially in another, and not at all in one.  Here is how you can think of those 3 offices:

Prophets- Communicate God to people.  They are teachers and vision casters.  Prophets tell us where we need to go.  Their struggle is they idolize knowledge, the power of authority & take pride in it (which can lead to legalism).

Priests- Communicate to God for people & bring people to God.  Priests make sure we feel God’s presence & loving concern while we go there.  They care about people above all else.  Their struggle is they seek approval from other people.

Kings- Bring the reign of God to the church & this world.  Kings know how to get where we need to go.  They care about plans, systems and organization.  Their struggle is with control and comfort and caring for people.

I clearly fall in the prophet & king camps, while lacking in priest gifting.  I think I am naturally more of aa king but must move to more of a prophet as our team and church grows.  I may always be more of a king than a prophet but my ability to teach and cast vision must grow as our children's ministry grows.

How about you?  Where do you lean?

Training Volunteers Using the Web

I recently had an idea about how I could possibly leverage the internet to help train and develop CCC Kids volunteers.  The web technology I plan to use is primarily WordPress Multiuser.  

Basically I want to create a website for volunteers that will be the central place for communication and training.  The communication would replace a big part of our current system of communicating (email) with blog posts.  But, the key would be subscribing all volunteers to the email service of the blog so nothing really changes for them.  The benefit though, is that the blog post will stay up so it can be seen after it's read in the email if needed, and volunteers can comment on it.  Hopefully it will be a great way to have discussions and clarify things when needed.

The other huge part is the training.  This falls in two realms:  orientations and ongoing training.  The website could be used to help new volunteers learn everything about CCC (vision/strategy), CCC Kid's strategy, environments, volunteer roles, and the Orange Strategy we use.  With it being online, they can learn it at their own pace (within a specified time frame) and interact with different elements along the way, including articles, podcasts and other downloadable elements.  

The ongoing training would essentially be in the form of articles and podcasts that would be available on the site to volunteers (who have a login).  Discussion would be facilitated through the comments to allow people to process what they're learning.  

The biggest challenges are:

• I don't know much about in-depth WordPress coding
• Making time to work on it  
• Doing it in such a way that I could reproduce it for other churches quickly and in a way that would allow them to get full use of the system without needing to know WordPress coding.  

I really want to make this reproducible for other churches because I think most churches would benefit from something like this.  If you would like to check it out when it's done, leave a comment and I'll be sure to contact you about it.  

Networking Children's Ministry Leaders

Last week I was part of a meeting with over 30 children's ministry leaders from about 15 different churches in MD, PA & VA.  We gathered to get to know each other, share ideas and learn from one another.  We discussed children's ministry hot topics such as partnering with parents, training leaders and volunteer recruitment.  

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and hearing about their churches.  It was also great to hear everyone participate in the discussions and share areas where they are doing well and areas where they would like to improve.  It seems like everyone isn't satisfied with how well they are partnering with parents at their church.  It was the number one requested discussion topic and we spent a lot of time on it.  

During the meeting we took notes of the ideas presented and we recorded those notes for everyone to receive afterward.  If you're interested in checking out those ideas you can download a PDF of the list right here.  Some of it may be confusing out of context but you can email me if you would like more information (click the Email Me link at the top left corner of my blog page).

I believe churches can do a lot more together than they could ever do alone.  Why wouldn't we get together to share ideas and best practices?

Fun: A Great Motivator

In Discovery Island we have been having a "County Fair" theme all month to celebrate the virtue of fairness.  We have the environment decorated like a county fair, complete with booths where kids can play games and do activities you would typically find at a fair or carnival (ball toss, face painting, etc) and they get candy as prizes. 

We had to cut time out of our small group time (the most important time) in order to provide enough time for kids to really enjoy the booths each week.  It was a great decision, because a lot of momentum has been created this month and the fun the kids are having has been a great motivation to them. 

Specifically, they have been motivated to take advantage of everything we encourage families to do at CCC.  We provide take home cards to the kids each week so they can continue the conversation at home with their parents.  In order to encourage kids and parents to use those cards, we told the kids they can get extra booth tickets each week if they completed those cards at home with their parents.  We also told them they could get extra tickets by inviting friends to Discovery Island each week.  So far we have seen a lot of kids bringing in their cards they did at home and bringing new friends. 

Fun is a great motivator and has unfortunately been lost in many church environments.  I just hope we can continue to the momentum in March as we talk about the virtue of hope.

Partnering with Parents at KidStuf

At CCC we want to be an "Orange" church.  Our desire in Children's Ministry is to partner with parents to help them raise their children in faith and character.  Our strategy and curriculum provider, reThink, provides resources to help parents continue conversations at home.  Two of the resources they provide are God Time cards and Fridge Door cards.  Those cards have activities and discussion questions that kids can work on at home with their parents throughout the week.

Last Sunday at KidStuf we played the video that you see below.  The video highlights those resources from the perspective of a parent.  Our hope is that the parents who were at KidStuf will have a better idea of what God Time & Fridge Door cards are and just how helpful they can be.  We have a long way to go to be satisfied with our level of parent partnership but this video was just one step in improving that partnership.

Children's Ministers/Pastors Should Be LEADERS

Children's Ministers usually fall into one of three categories.  One category is that they aren't just children's ministers, but they're also student ministers or education directors and they're not really passionate about children's ministry anyway.  The problem there is obvious so we'll skip that for now.

The other two categories are people who are great with kids or people who are leaders.  Rarely can you find somebody who is both.  When I say "great with kids" I mean somebody who would be a great teacher/communicator to kids, a great small group leader, etc.  In other words, they're really good at doing children's ministry.  They're great people to have around because they set the bar high and are naturally gifted in that way. 

The problem is, they may not be leaders.  They'll do a great job of getting a new or struggling children's ministry growing because of the excellence in what they do but all of that will only last until more people are needed in order for the ministry to grow.  This is why churches should look for strong leaders when hiring children's ministers. 

In most churches, the children's ministry is the largest volunteer team.  In order to continue to grow and build that team you want a leader who can always take the team to the next level.  They do that by developing leaders who lead other leaders.  The create teams that they eventually step out of.  They delegate responsibility and not just tasks.  They invest heavily into a group of leaders. 

Children's Ministers who are excellent at doing children's ministry are a great fit for large churches that can hire them.  They'll help raise the bar of excellence and make sure that everybody is constantly thinking with the mind of a child during planning times.  But, churches shouldn't make the mistake of hiring an excellent doer when they need an excellent leader. 

In rare cases somebody is both, but that's far from the norm.  I don't claim to be either but I'm working on the leader aspect because the best I can offer as a doer of children's ministry is that I can easily act like a 7 year old.......even when not required to.