111

Since this is my 111 post I thought I would go back to the beginning, because the number onehundredeleven leads me back to God...the first blogger.

"Intentional CM is the vision that God has given me in creating an Intentional Children's Ministry.

Intentional CM or ICM is the conglomeration of different philosophies and the passion and vision that God has put in my heart for Children's Ministry.

This blog's purpose is to be a place where I can record my thoughts, experiences and vision.

Readers Warnings: Some posts may seem random and in truth they might very well be. But there here so you can understand my mental process and my experiences in the way that I do."

That was the very first post on this blog. While I look back at the last 110 posts I can see where I've been, what's happened and where I want to go in this next year.

Merry Christmas

I'm taking a few days off and will be a little quiet on the blog front. I hope like me you take some time away from the craziness of life to remember and bring focus back on the reason for the season.

I hope you have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

My Christmas Card Self Appreciation, pt 2

There are few people who will argue with you about the importance of expressing appreciation and sharing praise with your coworkers, employees, or volunteers. It’s just a given, you could even say that it’s an expectation. We have our kids pick out gifts for their schoolteachers and I even had my daughter write some nice words to her teacher on her math homework.

Early on in ministry, I learned that one of the things I needed to work on was expressing appreciation towards others. When I got married and got a crash course in the need for expressing appreciation. It has been one of my weaknesses, simply because of my own internal wiring. I’m not wired to require a lot of praise and for years appreciation and complements made me uncomfortable. I’m more wired for accomplishment, not complements. Over the years, I’ve learned how to cherish the encouragement I received from others and have also come to a certain level of comfort with compliments.

So, when it came to self-appreciation I used to give myself the short end of the stick. Then I found myself in a place where there wasn’t really anyone above me to give me very much praise. While I don’t usually require regular praise, I still need some. I was telling a friend how I just felt used up, how I didn’t really feel like there was anything filling me back up after I had emptied myself. He asked me when the last time I had received a word of appreciation. I told him it had been a long time. That’s when he helped me realize my need to practice self-appreciation.

There are a couple of reasons why self-appreciation is so important.

• There won’t always be someone there to praise you. If there’s something you’ve done that you would want praise for don’t wait for someone to notice…praise yourself.


• There are no hidden agendas or falsehoods when praising yourself. There is an authentic feeling when you self praise. We spend a great amount of time justifying, rationalizing, and flat out lying to ourselves about things, but the truth is we never really fully convince ourselves. So when we praise our selves it's very easy to know if we're being honest. When I first started to practice self-appreciation, I remember trying to praise myself for something I could have, and should have, done better. I just knew that it wasn't real. It was the same feeling I get when people try to praise me for what someone else does. It feels fake and dishonest. If you’re self praise is honest and transparent it will feel right.


• There is a great emotional and mental strength that you attain when you can self-praise. You know if the praise is true, you know if you deserve it. Self-appreciation is incredibly powerful in building your self-esteem. It’s one of the best ways to build emotional and mental strength because it’s not codependent…it’s independent of other people. It comes from within; it’s you telling you that you’re good at something. It’s a very honest and healthy way of making yourself feel good.

There are numerous ways that you can appreciate yourself.

• Write yourself a note and put it with other encouraging notes that you collect. By the way if you don’t collect encouragement notes you should start, other peoples opinions is what can protect you from being prideful and arrogant.


• Give yourself an external reward. I once took myself out to lunch to celebrate an important accomplishment.

• Pat yourself on the back. Literally, pat yourself on the back.


• Talk to yourself. It may sound a little too much like Stuart Smalley, but verbally aloud tell yourself that you’ve done a good job. You can see athletes like Tiger Woods to this all the time when he has a great shot, sinks a long put, or performs in the clutch.

Self-appreciation is nothing more than a healthy internal acknowledgment that you have done something right. Like most things if you abuse it, its effectiveness will be diminished and you run the risk of becoming prideful and arrogant. If you underutilized it, you become codependent on others for your self-esteem leading to an unhealthy self-perception. So be truthful with yourself. Start practicing self-appreciation today.

My Christmas Card Self Appreciation, pt 1

For the last four years in December, I’ve spent hours and hours writing Christmas cards for ministry volunteers. This year I’ve written more than 60 cards to volunteers, church staff, and church leadership. This is particularly significant for me since I don’t even write Christmas cards to family and friends. It’s one of the ways I convey my genuine appreciation for all the support, sacrifice, and energy that they spend making the Children’s Ministry at the Journey North great. It’s great thinking back over the past year about how each of the individuals has made an impact, how they have been a blessing to me or to the families they serve. Some of the cards I write are for the veteran servers, or for people who are just coming on and haven’t yet served their first Sunday. In the case of one couple, who hasn't even committed yet, I have a card ready and waiting for them. In some cases it’s for people who are so far behind the scenes they didn’t think that I noticed their contribution. In all the cases, I appreciate each of them. Each year I work hard to identify all the people who I need to send cards to, but this year there is one card I haven't written, yet.

When I first started in Children's Ministry, there were lots of things to learn, and there are still lots of things to learn. One of the most important lessons I learned early was the need to express appreciation to the volunteers that serve in Children's Ministry. I did a Google search on the phrase "Children's Ministry Volunteer Appreciation" and got back more than 418,000 hits. I did another search just on "Volunteer Appreciation" and got back 310,000 hits. Adding the words Children’s Ministry increased the hit count my more than 100,000! I think it's safe to say that volunteer appreciation is important and has a very high value in Children's Ministry.

All good managers will tell you that praise is important. Ken Blanchard, a well-respected management expert, says in his book "The One Minute Manager" that it’s one of the 3 most important strategies for a manager. In Children’s Ministry, where you are working with the largest volunteer force in the church, praise and moral is vital. Low moral can seriously hinder a ministry and a volunteer from living out their potential. A while back, I sent a card to one of our volunteers saying how excited and thankful I was that he was serving in our first session of Quest. He told me that in all his years of service in church he has never received praise. The card I sent him had incredible value and worth to him. This act of praise and appreciation is one of the corner stones of a successful and fulfilling ministry.

As important as it is to communicate appreciation and praise there’s usually one person that we forget. It's the one card I have yet to write, it's the card to myself. When I was writing the Christmas cards for this year I go was systematically working through our volunteer schedule. On the schedule I have a list of all the volunteers and subs, and then I add people who aren’t yet on the list, people who have demonstrated real world support, people who serve in the background, and finally the leadership and staff of the church. As I write in the cards, I cross people off the list. So, this year I was writing and crossing, writing and crossing, until I got to my name and I stopped cold. In the past years, I have just skipped right past my name, but for some reason I was fixated on my name. Then, as if someone was whispering in my ear I heard, “why don’t you write yourself a card?” The idea was preposterous, why would I take the time to write myself a card? The more I thought about it the more I became convinced that writing myself a Christmas card was the most appropriate thing to do. Here’s how I came to this conclusion.

Watch for part 2 of “My Christmas Card Self Appreciation” tomorrow

Golden Compass Movie Review

My review of the movie, The Golden Compass, is live over at Kidology. There's also a pretty lively discussion on the themes of the movie and original book in the discussion boards, go here to read the discussion. There is also a well thought out commentary by Karl Bastian, the founder of Kidology, here.

More Chicks

Continuing my chicks saga...the staff at TJN got me some chicks and native gospel training for my b-day. Here's some pics of their creativity.


Here's a link to find out more about how you can get some chicks and some native gospel training.

What do you get the person that has nothing?

We live in the richest most opportunity rich country in the world. This time of year we find ourselves thinking, "what do I get the person that has everything?" When really we should be asking the question, "what do I get the person that has nothing?"

Here are two places to start:
Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog

Compassion International

This is what I have done this year. I asked my family to consider purchasing gifts from Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog (you can see my list here). In response my In-Laws sent me the following card with a brood (24) of chicks in my honor. I love their creativity, great job Lois! Below you can see the birthday card from my In-Laws, the chicks they sent, and the card I got from Samaritan's Purse.