10 Things I Wish Old Jim Could Teach Young Jim

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A wise old man once told me, “Experience is the best teacher, but it doesn’t have to be your   experiences that you learn from.” Every person I know who is successful has learned from a lifetime of mistakes—theirs as well as the mistakes of others. My mom always told me, “Jim, don’t make the same mistake twice. There’s enough different ones you can make every time.” No truer statement has ever been uttered.

Having done children’s ministry in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and now my 60s, I’ve had a chance to make a lot of different mistakes and choices along the way. Would I do things differently if I could go back and do it again? Sure I would. We all would, because hindsight is always 20/20. Forty years ago I could not have taught you leadership. I hadn’t learned it yet. Forty years ago I had very few workers. I had a big vision, but didn’t know how to make a plan and lead others. I was a hard worker but not a smart worker. The good news is God blessed me in spite of myself. The dreams that were in my heart were not coming to pass. I was smart enough to get some help and to do things differently rather than keep doing what was not working and expecting a different outcome. I’m so glad that years ago I decided that I would become a lifetime learner. I am still learning, but to do so, I have to just say “no” to the know-it-all spirit. So with this in mind, let’s look at 10 things I wish Old Jim could teach Young Jim.

  1. Don’t be a one-man show. Build a team. When you train, empower and release others. It makes it possible for you to do what only you should be doing. There really is no success without successors, which is a byproduct of team building. Just like in sports the key to continued success is to build depth at every key position. This doesn’t happen by delegation alone but by duplicating yourself and the vision into those you lead. Duplication comes through coaching and hands-on training. Young Jim did it all himself. Old Jim allows the team to develop their skills through coaching and encouraging, as well as by doing. Everyone does better with a coach!
  1. Watch how you think. Your thinking controls your actions. It moves you forward or holds you back. I was a lot more opinionated when I was younger than I am now. It took me years before I would and could admit that I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s why it’s always smart to evaluate your thinking and choose to think God’s way. I love Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right,whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” I wish I did this all the time, but if you’re not evaluating how you think on a regular basis, bad stuff happens. It will always work to your favor to think like Jesus. Think in steps. That’s how God leads the righteous. Think like a parent and those you are serving. Think like a visitor. Old Jim has a lot more check-ups from the neck up. Take every thought captive to be obedient to Christ Jesus.
  1. Learn from others! Read! Join a local kidmin network. If one doesn’t exist in your area, start one. Find a mentor or a coach. (Have you checked out Infuse or kidmincoach.com?) Study those who are successful. Don’t just study what they do, but learn why they do what they do. I have come to realize effective leadership is a process not a pill. Learn the process and the why behind it. Look for a model that you can tweak to fit your church and ministry. Jim, is it wrong to borrow ideas? I sure hope not or I’d be in trouble. Learn how to copy, but at the same time learn how to make the copy your own. Ask questions, tons of them, to anyone who will let you. Also, never be afraid to try what you’re learning—experiment with it.
  1. Commit to the long haul. Jim, are you telling us when you were younger you thought about quitting? I sure did … every Monday for a while. It took me a while to stop looking at what I was seeing and have a vision of the finish line. Here are some biggies I wish I had known.
  • Don’t talk about leaving every time you experience pushback.
  • Be willing to put your dreams on the back burner to serve someone else’s dreams. Every dream I ever had came true by being willing to help others see their dreams come true.
  • Be secure in your calling. If God called you, and He leads your steps, the things you are experiencing good or bad are not a surprise to Him, so trust Him to lead you.
  • It’s my job to remember leading is all about serving. I’ve found when I amconsumed in better ways to serve kids and families—serve those who help you and serve your pastor—it helps me not be the center of attention.
  • One of the things I’d love to tell young Jim is to be on the lookout for fear. Anytime fear is around you’re about to head backwards instead of forward. Never give into fear. It will always stop you short of the finish line. The two fears that I had to face the most were fear of failure and fear of losing my job. You might face different fears. The key is to face them head on and replace fear with faith.
  • Another enemy of finishing strong is trying to do everything overnight. Too much too quick is always trouble. Do things in phases or steps, and learn to live by priorities. Have realistic expectations for yourself, and don’t stop until you hear God say it’s done.
  1. Don’t take part in power plays! I don’t know why even as adults we sometimes act like kids. Don’t try to get your way all the time. There’s no “I” in team. Old Jim would tell Young Jim that thinking about the well-being of others will always lead you to being the team player you need to be. Look for every opportunity to esteem the team. I’ve never enjoyed being around pouters, so I have to examine myself and don’t pout. I’d also tell Young Jim that there’s no place for threats in the workplace. Don’t threaten to leave, and don’t ever pull out the “God said card” in a meeting. If God said it, that’s a discussion stopper. Know when you need to lose a battle to win a war. Anytime I enter a negotiation I have to know what I’m willing to give up to take new ground. I’ve also found out that sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and not defend yourself so it will not appear like you’re arguing. Old Jim knows God is your Defender and He gives grace to the humble. When it comes to staying away from power plays, don’t make someone else look bad to get your way. Old Jim knows that blessed is the peacemaker. Anytime you have the opportunity to make peace, go for it!
  1. Take care of your health! Old Jim is being forced to do this today. Exercise, sleep, and good nutrition are essential to you finishing well. Making time for important things is something that will help you at any age. I wish Young Jim knew that making time for exercise has to be a part of your weekly routine, just like meetings and ministry. I know firsthand that everyone makes time for what they really want to make time for. Old Jim would tell Young Jim to make time for the right things. I realize now I’ve been guilty of working on the wrong temple. Neglecting one to work on the other was not real smart. They both deserve our best and both need a plan of action.
  1. The law of the lid determines the quality of leaders I can draw. I didn’t realize in my early years of ministry I was holding myself back for not growing my leadership. Go back to number three and put some action steps in place to improve your leadership level. You will never attract workers sharper than you are.
  1. Put your family second only to your relationship to God. Do things that your family will remember forever. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have spent all my vacation time visiting parents and doing ministry. Guard your days off and make them special for your family. Guard your nights. I think it’s important that a family church allows for family time. Listen to your family, and be sensitive to their needs. To do that, you have to listen with your eyes as well as your ears.
  1. Represent your leader well. Jesus said if you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father. Could this be said of you? Simple things like: dressing appropriately, not being silly, not building loyalties to yourself, and never talking negatively about those in leadership above you. Be your pastor’s biggest fan!
  1. Be a lover of God’s people. The ministry is all about relationships. People matter! I believe the time we spend to empower and encourage people is never wasted. Old Jim knows people are more valuable than programs, meetings, and study. I’m more thankful for the people God has put into my life than the accomplishments I’ve seen.  People are important to God and should be important to us.
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Fifteen Smart Things To Do During Your First Year In Ministry

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Seems like I’ve been being asked about this a lot so I thought I’s repost this from my blog over at www.KidminCoach.com on my KidminCoach Talk blog.

Hope you enjoy…

It’s your first day on staff as children’s pastor at a new church. The senior pastor has introduced you to the staff, donuts from your first day welcome party have been reduced to crumbs in the bottom of an empty box, and you’re sitting alone in your office. Now what? How you handle the next few months will have a tremendous impact on the remainder of your ministry. Let’s make sure you get off on the right foot.By the way, this advice applies whether you’re launching a ministry from scratch or you’re the new children’s pastor at a church of two thousand plus.

1. First, do nothing.

Spend a few months not changing anything that’s currently in place. Use the time to find out what’s been done in the past. Ask lots of questions. Observe carefully. You need to understand exactly how the pastor, parents, kids, and current volunteers define a “great” children’s ministry. It’s likely that their definition won’t be in complete agreement, but everyone will assume your definition of “great” matches his or her own.

 2. Now Fix Something- but something small.

Find one small problem and fix it. Don’t tackle anything big yet; nobody knows you well enough to trust you, and you may create a bigger problem than you solve. Find something- anything- that makes life a little better for your kids, teachers, or kids’ families. You want people to realize that you’re actually good for the organization and worth listening to.

3. Connect with your leader.

When you go into a church to serve as children’s pastor, decide you’ll be committed to and support your senior pastor. I believe every church staff member should give the senior pastor what the leader wants. We need to all be working toward the same goal. When you come into a church, ask yourself, “What can God teach me through this pastor?” Your teachable attitude will allow you to do significant ministry and also grow spiritually.

4. Figure out where you are.

Once you understand the pastor’s vision for the children ministry, see if you have the resources you need to meet it. Is the correct leadership in place? Do you have the right tools—the curriculum, furniture, and rooms? Summarize on paper how you view your current ministry situation. Summarize where you think the ministry should go, too, and share what you’ve written with your senior pastor. This is your pastor’s chance to fine-tune your direction before you set out and make changes.

5. Join the team.

Go to lunch with other people on your church staff, one at a time. Ask what’s important to them.  Hear their heartbeat for ministry. Remember that even if the youth group consistently leaves the room you share in chaos, you and the youth pastor are on the same ministry team. Next year you’ll be releasing some of your children into the care of that youth pastor. Esteem that pastor and offer your support. If we want others to respect us, we need to respect them. That means respecting everyone on your team. Don’t fall into the “Us versus Them” trap. “We’re all on the same team.”

6. Determine where you’re going.

Set goals area of your children’s ministry. What do the kids in the Nursery need? The preschoolers? Be specific. Here’s a great exercise to help you develop goals: Ask yourself what you want children to do when they’re adults. Make a list. You want them to know Jesus? Write it down. Want them to have a servant’s heart? Write it down. Want them to be givers? Put it on the list. Now you become those things, and put people who do those things in front of children. Teach children what God’s word says about those things, and model what living it looks like. Let your ministry be a place where children see what God wants them to become and where they can practice serving, giving, and being faithful. People follow people with a plan. If you haven’t developed a plan in your first three months to get from where you are to where you’re going, people aren’t going to follow you.

7. Communicate with the right people.

Most children’s pastors spend 90 percent of their time working on communicating with kids. That’s great, but you need to communicate with other audiences, too. Create a newsletter that tells parents what you’re teaching and what’s on the schedule. Since you can’t assume that “take-home Papers make it home, you have to communicate by snail mail, e-mail, or even a worker webpage. Look for ways to keep information flowing to your team also remember to communicate upward.

8.  Update job descriptions.

Everyone needs a job description. I like to give every volunteer his or her job description, plus everyone else’s job description. When volunteers know where they fit, everyone does better. Write your own job description first, and submit it to the senior pastor for tweaking. Then write everyone else’s description. When your job description aligns with the pastor’s vision, and the other job descriptions align with yours, you’re all on the same page.

 9. Build a team.

We say team building is important. We even believe it. So why don’t we do it? If you don’t allow others to learn by doing—coaching and encouraging them as they go—there’s no way you’ll build a team. See yourself as a coach and a mentor whether you have a team of two hundred or a volunteer staff of two. Delegation is good: it’s letting someone represent you in accomplishing tasks and duties. You need that. But even better than delegation is duplication: creating an exact copy of an original. When you instill your heart and passion in another children’s worker, you’ve gone beyond just delegation and actually duplicated yourself.

10. Be visible in worship.

It’s important for your own spiritual life that you be in worship. It’s also important for your own spiritual life that you be a worshipper. Your actions set an expectation that every children’s ministry volunteer should be growing in his or her faith. Sit right down front, and be visible as a cheerleader for the church, not just for your own ministry.

11. Use the church calendar.

Make sure your church office has a central, master calendar and use it. Staying coordinated with other ministries avoids facility conflicts. It also increases participation in children’s ministry because families don’t have to choose between conflicting meetings.

12. Tend to the budget.

Find out how budgets are done, by whom, when, and what the approval process is. Become an expert in the process before you have to produce an annual budget. You can accomplish more with money than without it, so don’t be shy about figuring out how to ask for money. To create a budget, ask yourself what you want to accomplish in the lives of your kids. Then develop on paper a ministry that meets those goals. Price the programs and total them up. That’s the budget you’ll ask for.

13. Shelve the great program you did in your last church. 

The program that went well in your last church may not meet the needs of children in your new church. Always start by identifying needs and then finding a program or curriculum that addresses those needs.

14. Be creative and open to change.

Creative people are open to new ideas. They put things together in innovative ways. They tweak and twist and rearrange stuff. And they don’t accept the first solution offered just because it’s the easiest. That tiny change you wanted to make in your first few weeks may just be adding some direction signs so that people can find their way from one place to another. A small change, but a huge difference.

15. Do the job only you can do.

The first priority for any children’s pastor is to work on leadership skills. We have to be problem solvers, encouragers, cheerleaders, coaches. You simply cannot spend all your time in classrooms with kids. Ask the Lord if you’re more valuable to your pastor being a leader of leaders and a problem solver than as a teacher of kids. There are other people who can teach kids, but you may be the only one who can do your role. 

This might not seem like a full year’s worth of things to do but believe me, these fifteen things will keep you busy. It’s not easy doing all fifteen of these at the same time. Some will be easier to accomplish than others. The key is to remember this first year is all about relationships. One of the best words of advise I could give a person in a new position or church would be to remember that ministry is a marathon it is not a sprint. Don’t try to do everything that needs to be done all at one time. It’s also important to remember that your family also needs you. They are new too. They’ll make the needed adjustments they need to make if they have you leading them. Don’t be an absentee parent. Be the leader at home as well as at the church.

 

 

 

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Questions To Ask And Things Todo To Have A Happy New Year

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I can’t believe 2016 is here! I am so excited to begin my 41st year of ministry.  I love New Years because folks naturally do 2 things that I’ve been telling #Kidmin leaders they need to do on a regular basis.  One-they need to evaluate. You can’t evaluate without asking some key questions like, “What worked in 2014?” “Do you know why they worked?” Once you find the answers make sure you continue you do this in the New Year. Now ask yourself, “What didn’t work and why?” My favorite question to ask myself is “What am I going to do different to produce a different result?” Same action always brings same results. The reason you have to determine what didn’t work is so that you don’t take bad habits into the New Year. The second thing you need to do is to set goals. A goal is simply a target or mark that you are aiming at. Where do you need to improve? I just don’t look at my ministry I start with me. What do I need to do differently in my spiritual life. I like to ask myself “Has there ever been a time in my life that I’m more in love with Jesus than I am right now? If the answer is yes, I’m the only person that can fix that. What do I need to change for my family? Yes God has called me into the ministry but according to God’s Word I’m also to be the priest of my home. Today we began the New Year with our annual family lunch of Blackeyed peas and mac & cheese and cornbread. During lunch I asked every member of my family including Sparrow what they were believing God for so I could pray specially for them. I’ve made a commitment to pray for those things and join my faith to theirs. I’ve also planned my vacations and identified trips and special family times I need to keep open on my calendar. I also set some other personal health goals. Next ask yourself what are your ministry goals? Seting goals is just the first set, the second step is to make a plan for each of the goals you are aiming at. I also ask myself what appointments do I need to add to my calendar to make each goal a reality. Appointments work better than Todo’s because they have a date and time. Some leaders ignore Todo’s and keep putting them off. Most of the time we keep our appointments. Evaluating and Goal Setting will make a difference in this New Year. The key is to not just do this in January but keep it up all year long. Set a recurring appointment the 1st of each month to evaluate what’s working so far and what’s not, as well as what do you need to do different and what do you need to make sure you keep doing? Also set a recurring appointment on the 15th of each month to ask yourself “How am I coming on my goals? “What do I need to adjust in my plan?” So this year let’s just not start the year off right but let keep it up and make 2016 the year we do what it takes to hit our goals in every single area of our lives.

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3 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started

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I had no ideal in 1977 when I said yes to my Pastor to covering Children’s Church for a Sunday that 38 years later I’d be writing this blog post. I also had no idea what God had in store for me. I’m thankful for all the wonderful doors, like this one that He would open. I am also thankful for the early years I had serving Kids and families at Southside Assembly in Jackson, Mississippi. I’m still in contact with so many of those kids it’s also hard to believe that those first 12 year olds are turning 51 their next birthday. (Thanks Facebook for making me feel old.)

In those early years I wish I had known to grow my leadership as well as my ministry. I understood that it was my job to help make healthy disciples. I understood the importance of training kids now for a lifetime of service in a local church. A huge mistake I made in the early years was focusing on the group of kids that made up my ministry and forgetting to have a healthy ministry I also needed to work on relating to the three groups of adults that all kidmin leaders also have to work with. Parents, (since not a single child in my ministry has a drivers’ license), adult leaders, and the level of leadership above you. A healthy leader raises their own abilities to communicate and lead all three groups of adults. It was years before I studied leadership and worked on growing my abilities. I remember when I wrote my first book Children’s Ministry Leadership- the you can do it guide back in 2003 Children’s Pastors told me I wish I could have learned this from you twenty-five years ago and I always told them the same thing I wish I had know this stuff twenty-five years ago! The truth is I had to choose to add leadership to my arsenal of puppets, costumes, and magic tricks.

 If I wanted to make healthy disciples I couldn’t do this without including parents. I wish I had known then what I know now that “What happens at home is more important than what happens at church. ”The second thing I wish I knew was the importance of partnering with parents. You see every teacher knows a child does better in school with help from their parents. This is also true with spiritual things. Healthy Discipleship is a product of a healthy ministry that can be built by a team led by a healthy leader.

The third thing, I wish I knew was you have to build a team to not only build a healthy ministry but to have make healthy disciples. Those early years I was a one-man show. I now know kids need other adults in their lives that will tell them the same thing their parents are saying at home, at church. Besides that you need a team to help you follow-up and care for kids. You can’t do it alone. To build a team it calls for duplication as well as delegation.

As you work on your leadership, build a team and partner with parents it helps you relate better and win the respect and trust of the leadership above you. That’s why I have dedicated the rest of my life to help younger leaders grow in these three areas. That’s why I created www.kidmincoach.com, theClub, my resources and Infuse. Every kidmin leader needs to know the difference leadership, partnering with parents, and building a team makes. I wish I had and want to help you know these too.

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I didn’t see this one coming

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When I started in Ministry back in 1975 I really never thought much about the future. I was young and thought I would always be young. I ministered in the now and really until a few years later did I really start see the importnce of visionary thinking and about working on the ministry I wanted to have not just on the the one I did have.

I have seen some amazing things in the years I’ve been in ministry here’s just a few:

1. I have gotten to see a ton of kids I’ve ministered to saved and baptized. (This never get’s old to me!)

2. I got to go to prom and take kids I had in children’s church on their Senior Trip

3. I got to do the weddings of tons of kids I had in children’s church.

4. I’ve had kidsI pastored at one church grow up and get married to someone I was their kids pastor at another church in another state.

5. I got to dedicate my own kids as well as baptize them in water

6. I got to be my kids’ children’s pastor and my grandson’s children’s pastor

7. Because of Facebook, and instagram I get to keep up with kids I had in children’s church and their families over the entire 40 years.

8. I’ve had hundred’s of kids I had in children’s church serve as leaders in children’s church.

9. I’ve had kids I had in children’s church serve with me on staff.

10. I’ve also gotten to dedicate the babies of kids I had in children’s church but today I had another first. I got to dedicate the first child that I was both his parents children’s pastor.

Working with kids over the years has brought me more joy and blessing than I could describe but just when I think I’ve seen and experienced it all, Jesus allows me to be blessed and experience his blessings in a new way. I just didn’t see when I was younger how rewarding it would be to still be in so many of the kids lives when they were adults.

I’m proud of the men and woman of God that my old children’s church kids have grown up to be! What an honor to get to see and do live with my own legacy… kids who grew up to be mighty in the Lord!

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