Archive for October, 2011

Florence Kidology to Go

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Last weekend we were thrilled to be able to work with the Vineyard Church of Florence, Kentucky and provide some quality children’s ministry training to area churches. Children’s Pastor Selena Newton and her staff of dedicated workers really helped put together a great day with plenty of encouragement and laughter. We always enjoy getting to know each church, the children’s ministry staff and people from the area who come out for the day.

This church is blessed to have a great team and Selena and her staff prayed for us as we departed and gave us a great gift of encouragement as well. Thanks again to the Florence Vineyard Church!

A few minutes before we started

Kevin Shutterbug and the Rainy Days

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

On a sunny afternoon in West Virginia, Kevin Shutterbug interviews the Martin boys about what they do on rainy days to pass the time! This is one cute video!!

Falling Water and Creative Thinking

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Frank Loyd Wright's Creative Masterpiece

My oldest son heard about this cool piece of architecture called Falling Water and wanted to visit it, so we put a pin in the map in southwest Pennsylvania and made the stop a priority. Our whole family visited the home but only Blake and I paid for the indoor tour.

Falling Water is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright that sits over a thirty foot waterfall! He built the house in the 1930s for just over $150,000 for a local couple who were Pittsburgh area department store magnates. Today I hesitate to even imagine who much the home would cost to build.


Of course the home could never be built today, with all the codes, permits and government regulations blocking the path of any creative juices that would seek to build such a structure. It makes one pause and consider how could our nation, whose greatness is built partly on the dreams and creativity of a million different visionaries, is choking the life out of this very entrepreneurial spirit that once gave us all a sense of national pride?

While certainly we need to have things like codes, regulations and protective government agencies, I wonder if we have gone to far and have put a higher priority of bureaucracy and paper work over creativity and vision.

Falling Water

Unfortunately my experience around churches has shown me that churches can also fall into the same trap. We begin to value our systems, forms, procedures and curriculums more than we do creative juices and divine inspiration. I wonder if Noah’s ark would have passed through the red tape many churches have set up? Once again safeguards and policies are valuable resources for churches and ministries, but they should be a means to facilitate creative thinking, not dampen it.

I felt as though our whole family got an extra dose of creative wonder as we walked around the art work that is Falling Water. Not only is it a wonderful piece of organic architecture, blending in with the natural environment, it is a testimony to the fact that there are some individuals who should never be told they cannot do something!! Frank Lloyd Wright was one of those types of people.


One our way home we stopped by another covered bridge, one of my favorites and the seventh covered bridge I have personally visited. We renewed our family traditions by having a couple of covered bridge races!! We were really racing through history class on that day!

Kidology to Go coming to Florence, Kentucky

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

Victory Christian Church in Florence, Kentucky will be our hosts for the next Kidology to Go to be held Saturday, October 22nd! The children’s ministry staff of Selena Newton and Stephanie Moore are spearheading efforts to make this a great day of encouragement and training.

Children's Pastor Selena Newton

Victory Christian Kids has a great blog to read up on this quality children’s ministry. Guests who come to this Kidology to Go from nearby churches will get to to see a first class ministry facility! Vineyard ChristianChurch is located at 7101 Pleasant Valley Rd, Florence,Ky. Please call them at 859-689-0777 or email Stephanie Moore at stephanie.moore@insightbb.com.

This Kidology to Go will begin with registration at 9:00 a.m. sharp! You can preregister at Kidology.org for $10 or walk-in for $15.