Children's Pastor Jim O'Connor

We are so excited about our upcoming Kidology to Go in Pinellas Park, Florida (near St. Petersburg) on Saturday, February 25th! Calvary Chapel is the host church and is located at 8900 US-19 N, Pinellas Park, FL 33782. You can contact Children’s Pastor Jim O’Connor or Tatum Bueller for directions at 727.577.7705. The schedule for this Kidology to Go will be slightly different than others, running from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

Calvary Chapel in St. Petersburg is a large non-denominational church with an impact children’s ministry. We hope that you will be equally encouraged and challenged by the teaching sessions and the exposure you will receive from this quality ministry! I look forward to meeting you at this Kidology to Go. Please register at Kidology.org (pre-registration is $10) and then let Calvary Chapel know if you need childcare by registering for it at their website here.

Children's Ministry at Calvary Chapel in action!

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However on our way down to CPC we received news about Patsy’s dad who had surgery down in Naples, Florida and was having a tough time with his recovery. Not knowing how things were going to far with her dad, we decided to forego the get together in Orlando. Still we wanted to stop in and say hi to Karl and take a stroll through CPC’s famous vendor room.

Strolling up and down the aisles of vendor after vendor at CPC is sort of like walking the miracle mile of children’s ministry! More than just a curriculum fair, CPC is a place to find all the latest tools, goodies and fun gadgets that children’s pastors love to use to spread the Gospel. Good stuff for sure, but having kids along with us, we got the royal treatment.

Brendan as the dragon

At the Group Publishing site a bunch of ladies wanting to demonstrate a trick involving hairdryers and hollow balls, grabbed our boys who were quite happy to play along. Later the boys were hijacked at a booth demonstrating face painting and balloon twisting. Once again they were happy kidnapees! Still another booth insisted on giving them magic canes and yet another some candy. Blake talked to a graphic artist who makes stills of Bible Stories for use in children’s church and a job offer for later in life!

Our family of five boys looked so great, we were handed five different CDs with Christian kid’s music!!

We did get to meet up with Karl at the Discipleland booth. He was very gracious and understanding, encouraging my wife to go and be with her father. When we were done walking to gauntlet our boys had a big bag full of freebies and they were all very glad to be there. They barely even realized they were on Disney property!

Louisiana Causeway

As we travel across America in our motorhome we often hear questions about how we manage to be in such a tight place with five boys or how do we manage to keep our sanity and patience with all these people in such a small space. Of course we have our pat answers like “We lost our sanity long ago, otherwise we never would have tried such a trip!” Haha I know.

Still as I have lots of time to ponder and think as I drive the highways and byways of our vast nation, I have often thought of how these questions reflect a little into the hearts of modern Americans and more importantly modern Christians.

Before I go there let me say that living in a 350 square foot home with seven people and pets DOES stretch our patience to the limits.

And our peace of mind, our sanity, our faith, our comfort zone and just about everything else. I am not complaining because I would not trade the experiences, the memories and the bonding that we share for anything. Still these things come with a price.

Yet God’s hand is so evident in this trip. Time and time again He has shown us this through countless signs (spiritual signs that is, not road signs!). He is working in our lives in such a tangible way through the difficulties as well. He is revealing to us areas that He really wants to work on in our hearts. You see He is the potter and we are the clay, but often times the clay needs some heat to get the impurities out and some pressure to form it into something beautiful. Howard our RV has been like a giant mobile potter’s wheel for most of our family. God is using the insanity to bring clarity, the frustrations to bring peace and the chaos to bring order into our family and into our souls!

As I drive I think about our natural inclination to create comfortable situations in our lives, rather than to embrace the situations God often calls into that are uncomfortable. We often flee from adversity rather that walk through it and see how God brings us out of it on the other end. As Jonah found out, you can’t flee from the hand and designs of God though. He has a purpose He is going to work out in your life and that means He is going to create some uncomfortable situations and times to bring your focus into the areas He is trying to form His purpose in you. For our family that has been living and working together in sometimes small spaces, learning to function as a cohesive unit rather than seven ships passing in the night. For you and your household the potter’s wheel may be quite different.

For all of us though, in order to travel the road less traveled, we have to go contrary to our nature and we have to embrace the struggles, the uncomfortable situations, yes even embrace a certain amount of suffering, taking up our cross as His word says. This is how I cope with the lack of quiet and calm in my “house.” I realize it is yet another opportunity for Christ to form His nature in me!

or name your land Desolate.

But you will be called Hephzibah,

and your land Beulah;

for the LORD will take delight in you,

and your land will be married.

Isaiah 62:4

One of the goals of our trip was to find some ministry outside of being a pastor’s family. Jesus certainly did not limit the ministry he did to inside a church (Ok a synagogue)! We really prayed that God would open some doors for us in this regard.

Brendan Collects some trash

The door opened for us to stay at Hephzibah Children’s Home for most of the month of December. There is a small RV Park with full hook-ups here at Hephzibah for people who come here and volunteer at the home.

Patsy helping clean

Hephzibah has been serving the needs of children since 1900. For more than a century, the Home has been a stable influence on hundreds of children and young people in need of out-of-home care. Hephzibah is located on a beautiful piece of property, around 200 acres in Macon, Georgia. The mission of Hephzibah Children’s Home is to provide a Christ-centered, safe and wholesome environment for children and young people in crisis.

Free moment

So far we have been at the Home for almost a week and we have picked up trash, helped a new mother move to a new room, cleaned an apartment, set up a room for a banquet, changed light bulbs on very tall chandeliers. and other assorted tasks. We also met some new friends who have been very kind in making us feel welcomed here at Hephzibah! We have had some free time to play football and let the kids ride their bikes and all the kids love getting to ride around on the golf carts!!

This works our really well for us in Howard as well, so we can set up a tree and all our Christmas lights and we do not have to move the rig and take it all down each time we move to another place.

]]> http://www.kidologytogo.com/2011/12/836/feed/ 0 http://www.kidologytogo.com/2011/12/kidology-to-go-looks-back-on-the-first-year/ http://www.kidologytogo.com/2011/12/kidology-to-go-looks-back-on-the-first-year/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:35:11 +0000 Marty http://www.kidologytogo.com/?p=833 From October 2010 through October 2011, our first year with Kidology to Go was an amazing experience. I hope you enjoy the highlights in the video!

We took some time to visit his first store in Bentonville, Arkansas called Walton’s Five and Dime. Sam and his brother Bud started in this little storefront with a basic philosophy that stuck with Sam until the day he died. He wanted to be a successful businessman, sure, but he wanted to do something much more important than that. He wanted to help people live better by lowering the cost of living for them. This, and not making a ton of cash, was his driving force. He preached it over and over again to his employees from top to bottom.

The first store in Bentonville has a nice little museum which not only tells the history of Walmart, but more importantly the story of Sam Walton. His 1977 Ford pickup is on display, the same truck he drove for most his successful years. Sam Walton was not a pretentious rich man. He tried to stay a normal and humble guy who could relate to the needs of his employees and customers. He was also one of the first businessmen who would step into an area hit by tragedy and LOWER prices in that city or town. Until then the practice had been to raise prices because commodities would be scarcer. Sam Walton did things with the average person, and not the bottom line, in mind.

Today, Walmart is run by a slick CEO in Armani suits who talks about Walmart being a good citizen. Like Walt Disney, several of Sam Walton’s ideas still pervade the culture of his company long after he is gone. Today when you walk into most Walmarts, someone is there to greet you with a smile, thanks to Sam Walton. Walmart still donates goods and lowers prices in areas hit by tragedy, a practice several other companies have adopted. Still Walmart is not quite the same as image and press have begun to take center stage over the core values of lower prices and good customer service.

Sam Walton's 1977 Pickup truck

Watching the movie at the museum helped us see this in a perfect light. The first part of the movie was all about Sam Walton, his life, family and philosophy. The second half was shots of the CEO in front of a huge screen giving a pep-rally style speech to a bunch of share-holders. I am sure that the production team of this little movie did not intend to make it a study in contrasts, but the contrasts are easy to spot if you think about the differences between today’s leader and yesterday’s founders.

While this may be a common occurrence with companies and corporations, I think it speaks to something greater in society. As much as we fight against it, today’s culture has become almost exclusively about image projection and image management. From football coaches to politicians, from meteorologists to energy companies and from movie stars to theme parks, you’re image is what counts. Never mind that a $1 cup of coffee at Place B tastes better than a $5 cup of coffee at Place A. If the cult of cool says Place A has the better image, this is where the bulk of us buy our coffee!

Sam Walton's office

And yes, this image obsession has found its way into the church. Today we think more about how a pastor looks than what he says. We worry more about the style of music than the message. We want to know if the ambiance is cool more than if the Holy Spirit is welcome. And yes, even in children’s ministry we spend a whole lot of money, energy and time creating the right look, especially compared to the amount of time we spend making sure the message is timely and truthful.

I know we have to think some on these things. I also confess I spent way too much time thinking on these things. Let me challenge church leaders to honestly ask yourself what percentage of your time, meetings, conversations, budgets and creativity goes into crafting the right image for your ministry through your websites, ambiance, communication pieces and even how you dress and compare that with the amount of time you spend in prayer, study and pastoring people. For me I came to a point that I realized my calling was to lift Christ up and give a balance of truth and love to kids and families in my church. We could all use a reminder of this from time to time.

Kevin Shutterbug speaks with my wife as they go through a digital scrapbook of some of the amazing fall sites we have seen on or trip this year! We hope you enjoy the views!

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