Children’s Ministry and Culture

I spend much of this weekend at my son’s Cub Scout pine wood derby event. Three packs merged to for a ninety car heat. The Derby is a great event as it creates an opporunity for a parent to work together with his child to create the car. Our den was fantastic and had a car clinic to help families who didn’t have the tools or skills necessary to build a car.

Of course, there was “that guy” at the event; the middle aged father who apprently took over the project and didn’t let his son anywhere near the block of wood. He turned in a perfectly carved and laquered PT cruiser that looked like it had come off the shelf at Wal-Mart. The car was gorgous but violated the ethos of the event– “parent AND child.” I was relieved when a more imperfect but scout designed car won.

The experience make me think of children’s ministry. My role is to partner with volunteers– not to overpower them with my efforts. “With” not “For.”

Of course this metaphor is could be applied in a patronizing manner. I’m not my volunteer’s parent, they are not children. Sometimes I need to realize that I’m the child holding the pine block in need of their expertise. Two recently examples come to mind. When did our last youth pastor hire, I needed Lisa, a local HR officer, to teach me how to design an effective hiring process. Most recently, I needed Kim Sanford (she designs, builds, and decorates high end homes in the area) and her teams to supply a philosophy of decorating that dictated the look and feel of our children’s wing.

So ministry is like a pinewood derby. It’s always a partnership. The key is knowing when you should take the scout role and when you should take the parent role.  

Yesterday I sat down and read “The New Breed: Understanding and Equipping the 21st Century Volunteer” by Janathan McKee and Thomas W. McKee.  Next to Jim Wideman’s “Volunteers That Stick” this might be the best book on volunteer managament I’ve ever read.

“The New Breed” described in the book are the two generation with the most decretionary time to offer– The Millenials (which they label Gen @) and the Retiring Boomers. Xers, like myself, are time starved with the demands of parenting.

The McKee’s spend a good portion of the book looking at the generational traits of these two available groups and develop helpful tips to shape your ministry and recruiting pitches to appeal to these largely untapped people groups.

The book made me reflect on my recruiting strategies. In children’s ministry, I tend to target parents to be teachers. And that is proper. But it’s not the 50’s anymore and there are fewer-and-fewer stay home moms to recruit. I need to be more intentional at reaching out to these two other groups all well. 

Remember “Span of Control“? It’s the number of individuals you can effectively manage directly without losing your effectiveness. Well there is another number and name you must also be aware of and it’s 150, the Dunbar Number. That is the amount of FRIENDS you can have and safely say that they know you well! Like, if you were in a serious bind, they would want to help. It has also been the number that I’ve heard from Leith Anderson, Peter Drucker and other ministry management professionals that equates to the size beyond which you need to add staff.

But where does it come from?

It is called the Dunbar Number, named after Robin Dunbar, an Oxford anthropologist whose 1993 research gave rise to the magical count of 150.

This is the natural limit to a friendship circle. This is the ceiling on our personal contacts. Thus it is the size of volunteers, if you truly want to call them friends–a good idea for any minister–that you would oversee in ministry without adding on more staff. You can have non-paid “coordinators” or even “lead teachers” but adding staff means that you will have the capacity to EXPAND your ministry because those people will have another “friendly” contact they are served by. In other words, you must know their names, greet them warmly and lead them naturally as their servant leader! It is a very clean concept and one most of us need to be reminded of when we try to expand too quickly or even limit ourselves!

The “Number’s Guy”, Carl Bialik of the Wall Street Journal, has an interesting article related to this number (http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/breaking-through-friendship-counts-227/) and while he applies it to Facebook or My Space and the desire to accumulate friends, it fits perfectly with what we know about church planting, children’s ministry volunteer management and when to hire a second or additional staff member. Carl also notes another study that showed Freshman at Univ of North Carolina added friends per week (http://www.ibiblio.org/ibiblog/154) — it maxes out for the graph’s purpose at 80 which is a steady increase over 30 in the span of 5 weeks.

This limit was derived by extrapolating from social groups in nonhuman primates and then crediting people with greater capacity because of our larger neocortex, the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language. (please see this original research at http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/65/bbs00000565-00/bbs.dunbar.html if you DARE!)

Carl suggests that technology might help us increase this number and even asked the infamous Dr. Dunbar himself. Prof. Dunbar isn’t sold on the idea that social networks make his number outdated. The research, he says, “made us realize people don’t know what these wretched things called relationships are — and that helps explain why we’re so bad at them.”

Would your volunteers see you as their FRIEND?

Today at the Summit, about 50 large church children’s pastors (Keith, how did I get in?(Grace is upper-mid) spent several  hours brainstorming what the security measures at that they had in place at their churches. Without effort, these churches tallied 71 different measures that they had in place to ensure the safety of children, ranging from background checks t0 having hired off-duty police officers in the hallways.

My next step is the creation of a hospilality team that will create another level of staffing in the hallway. Their presence will help us intervene if a child slips out of a classroom. And they will also be able to approach an adult loitering in the hallway (”Can I help you.”)

 A few impressions from the day:

•  These measures are necessary, but it makes decentralized, off-campus ministry more difficult.
• It’s not enough to be a safe ministry, but we must also project the image of being safe. (And we can’t present that image if it isn’t true).
• There’s a parent educatation piece to this. A church can have a “wellness policy” and children will still occasionally get ill. 
• Children’s pastors are simply the most amazing people.  

I’ve been using www.jott.com to dictate notes to myself and my assistant for awhile. In a meeting with my nursery team it dawned on me that I can use the “Group” feature as a way to send weekly reminders to teams. By using the “Group” feature, I can build two groups (9:30 AM and 11 AM services) for each week of the month.

Each week end, a volunteer can send a single message to the appropriate groups. Jott will then send a voice message, a text message, or an email to each volunteer — based on each volunteer’s preference.

The disadvantage of jott is that it can’t be intergrated with your church’s database. A second is that jott is phone number specific so only one person can use it. On the other hand, it’s powerful AND free.  

That might be hyperbole, but it is close to accurate! This past weekend I did a Children’s Ministry Magazine “Live” where we open with a getting-to-know-you activity using four of the “generations” that most people fall into:

Silents, Boomers, Generation X and Millennials (or Generation Y). Well, an article in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle mirrored almost exactly this distribution and had some interesting insights in how these groups should WORK TOGETHER. This is important for our Children’s Minstries as, according to the author, this is the first time ever that four generations are in the workplace at the same time!

Listen to this, “Your generation is usually referred to as the silent or traditional generation, and you have a strong respect for authority. As a boss, you are used to giving commands and having your employees follow them.

“The baby boomers come next, and they are known for challenging authority. Their style is to provide direction rather than give orders.

“Generation X workers are more autonomous and don’t want to be micromanaged.

“Although the millennials, or Generation Y, have just begun to enter the work force and their style isn’t fully known, they are usually quite self-confident and tend to disregard authority.

“Chances are that as a traditional, you operate under the old “command and control” style, which just doesn’t work with your younger workers. You may get better results if you allow them to be more self-directed.”

Check out the whole article on “Adjust Your Communication Style” here (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/small/qa/5118460.html) and enjoy!

I’ve discovered that one of the best ways for me to connect with potential twenty-something volunteers is to use www.myspace.com and www.facebook.com. It’s a bit of a hastle, really; managing an inbox and plus these sites. But I’m finding more and more that twenty-somethings enjoy the ability to create websites reflect their personality and find new friends. And since there’s an email and bulliten feature in these worlds some don’t come up for air to check thier blaise email accounts.

 One advantage I’m finding is the ability get to know volunteers and volunteer prospects when their “church face” isn’t on.

I learned tonight that Minneapolis/St. Paul ranked 3rd (14.58%) behind Salt Lake City, UT (21.84%) and Charlotte, NC (15.88%) as reported in Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings (http://www.nationalservice.org/about/volunteering/cities.asp)  in the amount of the population who volunteer in religious organizations. Of those, only 14 percent, however, “mentor youth” while a majority 38% volunteer by raising money or (24%) serve food.

The report uses volunteer data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2004-2006. It ranks and includes profiles for 50 of the largest cities including the volunteer rate; the types of organizations through which residents serve; their main volunteering activities, the average hours per year and volunteer rates for age and gender demographic groups, and key trends and highlights. The report also analyzes social and demographic trends affect city volunteer rates and finds that there are four key drivers of volunteering: community attachment; commuting times, high school graduation levels and poverty; and the prevalence of nonprofits and their capacity to retain volunteers from year to year. The information on volunteering at the local level can help local governments, community leaders, service organizations, and volunteers nationwide develop a volunteer growth strategy, set goals to increase the level of individual engagement in volunteer activities, and build the infrastructure of nonprofits and communities to support more volunteer opportunities.

I was at Max Lucado’s church last night conducting their teacher training for FaithWeaver and was really impressed by one of the student volunteers. Casey (”Caseman”) is going to be a senior in the fall and will attend West Point next year and has been working with kids for a while.  He said that recruiters were really impressed with the long-term commitment he had made in working with kids and I asked Sharon Wilson, the Children’s and Student Minister about her program.

What a fantastic intentional and targeted option for Teenagers to gain valuable experience, serve with distinction and win top spots in elite colleges! Check out what Sharon has done at www.oakhillschurchsa.org or call her at 210-698-4680 and ask her about how she involves the students in children’s ministry!

I am on a layover at O’Hare after spending some time with a wonderful church in the south. It is prime season for Teacher Training with it’s ritual of reading through new curriculum, pouring over the latest additions to the Children’s Ministry Manual and the now standard compliance with the criminal background check. There is one loophole, however, in these checks that often leave our ministries vulnerable: The Adolescent Sex Offender.

There is a very detailed and helpful article today in The New York Times Magazine titled “How Can You Distinguish A Budding Pedophile From a Kid With Real Boundary Problems.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22juvenile-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin). It is a helpful overview of something that only 25 states track and a recent law now makes manditory for those of us who use teenagers or young adults in ministry. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (named for the “America’s Most Wanted” host’s son who was murdered in 1981) signed into law last year by President Bush “creates a federal Internet registry that will allow law enforcement and the public to more effectively track convicted sex offenders — including juveniles 14 and older who engage in genital, anal or oral-genital contact with children younger than 12.”

The article takes pains to describe the public policy problems with publicizing children who are prosecuted for one-time-only indescretions along with repeat sexual predators who are adults. This is quite clearly something that thinking people will disagree with and I have no strongly formed opinion to share here. But I can state categorically that the law says these young offenders must be listed PERMANENTLY and check in every 3 months. This Javerian extreme is troublesome.

BUT the article helps us all recognize that background checks simply tell us who is not DISQUALIFIED from serving in children’s ministry. But to be QUALIFIED requires a more extensive demonstration of spiritual, relational and personal maturity as evidenced by a good track record as observed by those mentors who are themselves models of maturity. BUT when we use young people we must maintain an extra vigilant degree of oversight since that “track record” might me spotty and ill-formed.