Twelve Ways to Invest in Your Staff

Taking the time to invest in those that work and volunteer for you is crucial. There are probably hundreds of ways to invest in people. Here are twelve easy ideas you can use:

  • Appreciate them for who they are, not just what they do.
  • Celebrate and honor their accomplishments.  Even the small things.
  • Encourage them regularly.
  • Model the values you expect them to exhibit.

Quick Tips for Church Computer Safety

Here are some quick tips we ask all our church staff to abide by in order to keep their own, the churchâs, and other people’s data secure. The applications we use are listed (and we believe they are all great), but there are other great apps to use as well.

  • File Storage – Store everything in Dropbox.  It is our backup software.  We can get your stuff back if your computer crashes. Do not keep stuff on your computer hard drive, desktop, or anywhere other than Dropbox.
  • Passwords – Use a secure password management system. Even a secure digital note is better than a sticky note on your desk.  Our recommended password app is 1Password.  Further, use different passwords for all your accounts, so if one is compromised, they are not all compromised.  Change your passwords often.  Use two-factor authentication when available.
  • Accounts – You should be the only one that knows your passwords and has access to your accounts.  If you have a spouse or kids, they cannot know the password to your work account (the computer, your email, church database, etc.).

How to Treat Others Well

Treating others well is something we should all endeavor to do. For those like myself, that work on a church staff, treating others with love and compassion is part of the job. Recently, at my church, we did a staff training on how to treat and respond to others well, and here is what we shared:

Eight Ways to Have a Great Team

Having a great team and team culture doesn’t just happen.  It takes hard work.  There are many things we can do to strengthen our team’s culture, but here are eight that I believe have the largest positive impact:

Have a Compelling Purpose.  If you are just meeting to meet people will simply not make your gathering/group/team a priority.  Most people have lots of things going on in their lives and they make decisions on what they are going to do based on what they perceive has the most value for them.  If you want a great team, with people who are actively engaged, then make sure they understand why you exist.  What is your team’s compelling purpose

7 Life Lessons I Learned Running

My health was precarious.  At 32, the doctor was summoning me to her office for diabetes tests.  I never exercised.  My diet was poor.  Actually, poor is an understatement.  On average, I drank sixty ounces of Mountain Dew per day and ate Taco Bell at least two or three times a week.  Abysmal might be a more apt description.  My diet led me into head-to-head combat with kidney stones.  The kidney stones won with a knockout, and I would prefer to never fight a rematch.

Determined to shed some weight and get in better shape, I started running.  Well, my first attempt was probably more like a fifty-yard shuffle than it was a run.  I am pretty sure I made it about one block and about passed out.  I was out of breath.  My sides were on fire.  I just turned around and walked home, defeated.

Lucas James Booth

Lucas James Booth was born at 9:29 AM yesterday, October 12th.  He weighed 8 pounds, and was 19 3/4” inches.  Both mom and baby are doing great.  Here are a few photos…

More pictures to come.  Thank you Steph (http://www.louisjoy.com/) for taking these photos and all the others I didn’t have the chance to post here!

Parenting…There’s An App For That

Looking for a little something extra to help you as a parent?  You might want to check out ParentCue by reThink in the Apple App Store.  This great app provides you with cues throughout the week to remind you to take some moments with your kids, and lead them in their walk with Christ.

Most of us don’t leave home without our cell phone.  And if statistics are right, most of us now (51%) have a smart phone.  For those who happen to have an iPhone with access to the Apple App Store, there is a gem of an app you can download that has all sorts of parenting helps for home, and on the go.

It gives songs to sing during “Drive Time”, conversation starters for “Meal Time”, activities to do during “Hang Time” and for when the kids are not around, links to great articles and a podcast for “Parent Time.”  The cost is $1.99, but if you are looking for some cues to help you with your parenting routine throughout the week, it is well worth the cost.

You can download ParentCue here.

What other apps have you found helpful for parenting?

Persistence In Parenting

It’s reported that 80% of all sales are made on the 5th to 12th sales pitch.  Whether someone is selling life insurance or a snuggie, most people won’t buy one the first time they hear the infomercial.  Most likely, they have to hear the sales pitch as many as a dozen times before they’ll buy whatever it is being sold.  The  trouble is that many salesmen give up long before the 5th try (on the other hand, some don’t give up even after they have been told “no” 100 times, but that is a different problem altogether).  Persistence is important in sales, and it is also important in parenting.

We’ve probably all had a similar experience.  Shopping in the supermarket you turn down the aisle to walk past a mom and her 3 year old son.  As you pass by you hear the three year old ask for a candy bar and he mom promptly reply “no.”  You then pass the same mom and boy again in the next aisle.  Only this time the kid isn’t asking for a candy bar; he is screaming and crying for it.  The mom still is saying no.  Finally, you pass them one last time.  This last time the child is calm, and the mom is defeated.  Unwilling to endure a misbehaving and screaming child, she gave in to his demands just to shut him up.

What we occasionally observe in the supermarket, is repeated everyday in homes all over.  I remember one Sunday when a child was misbehaving in kid’s church.  After a few minutes of them getting out of their seat, crawling on the floor, and bugging every kid around them, I simply asked the child to sit down and stop talking.  They replied “I will if you give me a prize.”  When I asked him why I should give him a prize for behaving like every child is expected, he simply said “My mom always gives me what I want to behave.”  This kid was blackmailing his mom daily with threats of bad behavior, and she was giving in.

So what is a parent to do when a child doesn’t want to behave?  Persist.  Realizing that giving in, and giving them what they want, only has short term gains.  It  may keep them from screaming the grocery store, but it will result in them screaming later in life when they don’t get what they want then.  Better to learn the lesson early in life, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

It’s true in grocery stores, and it is true in homes.  It is true of kids, and it is also true of teenagers.  Persistence is a key to effective parenting.  If you are unwilling to repeat the same lesson 5, 6, 7, 12 times there will be many lessons your kids will never get.  Kids are like every other person, and they don’t buy the sales pitch on the first try.

What about you, where have you seen persistence play a role in parenting?

Should Your Kid Ride the Bus?

We need to have kids that can be sent off to the most hostile universities, toil in the greediest work enviormonments, and raise their families in the most hedonisitic communities and yet not be the least bit intimidated by their surroundings.  Furthermore, they need to be engaged in the lives of people in their culture, gracefully representing Christ’s love inside these desperate surroundings.

Photo courtesy of © flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3957311986/in/photostream/

This quote, which I didn’t write it myself and can’t remember where I got it, came to mind when I was talking with a mother recently.  She was talking about how she was afraid to let her kid ride the bus home, because “nothing good happens on the bus.” The truth is she is right, nothing good really does happen on the bus (bad language, bullying, you know the drill), but does that mean our kids shouldn’t ride on them?

I have known some outstanding parents who have said “no, my kid will not ride the bus.”  Parents who have pulled their kids off the bus, out of public school or away from non-Christian friends because they have noticed their kids being affected negatively by those environments.  I know parents who have pulled their kids out of poor school systems, because they were in fact poor school systems that were only holding their kids back.  Honestly, I think many of these parents were right in pulling their kids out.

I have also known parents who have left their kids on the bus, in the public school system and purposely made sure their kids have non-Christian friends.  I was one of these kids.  I was a bus riding, public school teenager, with several non-Christian friends.  Honestly, I think I am the better for having those experiences, and I think that many other kids would be better for having hem too.

So, when if ever, is it okay to pull your child out of these environments, or should Christian parents keep their kids in there, to grow and to represent Christ?

Should your kid ride the bus?  Should they go to private, or home school, rather than public school?  Should the not hang out with non-Christian kids?  What’s your take?