I have received this book from David C. Cook, AHA by Kyle Idleman, that I am so excited to read and do a blog post over.

Here is just a snippet that I read from Kyle and was only a few pages into the book. Enjoy.

“I’ve discovered that what drives travelers to the distant country is that they are running away from a god that doesn’t exist. For one reason or another, their perception of God doesn’t match up with reality. They are rejecting a god they created rather than the true God who created them.”

This is feeling like it is going to be a good book. Stay tuned.

“How to be Rich lays out clear principles for carrying that load, making sure your wealth remains a blessing not just for you, but for your family and your community for generations to come.” – Dave Ramsey

If that endorsement is not enough to make you want to read this book right away, I’m not sure what it will take. I truly enjoyed this book from the first page all the way to the last page. Reading this book has provided many challenges to myself and my wife as we had several points that we could identify with.

In fear of not ruining the book for anyone I will try to just give you some nuggets that I found myself saying after reading them…”Wow that is good!”

- The richer you get the more your priorities begin to separate from real needs…Our appetites for progress don’t turn off.
- Greed is the assumption that everything that is placed in our hands is for our consumption.
- In Andy sharing on giving he says, “…the percentage is more important than the amount.”

I really could go on and on. This book for me proved to be one of those books that will amount to some great times of personal reflection, great discussions with my spouse and timely teaching with my kids.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publish through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Stop here and read these earlier post (if you have not followed already) before you continue reading this. Capture, and Execute.

Now for today and the last one in this series that I am going to do.

My last tool that I use to help create a work smooth flow which in return helps me be more creative, deliberate, organized, purposeful, impactful, and successful in my ministry is Workflowy.

How does this work for me?

As you have read now in my earlier post I use Evernote to capture everything. I use it with clipping web sites and articles, to taking photos with my phone, and even using the Evernote voice recorder on my iPad. Once I have everything captured through my whole day, weeks, months and yes even years, I constantly use the search filter that is extremely great to dig out nuggets that I want to personally do, think about, work on with my teams, write about etc.. I add these nuggets to Trello boards. This allows me to share, keep track of progress, delegate, record, create to-do list, check list and so much more.

Then there is my private side of productivity. I want items not all lumped into Evernote to be brought out but I am not wanting to work on them in groups or with anyone else. Yes Trello can keep these type of things separate and private but Workflowy gives a different view of my list that go in. And the great additional piece that I like about Workflowy that Trell does not have for me, my daily or weekly email of my Workflowy. Yes I like to get that email as a reminder of what is still on the list. This email is like my comfort food of mashed potatoes, or pizza. It is not really any better than other foods I enjoy eating, it just serves personally a different felt purpose.

There you are my 3 steps and the tools I use to bring about the results that God has allowed me to enjoy in children’s ministry over the last 20+ years.

What is your system to stay creative, sharp, relevant, successful in your children’s ministry?

Yesterday I spent talking about how important it is to have a method of capturing everything from ideas, resources, talks, pictures and more. Today I want to continue this direction in once everything is captured how do you use it? To just have these resources will not benefit you unless you have a practical way of moving them into execution.

There are 2 tools that I use to help move things from the capture to execution. The first one I want to talk about briefly here is Trello. Trello for me is used with people, my team, volunteers, and leaders. I spend a little time every Monday going through Evernote and moving some items from there to Trello. These items are the agenda that I want to carry out with teams of people to an personal secretary, bottom line, want to carry out with others. This tool for me use to Omnifocus. The disadvantage of Omnifocus is it cost and for teams to work together everyone has to pay. Trello on the other hand is free. this is what has brought me back to Trello.

Trello allows me to take my behind the curtain catch-all (Evernote) and bring some of it public. Invite as many people as you want to a board. Board members can all add cards, make changes, upload attachments, and more. Changes made by others seem instantaneously on your screen. You never have to wait for a page to reload to see the latest. Email notifications and an activity log keep you informed of the latest changes. You can also subscribe to specific cards to get timely information on what you care about the most. Trello keeps a record of everything that’s happened on the card: comments, changes, additions. You’ll never wonder “How did that happen?” again.

Lastly about Trello, there is an app for your phone and for your computer. This way no matter if you are sitting at your laptop or even more mobile by your phone, Trello is ready to keep you productive.

Next we will spend some time discussing my last tool, Workflowy.

What methods do you have established to bring your great ideas and resources to execution?

Think about this title a little before you may discount it.

Having a better children’s ministry means what to you?
- More volunteers?
- More finances?
- Better technology/toys?
- Better facilities?
- More commitment from people?
- More time?

What do you need that will give you a better children’s ministry than you have now? I want to suggest that it will involve ideas, or resources that you have already captured and need to carry out or it will be ones that are still to be captured for use in your children’s ministry improvement.

This is why I think it is wisdom to decide what is your system for capturing ideas, resources etc..

I use Evernote to capture everything. I scan everything into Evernote, voice notes, web pages clipped, pictures, you name it, I will send it to Evernote. This makes it easy for me to retrieve anything I need to.

I need more volunteers? I go to Evernote and pull everything I have ever captured about getting volunteers, how to recruit, treat volunteers, structure of volunteers etc.

I need more resources/finances for my children’s ministry? I go to Evernote and pull up everything that has been captured on getting resources, structuring ministry for best use of finances, info graphic pictures, and more.

So there you go. You want a Better Children’s Ministry? Create a great process for capturing everything. So no great resource ever gets lost or forgotten. I again suggest Evernote to be that capturing tool.

Todays blog post is over one of the newest books I have finished reading, The Power Of A Half Hour by Tommy Barnett. Below is a snippet from his book.

“Turn your fleeting minutes into defining moments. What can you do in thirty minutes? Have lunch? Watch television? Check Facebook? How about change your life? Why do some people achieve far more than others? We all get the same twenty-four hours in a day, yet a special few seem to have superhuman abilities when it come to accomplishing great things in life. Why not change time from being your worst enemy to your everlasting friend? It all starts with the amazing things you can do in only a half hour.”

After reading a snippet like the one above, and knowing about the author and all that he has done as a pastor and is still doing as a pastor my expectations for this book may have been too high. Because as I started reading it I quickly realized it was not what I was expecting. I did as Tommy suggested at the start of his book, to only reading the book for 30 minutes a day until the book was done. I’m sure this book is proving to be a blessing for some, because I went out there to read how others were rating this book and found they tend to rate this higher than I am going to.

It is my recommendation to do your homework on this book and the actual content of what Pastor Barnett is discussing to see if this is where you are at and your hidden desire for the answers or guidance you want to take from this book. For me, the basic points of breaking your day down into 30 minutes segments is extremely basic and missed the mark for me this time.

The back of the book includes personal action plans referring to each chapter and a small group discussion guide that may prove to be helpful for some. I am sure it is Pastor Tommy’s intent that this book will help you to review how you use your time and how to be more intentional about using time wisely.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purpose of reviewing with my opinion.

In the commercial above the dad gives the phone to Susie because “it has a calculator”. Too often this is exactly how adults show their confidence in kids.

There is a generation of kids today who are taking the tools people are willing to give them and turn them into something completely new.

The last scene of this commercial is great where the girl has renovated the front of the house and expanded it up to look like a major business building. She even has an assistant. When dad asks: Where’s Susie? A young boy working and posing as her assistant asks: Is she expecting you?

Take time today to let kids know how much you believe in them.

Clout – Discover and Unleash Your God-Given Influence by Jenni Catron

Jenni Catron’s is the Executive Director at Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee where she leads the staff and ministries of 5 churches that have grown exponentially under her leadership. Her writing shows her desire to help each of us to grow exponentially as well! This book lent itself to kind of discipline me but at the same time help me feel deeply encouraged.

“You have Clout. Have you discovered it yet? We all long for significance, even as we fear we will never be good enough. We listen for God, but hear only voices of doubt and practicality. Listen again. There is a call that only you can answer.”

Jenni’s book breaks down misconceptions about power and influence and the traps that are set to keep us from using that God-given influence to help us tap into our strengths and overcome our fears to understand and unleash our own Clout.

There are some common traps which short-circuit our clout. Jenni discusses seven clout killers and teaches us through scripture how to avoid these traps:

- Confronting Fear
- Putting a stop to comparison
- Understanding the Impact of Jealousy
- Squeezing Out Scarcity
- Identifying Insecurity
- Purging Pride
- Relinquishing Control

She doesn’t stop there. She goes on to share how we can cultivate our clout, making the most impact in our area of influence:

- Discovering Your Identity
- Developing Your Confidence
- Defining Your Mission
- Determining Your Passion

Below I will leave you with some of the highlighted material that I enjoyed.

- We often confront our greatest fear at the crossroads of influence. We face our greatest fear at the threshold of our greatest opportunity to make an impact.

- Every time we make a fear-based decision we lose a bit more influence.

- Fear magnifies our weaknesses and it hides our potential.

- Jealousy keeps us on a perpetual quest for the attention, affection, and affirmation of others.

- Jealousy makes other people even people we like and respect our enemies.

- our constant longing robs us of finding peace with who we are and being content with the work we’ve been given. Envy is one of the greatest distractions to our influence. It takes our focus off our opportunities for influence and temps us to fixate on everyone else’s.

I am taking part in Booksneeze book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Seeing how this week has been very heavy work wise for me as I am preparing so much for this summer ministry to the boys and girls in our community, I will share another video again.

This video does have some good input, so sit back, watch and enjoy. Leave your thoughts below in the comments.

Spend a lot of time in meetings will drive anyone a little stir crazy over time. Taking part in on-line conference calls is something that is becoming more popular with a lot of people, myself included.

Conference calls if done properly can be extremely beneficial. To name a few reasons they eliminate the travel, a lot of the trouble trying to match calendars with those who need to be part of the meeting (A growing number of those who can attend due to their expertise are coming from a wider geographic area because of the technology of conference calls), hotel cost, and simply the convenience of conference calling.

Conference calls also have their challenges due to the people using conference calls, the lack of familiarity and comfort of using technology, plus the limitations that come from the different quality of internet speeds that people subscribe to.

Here is a funny video show casing the challenges. Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

I still prefer to use conference calls and live online collaboration.

What do you think about this form of meeting?

Do you use it? If so what do you use and how helpful is it?