Kids Pastor Cathy

Well starting a new job!  Yep, I am the new Director of Children’s Ministries at Crossroads Fellowship Church.  We are a multi-site church with a campus in Raleigh, NC and Wake Forest/Rolesville, NC.   It’s been a little over a month since I accepted the position and it’s going super!  Working with some awesome people who really know what it means to lead and be led by the Lord.

Check out the church crossroads.org

You can also find out more about the kids ministry on our facebook page

Excited to be settling in and get back to some blogging.  See you soon!

Do I treat my church better then my home?

When we have company coming over to visit our homes how many of us (I would guess all of us) vacuum, dust, make sure the whole house is clean. We make sure the bathrooms are tidy, towels are clean the trash is empty.

Do we all put that much effort into making our church space as nice each week? I know I can forget that each week we are welcoming people into the Lords house and many for the first time. Which means that I need to make sure things are clean. Do I help my teams to remember this too?

Check your shelves, table tops, checkin areas, and nursery/preschool toy bins. Get rid of trash, broken toys, and stacks of papers and clutter. Clean up your spaces – it’s the first impression your guests will have of your ministry.

So a very valuable leadership lesson was illustrated perfectly to me this week by a trip to Wendy’s.  Let me start by saying this was the end of a very long day that went anything but smooth – or as planned.  So it was about 8pm before I was forced to make the choice of frozen pizza or Wendy’s for dinner.  Wendy’s it was!

We went through the drive-thru and everything seemed to be going fine.  I am “that person” that orders my sandwich different then on the menu.  But it should be easy.  It’s a #6 (Spicy Chicken Sandwich), with Lettuce only.  I am not asking them to add anything, or make some wierd combination, light on the this……just Lettuce Only!.   So after what felt like forever to get to the window to pick up the food I was told “it would be another minute or two for our fries to be done, please pull ahead and we’ll bring it right out to you”.  Well that was my first red flag.  Pulling ahead never seems to go well.  There’s always something missing.  But like I said it was a long day, so I politely agreed and pulled ahead.   Almost 10minutes later the manager (who was working the windoer) brought out the bag.  I proceeded to check my sandwich was “lettuce only” – and sure enough it had everything on it.  :o(  And there’s no way we’d been waiting 15 minutes for these fries, cause I am sure they were cooked the day before.  They were limp and nasty!

So out of my truck and in I went.  I politely asked to speak to the manager again (who was still working the window).  There were 6 (yes 6) other employees working.  At 8pm at night, and there was no body else in the restaurant.  The manager was dropping chicken into the fryer, bringing chicken from the fryer to the line, and still working the window and getting drinks.  The 3 people just standing around were doing a fine job of just that!  Once she came over I said that my sandwich was wrong, it’s supposed to be just lettuce and asked that they give me a new one.  She says “no problem” and takes the incorrect one away.  I also ask for her to give us some fresh fries, cause these were cold, limp and nasty.  She proceeds to say “they are fresh we just have bad oil”.  I nicely asked for fresh fries anyway – cause these seemed particularly bad.  So she went and dropped new fries and brought my new sandwich back.  I pulled it out of the bag to check it and it was the same lettuce and chicken (still with mayo all over it) – they had just removed the tomato and onion and out it on a new bun.  SERIOUSLY!  I said “it’s still got mayo all over it” – so the manager brings the sandwich back and asks the line person “Just make her a fresh one I guess”.  Now remember – there’s still now 4 people doing nothing.  The manager is doing EVERYTHING!  And Nothing is getting done well. Finally everything is done right – the fresh fries were great (I knew the others were just old!!!) and the sandwich delicious.

I tell you this because it was so clear that the Manager – the LEADER was not leading this team.  She was on the field trying to play all the positions (window, drinks, fry cook, help customers, etc) while she had a team with plenty of people to take the service to a whole nutha level!  But she wouldn’t get out of their way and encourage, inspire and lead them.  Instead she has a bunch of lazy employees, getting by doing a half-ass job because that’s what they see their leader doing.  And the leader is doing that because she’s trying to do everything and can’t focus on training and excellence.

Get out of the way and let your team do what they are there to do.  And you stay off the field – they NEED you to lead.  None of us does our team a favor when we stop doing our job and try doing all their’s.

Apparently from this picture my son wants to be a pirate zoo keeper???

How many of us are doing the thing we grew up wanting to do?  How many of us are actually getting to do work that we love?  Are we doing work that we are uniquely designed to do?

When I was a little kid I wanted to be a fashion designer.  And believe me, my sketches were not pretty.  Every person had there arms stretched out to their side like Jesus on the Cross (I seriously don’t know why) – and don’t even start with me and their late 80′s hair!

But in high school is when I first discovered my love for telling kids about Jesus and being involved in Kids Ministry.  I’ve been a kids pastor since shortly after graduating highschool and it’s been the best ride in my life.

There have been challenges, changes, growth, failures, hard lessons, and huge blessings.  But one thing that has remained constant is the calling.  This is what God designed me to do – I’ve got skills and could do lots of other things, but none would be fulfilling my part of the body of Christ.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to surrender my life to him so early in life.  Looking back on where I am now I could have never imagined the journey would take me this far.  And it’s exciting, scary, and so awesome to know there’s so much journey ahead.

While I may never grow up completely – I know what I want to be…….Exactly who God made me!

One of my very best friends sent me this poem today by Joyce Rupp.  I think that each of us has at times in life felt like this.  It’s so comforting to know that even in dark or dry times God has never left us.

Tiredness grounds me

Into a quiet stupor

of the spirit.

I yearn to be inspired,

to be lifted up, set free

beyond the place of deadness.

the struggle goes on,

however,

and you and I, God,

we exist together

with seemingly

little communion.

yet in the deepest part of me,

I believe in you,

perhaps more strongly than ever.

I am learning you

as a God of silence,

of darkness, deep and strong.

I do not wrestle anymore,

only wait, only wait,

for you to bring my dry bones

into dancing once again.

This week Noah had a project for school in which he had to write a “tall tale”.  We had him read about Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, etc to help him understand what a tall tale was.   To be honest he struggled with it.  ALOT!  Everytime he tried to come up with an idea it was not even close to tall tale-ness.  Craig & I took him out to dinner that night and all evening talked about tall tales, made up tall tales as a family and had lots of fun with it.  The next morning Noah wrote a great tall tale all his own.

But it got me thinking……Do we encourage our son to dream enough?  I’ve got a great imagination and can remember making up huge stories and worlds and realities growing up (and sometimes now – don’t judge!).  Am I passing that along to my son?  Are we teaching our kids to dream HUGE dreams??

I have no doubt Noah’s got a great imagination – I’ve seen it in action.  But to help prepare him for a faith filled life, and one full of possibilities I need to spend more time encouraging him to dream.  To dream about his future, to dream about what could be, and through that I’ll be able to help him pray and trust in God even more.

So at least this week – I am very thankful for his homework!!

***Warning……you may be encouraged by this blog!

“Mommy, who’s your favorite prophet?” Noah asks me as we are cleaning up from dinner last night.  My mommy/kids pastor heart leaps with joy!!!  But I try to hide or at least contain my excitement that 1) My 8yr old knows what a bible prophet is at least enough to say it and 2) He asks me while we are loading the dishwasher!   It’s like the Kids Pastor doubleplay!  We work so hard to do all those things we are supposed to do – partner with parents, send home information, using texting, facebook, blogs, websites, anything and everything to help families have conversations about the bible and God.  And MY KID just starts up the conversation.

Now I share this not to brag on my parenting skills or pretend that I have this raising a child that loves Jesus more figured out than anybody else……..but instead to share my excitement and joy that I feel just like you when we realize our kids are loving Jesus.  It surprises me just like it does you.  I wonder all the time if I am doing this “mom” thing right?  I’ll probably never stop questioning that – but I am thankful for these little blessing moments!

I love my kid and he surprises me with something new everyday!

t’s Spring and that means the NC pollen drop. It’d our 4th Spring here now so I wasn’t at all surprised to see sights like this all over town today

If you know me- You know that I have horrible allergies. They are epic allergies. Take the worst you’ve seen and multiply by 10x and it might be close.
This pollen reminded me of sin. Sin has a way of infecting all areas of our lives. We can try to keep it out, compartmentalize it even- but it finds a way in. Theres nothing that you or I can do to stop it, to wash it away or hide it. But we don’t have to. We have Jesus.
As rain moves in tonight and the thought of tomorrow fills my mind- with the pollen washed away I think of the Micah 7:19
19 Once again you will show loving concern for us.
You will completely wipe out
the evil things we’ve done.
You will throw all of our sins
into the bottom of the sea.
I am so thankful for Jesus and that he has washed all my sins away and they are gone- forever!

This week I had one of those “thank you Lord” moments as a mother.  As a working mother in full-time ministry.  We all struggle with this (moms & dads) in ministry.  The question “am i spending so much time leading kids/families ministry that I am neglecting my own kids?”  I struggle with balance and putting down the laptop/ipad/iphone as much as I should.   Well this week God totally blessed my socks off.  My little boy, Noah, who is 8yrs old while we were grocery shopping at Super Target was talking about fruit, and telling me which were his favorite and asking which fruits were my favorite, then we had to rank them in order of favorite and on and on….Then out of the blue said “Mommy, I know what your favorite thing in the whole wide world is after Jesus……!”  and I said “really, what is it?”, to which my little guy replied “spending time with me and daddy”.  My heart melted.  ”Yes, that is my favorite thing in the whole wide world after Jesus!”

I will continute to struggle with balance at times, and by no means am I the perfect mother or wife.  But God blessed me this week by hearing right into my little man’s heart that he feels loved, and special and that spending time with him is one of my favorite things!

God is Good!

So here’s a picture of my little guy picking up the guitar for the first time.

If you are in kids ministry (or any ministry) there are times when we wonder – “are they getting it?”  ”Is what I’m doing making a difference?”  ”Does what we do on Sundays have any INFLUENCE on the kids the rest of the week?”

Well, I got a great reminder in my very own family this Fall that what we do really matters.  Sometimes those things we fight hardest for do have the biggest benefits.

Let me share the story.  I was so TIRED of canned worship for our elementary kids.  No matter what we want to think – it’s only so engaging to sit back and show cheezy background images with canned music and call it worship.  I know that’s what some of us have to do when time, talent and resources are scarse – but be honest if you could choose, is that what you’d call the best?

So I prayed, pushed, fought for about a year to get live worship for our upper elementary kids.  Got a great college student to lead worship (props to Stephen!) and withing 3weeks he’d recriuted an entire worship band for our kids.  (drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic and vocals).  And from week 1 it was amazing.  It took a few weeks for the kids to get used to it, but they’ve begun to engage in the music time of worship at a whole new level.

So here’s the personal “ah-ha” moment in my family.  My son knew the band was forming before the kids at church did – cause “duh – he’s my kid”.  Well he was super excited.  After that first Sunday Noah was hooked.  He came home and said “Mommy, I want to learn to play the guitar!  I want to lead worship someday!”  Since that first Sunday Noah hasn’t stopped listening to all the worship songs that we sing at church (Craig let him use his old iPod), we find him daily playing with hot wheels or legos and singing loud and proud his “Jesus songs”.   So I got out my guitar that I haven’t played in years and tuned it up (he hasn’t stopped bugging me to get it done) and he had his first lesson yesterday.

I tell you this to hopefully encourage you like it has me.  What we do on Sunday’s matters.  The quality of what we do matters.  And sometimes the stuff that has the greatest impact doesn’t come easy – but the reward makes it all worth it.

I challenge you to look at your ministry and ask “Is there an area of ministry that I am settling for?”  something that isn’t the best?  Maybe there’s more then one area.  I challenge you to pick one and get started by praying about what God wants and then do whatever it takes to get there.  It may take a year or a week – but get started.  God will honor it because you do have INFLUENCE!