Multi-Site Kids

Thinking it through

My son Aidan just turned six.  He has a favorite motorcycle that you rev up the engine and make it go fast by repeatedly running the wheels against the ground and then releasing it to go lightening speed. Aidan decided to rev up his motorcycle the other day and instead of releasing it, put it on his tongue.  He ended up with a big surprise as his tongue got caught and ended up bleeding. Yikes, it was bad!  After calming him down and fixing him up, he said, “I guess I just didn’t think that through. I don’t know why I did that.”

His crazy stunt and comment got me thinking.  Hopefully none of us are as impulsive as my 6 year old, but have you ever asked yourself why you’ve chosen to do something within your church or in your children’s ministry? Or have you ever continued doing something once it isn’t working anymore? Have you really thought it all the way through?   

Sometimes we continue to do something because it worked for us for awhile. People liked it or it went well.  Maybe it isn’t the best use of your time or resources any more. Maybe we didn’t think it all the way through on how it would continue after a few weeks, months or years. I know programs and events can sound great at the beginning, but sometimes the hardest part is thinking through the expectations of the “after” or the “what now or next”. 

And then when we look at having multiply campuses or sites doing something, we have to think through what it will look like at all our locations. Have we thought through how this will work everywhere?

Every year we gather our Kids’ City directors together for a retreat to look at some of the things we’ve done this past year and plan some goals and initiatives we want to accomplish in the coming year. This year we will have 10 campuses represented!  I’m excited to help plan this year’s retreat and examine why we do what we do, and really think it all through.

We’ll be sure to talk about:

Are there things we need to stop doing because they aren’t working anymore?

Are there ways we do things (because we’ve always done them that way) that could be made easier/faster/more logical?

Why do we do what we do? What is our end goal?

How about you?  Reflect on your ministry and think about those questions.  Any thoughts you want to share?

Stabbing

I started reading Deadly Viper, the newest book by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite.  Already I can tell it is going to be good.  It's the type of book that every church leader needs to read from time to time to scare you silly into making sure your character doesn't lapse.  Plus it has great artwork that makes it fun to read.  I loved this quote they referenced in chapter 1:

"True friends stab you in the front."  --Oscar Wilde

The more influence I gain in ministry, the more I value those people in my life who will tell it to me straight.  Well, not the "I complain about everything" kind of people.  Definitely not the e-mail stabbers.  But the "I love you so much I'm going to stand here right in front of you and tell you the truth because I want what's best for you" kind of friend.  Don't get me wrong, I may not enjoy it in the moment, but I feel its value.  I have a few friends in my life who make me feel cherished but also are not afraid to say the hard word.  Of course their ability to stab me relies on my willingness to open myself up to the wound.  To put myself in a vulnerable position.  I'm not always good at this.  But when I do I know the result is something productive and maturing.  Even if there is a little blood.

Hull House

I'm a bit of a history buff.  Not the kind of person that could answer a lot of questions on Jeopardy, but the kind that likes to read or watch programs about historical things and visit historical places.  I just finished a photographic book on Hull House, the famous settlement house started in the late 1800s here in Chicago (remember your high school history class?).  Hull House residents sought to address the needs of the urban poor by living among them and offering services and opportunities that could transform the neighborhood. It was started by two upper middle-class women, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr although it is clear that Addams quickly became the leader of the settlement.  At its height, Hull House's complex filled up an entire city block on the West side of Chicago.  Now all that remains are two buildings...the original residence that Addams and Starr occupied and the staff dining hall.

I went there on Sunday.  There is a small museum housed in these two buildings and I thought it would be interesting to go see it.

Just in case you are wondering if I forgot the topic of this blog, let me tell you why I'm bringing all this up.  Hull House became quite a large endeavor in its heyday.  But one thing struck me as I read about its historical path.  When Jane Addams died in 1935, the settlement was thrown into a leadership crisis.  Leadership bounced between a couple of people but from the accounts I read it sounds like no one really knew how to head into the future after Addams was gone.

Now I am certainly not criticizing a historical figure who made an incredible impact on both the national and international stage, but it did strike me as odd that there was no succession plan.  No one was prepared with a clear understanding of what was to come next.  Addams was 75 years old when she died.  And I think she died of cancer so my guess is there was some length to her illness.  Had no one thought to make a plan?

Every once in a while I wonder what would happen if I were hit by a bus.  What would happen to Kids' City?  Who have I prepared to step up and take the reins?  I think multi-site has both advantages and disadvantages for the senior leader in creating succession plans.

Advantage: Multi-site forces you to learn how to create a leadership development culture.  Every time you start a site, there is an entire new leadership vacuum that needs to be filled.  We must always be about the business of raising up new leaders to send out to these new campuses or churches because we can't be everywhere at once.  Hopefully in this process of raising up and sending out, we are developing someone who could step into our place should the unfortunately bus accident occur.

Disadvantage: Our teams are spread out and focused on their individual pieces of the missional puzzle.  By nature my role is to oversee the whole and make sure all these individual pieces are aligned and all the systems are working correctly.  Every year we go through a talent review process and one of the questions that gets asked is, "Who is your apprentice?"  It troubles me that I don't have a real answer to that question.  So many on our Kids' City staff are in part time roles (anywhere from 5 hours/wk to 20 hours/wk).  I struggle with figuring out how to bring someone alongside me in my Director role to work on the "big picture" with me.  Especially because it seems their part-time hours need to be focused on their particular campus location.

Sometimes this leaves me feeling like the bottle neck for the bigger picture.  I'm feeling the limits of this in communication, decision making, capacity for initiatives...

But what scares me about it is the succession plan.  I have no plans to go anywhere and prayerfully God will keep me from stepping off the curb in front of a moving vehicle until we figure this out, but who am I preparing to replace me when I'm gone?  What is my succession plan?

Do you have one?  Would love to hear any thoughts that you have on this topic especially if you are the senior leader of your kids' ministry and your multi-site church has spread to at least 4 or 5 sites.

Great Teams

I LOVE (emphasize the word LOVE loud and slow) playing on great teams.  Community and chemistry in a workplace are so important to me.  That's why I've been on a buzz for the past couple weeks over this team.  This is the newly formed Kids' City staff at our Naperville Yellow Box location.  We still have a couple more people to add to this picture, but I'm already so excited about what God is going to do through this team.  I had dinner with one of them last week and as we parted she said, "This was meant to be."  I couldn't agree more.  I truly believe God's hand has been at work bringing this specific combination of people together...and it's going to be a fun ride.

A great team changes everything.  It makes work feel like play.  It makes the load seem light when it is carried on so many capable shoulders.  A great team attracts gifted players.  It changes the dynamic of a space giving it a magnetic pull.  It is full of inside jokes and the kind of sarcasm and teasing that makes every person feel they belong. 

Great teams leave you feeling energized when you go home for the night.

Great teams can't wait to be together again the next time.

Great teams accomplish great things.  That's why I'm so excited about playing on this one.  I hope you get to play on one too.

Dream Teams

I had dinner with one of our Kids' City Campus Directors and her husband on Saturday night.  I came away from that time so encouraged about the team I get to work with.  Shannon has been through a lot this past year topped off by an auto accident a month ago that's left her with severe headaches and has limited her ability to work.  Her expressions of gratitude over how patient everyone on the staff has been with her slow recovery led into a conversation about how grateful we both are to be a part of this team and this staff culture.  As I drove away, I thought about how important being on a great team is to me.  In fact, next to the mission, I think it is the most important thing to me about a job.  Here's what I need in a team...

Chemistry.  I need to work with people I love being around.  Our lead pastor, Dave, told me once that he would never hire anyone who doesn't pass the "Parking Lot Test."  What is the parking lot test, you might ask?  If you pull into the parking lot and see someone's car and feel glad that they are there...they pass the parking lot test.  Chemistry is so important because it keeps my heart encouraged even when things get difficult.  I love knowing the office is full of people I'm excited to see.

Common Values.  Of course there are the big moral and theological values...but that's not what I'm talking about here.  I think great teams value the same things.  As I talked to Shannon, I heard what she values.  Teamwork.  Friendship.  The mission.  Unity.  The freedom to dream about the future.  Those are the things I value most too.

The Loss of "I".  I love playing on a team where no one cares about the "I."  I love walking out of meetings with a handful of plans and no one can remember whose idea was whose.  Everyone on the team contributes but there is no need for individual credit.  The team wins or the team loses and goes back to the drawing board together.  A team can really begin to sprint forward when everyone is learning to die to the "I."

Growing Intimacy.  Maybe this is just part of being a girl, but I need to feel like I am growing closer to the people in my inner circle at work.  I need to feel like we are learning more and more about one another and are becoming more honest and authentic with one another.  I think that's what excited me most about this dinner with Shannon.  I felt like it was a milestone of sorts in our relationship.  I think we're becoming closer friends.

So what's important to you about a team?  Do you know?  Whether you have the opportunity to add staff around you or whether your team is made up of the key volunteers in your ministry, make sure you surround yourself with the kind of team you need.  It will leave you driving away from dinners excited too.

Crossing Cultures

Christy from Calvary Church in Rosehill, Minnesota posed a great question:

"I read that you recently started a site with a Spanish service.  In addition to ethnic culture, do you see differences in culture between the sites?  How do you address this in your programming?"

First, let me say that we are beginners in the lessons of cross-cultural ministry.  The launch of our Pilsen Campus in the Mexican-American neighborhood of Chicago is forcing us to address issues that we've probably always had.  Even before Pilsen, our campuses were different.  Montgomery-Oswego and Hometown sit in communities with large Hispanic populations.  Romeoville has a significant African-American presence.  There are also socio-economic differences between our sites.  Some of our campuses are located in affluent cultures.  Others are not.  I have more questions than answers when it comes to these differences, but here are two thoughts...

Represent your ministry visually with who you hope to become.  I'll never forget a conversation I had with a friend of mine after a Sunday service.  She feels called to help us bridge cultural gaps.  We were talking about the pictorial slideshow that accompanied the teaching pastor's talk.  She mentioned something I hadn't even noticed...all but one of the couples represented in the presentation were white with the exception of one African American couple that was on the screen during the part of the talk that dealt with marital problems.  She simply wanted someone to notice so that the next time we might think differently about the visuals we select.  That simple conversation stuck with me.  I think about it everytime we make a flyer, PowerPoint presentation, website, banner, or video.  I want every child and family to see themselves in our ministry.  Make sure your visuals accurately reflect the community your church is in (not necessarily your existing congregation if that congregation isn't reflective of the surrounding community).  If you have campuses that are different but will be sharing a visual resource, take the time to collect pictures that show the diversity reflected in every campus.  Take the time to travel to a site to get a picture or video clip even if it would be significantly easier just to collect these images at one site.  It is important to demonstrate that you recognize and value all people.

Level the resource playing field with a centralized budget.  I think the decision the leaders of CCC made to structure our multi-site church with one shared budget has helped us negate economic differences between our campuses.  Our offerings from 8 locations go into one centralized budget.  And every year that budget is divided up based on the number of attenders at each campus (as opposed to the amount of money each campus collects in offerings).  The truth is that CCC campuses that are in wealthier neighborhoods undoubtedly contribute financially to the campuses that are in less affluent communities.  Everyone ends up having an equal chance to provide quality programming and to buy necessary supplies.  Not only do I think this is great, I think it's Biblical.

Those are just two thoughts.  We're starting to wrestle with cultural questions related to the curriculum we write but I don't have any insights there yet.  Does anyone else have suggestions? 

What's in a Word?

Is language important?  I think it is very important.  Language communicates so much about values, vision, and culture.  Here are three ways I try to be intentional about language in our children's ministry:

Use language that values every one of your sites.  At CCC, we avoid words like "main campus" or "satellite campus" or "mother ship."  No matter how your sites are structured, make sure your language communicates value to every site.  Our first site is by far the largest, but to call it the main campus inherently implies that all the other sites are secondary or less.  I want the staff and volunteers at our smallest site to feel as important as those at our largest...because they are!  Use language that values each site equally...it will encourage the newer, smaller sites and keep them from resenting their older siblings...and it will challenge those at your older, larger sites to value and consider the perspective of their newer partners.

Hijack the cultural language of your church to cast vision in your children's ministry.  The lead team and adult ministries have been extremely effective at creating a cultural language at CCC.  Ask anyone who has been coming here for a few weeks what our church's mission is and they could probably rattle off "helping people find their way back to God."  It wouldn't take more than a month or two to know that the 3C's mean Celebrate, Connect, and Contribute.  So when our children's team was trying to formulate a statement to clearly communicate our mission to parents, we decided to utilize the language they were already hearing.  We challenge every adult in our church to become a 3C Christ-follower.  So if that is the target for adults, why not begin to aim for it while they are children?  Our mission in Kids' City is to help families raise growing, 3C Christ-followers.  What words or phrases have become part of your church's cultural language?  How can you use those same words to formulate and cast vision for your ministry?

Create language unique to your multi-site children's ministry team.  Say the phrase "floor plan vision" to any of our Campus Directors and they'll know exactly what you mean.  Ask them about a "zone event" and they'll have no problem explaining it to you.  Most would know exactly what you were talking about if you used the word "buffalo."  These phrases probably mean nothing to you as they don't to the rest of our CCC staff.  But I think these phrases help unite our Campus Directors.  I want to become very intentional about formulating key phrases that are unique to our Kids' City team.  Common language creates a sense of "in the know" connectedness.  It's one more way to bridge the physical distance between our campus teams.