The Closet
December 29, 2009 | Category: The Closet | Leave a Comment
THE CLOSETI have to admit that I’m a big FRIENDS fan. And for the entire first 7 seasons there was a door in Monica’s apartment that no one knew what it was. Finally in season 8, they show us this messy pile of junk. Monica in defense of her mess tells Chandler something along the lines of, “You know how I like to have categories for all our stuff? Well, this is all the things that don’t fit into one of those categories. So see its not a mess, it’s over organization.”
This page is kinda like that closet. It holds all the stuff that doesn’t fit elsewhere.
Tags: extras, helpful, random, Videos
The Dropbox
September 5, 2010 | Category: Stuff you should steal, The Closet | Leave a Comment
So I’m the guy thats always needing to transfer files from one computer to another! And sure I have a flash-drive attached to my keyring and sure I’ve had to email files to myself to get what I worked on at home to the office where the printer resides. But a couple of moths ago I relocated to a church, and with said relocation upgraded video editing hardware to the world of Apple. What I encountered was a tedious exchange of plugging and unplugging the flash drive from the Mac to the PC (yeah our office hasn’t converted so publisher is on the laptop). Well, wouldn’t you know that they’ve invented yet another helpful wonder in the world of technology that has solved this problem for me permanently! It’s called the dropbox!
The Dropbox defies all logic and is on its way to rendering flash-drives obsolete, well maybe not, but its definitely a huge time saver. Its basically an online server. You simply download the dropbox and it installs a universal folder that is accessible from wherever you have internet service. So that means work on a text document at home and save it to the dropbox and then open up your work computer and bam! there it is. Or if your like me and you show videos during your Wednesday night service and you edit them on a different computer than you show them on. You simply save them into the dropbox and open them up on the display computer and your in business. Its that simple. All you have to do is create a dropbox account and then download the app on whatever computer you need to use it on. Also, if you have an iPhone you can download it on there as well, which is really cool. For instance I spoke a few weeks ago at a friends Back to School Bash and saved my outline in the dropbox and then right before I got up to speak I pulled it up on my iPhone and went over it once more before taking the stage. Oh, and did I forget to mention you can share a folder with another dropbox user? My good friend is helping build our new ministry a website, and we have a shared “WEBSTUFF” folder that I save information and images I want on the site in. He’s able to access it from his computers that have dropbox on them. It has proven to be a great asset to my regular week and saved me quite a bit of time emailing and saving on flash-drives. The best part of all is “ITS FREE!” That’s right for up to 2GB of storage you simply sign up, download, and use for free. In addition to the 2GB of storage if you sign up through a friends recommendation you score an extra 250MB of space, likewise if you refer someone to use it. So my gift to you, and yours to me is if dropbox sounds like its for you. Simply click the link below and get started. You’ll never be without that file again.
http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTk5MzkzNzk5
Tags: awesome, cheap, dropbox, file sharing, folders, helpful, technology, thrifty, unconventional
Back from the hiatus…
August 16, 2010 | Category: The Closet | Leave a Comment
I know, I know I’ve been gone forever and all three of you followers have missed me. So I wanted to let you know that I’ve be dreaming, working, raising girls, impregnating my wife and starting new ministry. Which I won’t lie has been overwhelming. But I have some wonderful videos in store and as fall brings me some extra time. Thanks for your patience and check back soon.
-Matt
Million Miles Film Contest
April 22, 2010 | Category: The Closet, Videos | Leave a Comment
Hey we are entered in author Don Miller’s Million Miles short film contest, and I’m asking for your help. Here’s how you can help, Vote!!! You can vote once a day from each computer you can get access to (ie. your home, your work, your iPhone). Please click the link below and click on the thumbs up! Then if you don’t mind please let your friends know to vote too. Post it on your facebook, twitter it out, call your friends, mass email, whatever ways you can think of. It will be deeply appreciated:
Here’s the link to the video: http://bit.yl/9DeruK
Tags: crazy, extras, funny, Help, humor, matt rothacher, odd, random, unconventional, Video, Videos
Strategy in Staffing Volunteers
April 19, 2010 | Category: Stuff you should steal, The Closet | Leave a Comment
Several years ago I was looking for wisdom on how to restructure our ministry to be prepared to handle ministering to hundreds of teenagers, I took my wife, pastor, and at that time our lone volunteer to Indian Springs Baptist Church in Bryant Arkansas the ministry that Mark Cox now heads up. I learned a lot during that visit and rather than tell you how I handle adults I asked Mark to share how he does it:
I didn’t get into youth ministry because I’m organized.
God called me.
He equipped me to start.
He’s been equipping me ever since.
That means I wasn’t a genius right out of college.
Have you ever taken a spiritual gift inventory multiple times over the course of a couple years and seen different responses each time?
I have. The crazy thing is that as I grow, I can see God changing my desires and gifts. For example, I’m not a natural speaker. The first ten talks I gave should’ve been video taped and kept on hand for entertainment purposes. Seriously, you’d laugh. Things have changed over the years as I learn what works and what doesn’t in that arena, as well as many others.
This change is especially happening in me in the area of organization. Let me pause for a moment to issue a quick disclaimer. I’m not what most people would call organized. If my youth workers are reading this, they’re most likely laughing to themselves, knowing that this is definitely not where my gifts lie. And I would agree! But since I started in full-time ministry five years ago, I’ve really grown in this area.
One of the key areas that demand organization in youth ministry is volunteer staffing. It’s probably not a surprise to you that youth ministry happens largely on the backs of committed volunteers that make the thing happen week in and week out.
One of the major pitfalls of youth pastors is to recruit volunteers into standing around on Wednesday nights. The excitement usually dies after about a month, when the volunteer usually ends up feeling like they aren’t really helping with anything. And in most cases, they’re not. But it’s not their fault. It is the job of the youth pastor to invite volunteers into the youth ministry for two main purposes:
- To provide an environment for teenagers in which they can experience God in a real way.
- To give the volunteer a vehicle for spiritual growth in their own life (serving = growth)
Sadly, a bunch of volunteers end up dropping out because they don’t feel like they’re making a difference (read: they’re not growing). If we’re not leading adults into an organized vehicle for serving, they will drop out.
Our strategy for staffing volunteers goes a little something like this (before I go on, you should know this article isn’t about recruiting volunteers; it’s about what you do with them once you get them).
- Only do what only you can do. I stole this line from Andy Stanley because it’s genius. If you’re the one person in your church that can communicate God’s love to teenagers, why are you spending all your time running a vacuum or picking up the pizza? Invest most of your time into preparing excellent messages! Before you start recruiting volunteers, you need to know what you’re great at. Start with the three things that you’re great at. These are the things that make you super-valuable to your church. These things are why you got hired. Focus on these things and have volunteers help you with the rest.
- Define the needs of your student ministry. What do you offer to your students each week? Do you serve food? Do you play games? Does your room need to be clean? Each of these areas need to be covered. Decide from the beginning that you’re not going to get involved in these areas, other than providing leadership and resources to those who will.
- Save yourself time by delegating authority. This is simple, but dangerous. Some of your volunteers have gifts in the area of leadership. Put the volunteers that you would trust with your children over the other volunteers. To do this, separate the major areas of service into departments, and staff each one of them with a volunteer leader. For example, our student ministry contains five major areas (Inside Operations, Outside Operations, Crowd Control, Service Programming, and Counseling. Everything that we do is broken down under these five areas of service. For instance, the café that we open each week falls under the leadership of Inside Operations. The parking lot attendants fall under the leadership of Outside Operations. I don’t ever need to be worried about having enough counselors at the end of a talk, because my Counseling Director has that taken care of. In order to do this, it takes two strong elements: leadership and organization. If you want to expect people to be strong in their area of leadership each week, it takes continual direction. Also, instead of offering the eternally-coveted “stand outside and make sure no one dies, is making out, or making pipe bombs in the parking lot” task, you give your volunteers authority. You can usually make this change pretty simply. It’s all about the words you use to achieve the same result. Instead of asking someone to watch the students in the parking lot (boring), invite them to ensure that each and every student is able to enjoy their experience while they’re outside. That takes care of a lot of simple tasks (welcoming, keeping it safe, hanging with them). The difference isn’t in the tasks that need to be taken care of. It’s all in inviting someone into a greater responsibility than just a watchman. After all, are you in youth ministry because you like to supervise kids? I’m guessing not.
- After you’re done coaching your volunteers, coach them some more. This is hard for me to talk about because it’s a personal weakness of mine. It’s natural for me to think that the initial direction was enough to inspire people to commit to excellence for an entire year of weekly service. This just isn’t the case. Everyone needs to be reminded why they serve, and what’s expected of them. The easiest way to do this is to creatively show them the effect they have on what happens. As I said before, it’s inevitable for volunteers to fall into the “I’m not making a difference” trap. Murphy’s Law applies to everyone. Fight this! One of my volunteers once told me something that changed the way I looked at youth workers for the rest of my life. She said, “Mark, you just need to treat us like we’re 3rd graders.” I immediately reassured her that I had too much respect for them to do that. She then helped me to understand that everyone needs reminders; even the most committed youth workers. Think about all the things a 3rd grade teacher has to remind her students of. How many times do they need to be reminded that they have homework to do, or to turn in permission slips? Exactly.
It’s all pretty simple once you recognize a couple important goals:
- What am I really good at?
- What are the things that I would ruin if I got involved?
- What services do we want to offer our students each week?
- How many people is it going to take to pull all of this off each week?
The beautiful thing about learning how to organize your volunteers in the environments is that it frees you up to focus on what you do best – the thing you got into youth ministry for, to see teenagers’ lives changed!
You can download Mark’s Volunteer application: YW Application (Final)
And the Remix Job Descriptions here: Remix Positions Packet
-Mark Cox is one of the premier youth pastors in the state of Arkansas and his passionate and sincere heart is still serving the people at Indian Springs Baptist Church in Bryant Arkansas. To get more from Mark check out his blog www.thinknextnow.com, and be sure to get his insights via twitter, and catch up with him on facebook.
Tags: adults, awesome, discipline, extras, great ideas, How To, ideas, volunteers, Wednesday night, youth ministry
Twitt'rings...
- Been on hold for 30 minutes with Suddenlink tech support. But my call is important to them
- @markhcox Bears... Beats... Battlestar Galactica! Truthfully to many to quote.
- Watching the hogs with my SS peeps. Good stuff!
- 59 - 6 I hope so.
- RT @Captain_Rojo: Da people in Cabot must needs a little extra help with things. Ja ja ja http://yfrog.com/cbx43nj