This is a great book. And reading it made me quit my job and move 9 hours away for something different, so be careful!

You wear headphones all day long? Geesh!

I'd use it to be more awesome!

This is where I would normally bully you about GMAIL's great search feature, and the lack of need to sort things into folders (even though you could put them in folders.) But I won't.

Holy Freaking Crap

Don't make me lose respect for you over this...go watch it!

that sound you hear is silence coming from me...

I think the idea needs to be pushed that we can do more to help those not serving full-time in ministry. I think that you have something there, but let's be careful to not judge to harshly those feeding us some great leadership tools. When I was in a smaller church I absorbed as much Jim Wideman as I could handle, and still do in a much larger environment. I'm trying to understand who those 'fan boys' are, without wondering if your talking about me.

One of the disadvantages of living an "online life." is that many never see or hear about anything done on a local level. Many of us in larger churches share resources. For the sake of humility (no matter how funny that sounds) I will not run down my list of things I'm doing to help those in more needy situations.

I'd love to see some thoughts on things the smaller churches and volunteer #kidmin people would like to see from us Macbook toting, starbucks drinking #kidmin. :) (and I mean that in a funny way, just poking fun!)

You have to have a landline? I haven't had a landline for 4 years! and I just stoppped giving out my phone number :)

I'm not sure that you're looking close enough for those hands-on materials that you seem to think are lacking in the #kidmin online universe. Not in the blogosphere, but the rest of the online world seems to be 90% tools (puppet tracks, object lessons, etc...) In fact if you hit any Christian bookstore you will find book after book after book after book covering topics for your next VBS.

I've been a #kidmin at small churches, and some not so small; and I just want to go on record saying that I appreciate the voice of some of our #kidmin "gurus" (your word, not mine.) I appreciate it that I can go online and read the stories of ministries that are so much farther down the road of progress than me. I love reading about how to be a better leader of large groups of volunteers, and I love to be challenged to think bigger and better than I am now.

And I say this as a person that has some major experience working in a small church setting, and know that I say this with great love. But we need to be careful to not use our small church environments as an excuse to NOT be creative leaders. I've seen it all too many times. They'll say "I don't have that budget, so we'll just watch this video all morning." "I don't have that support from my pastor, so I'll just keep things like they have been for 15 years..."

Ok, let those arrows fly in my direction.