So I have seen a few children’s ministry tour/remodelling pictures where there are seemingly amazing facilities filled with beautiful stages, incredible murals on the wall and spectacular entrances and their sitting in the middle of the picture are chairs.

Now first of all I get over the pangs of jealousy generated by the permanent facilities and I realise that of course the room is set up for a photo shoot.

But I have seen it a number of times in photos and videos of weekend services with kids spread all over the room – In the back of the room, in the sides… holes and spaces throughout the crowd.

There is only one reason for this – the chairs are set up before the kids arrive in the room.

Huh?

You mission in life is to help these kids connect with God and with each other and you take one of your tools – seating – and leave it to chance?

Here are three rules of seating I just made up:

1. Have the same amount of seats as kids
2. Never have seats set out during praise and worship times
3. Teach your kids the seating system/plan/fun way of making this tool work for you

One of the first things I did as a children’s pastor was change the way we setup chairs in our services… there were probably more important things but it’s what I did okay

Why do you put the chairs out?

My mind is very focussed right now. In fact it can only really fit a couple of things in it and I have reached capacity.

There are two main projects which are at their almost final end.

1. Our fourth Hillsong Kids Big curriculum – I am excited about this and we have a final video shoot next week, but I really want it to be done. (It also differs slightly from our first three so stay tuned for details!)

2. The DVD of Crazy Noise. Our first ever preschool album CD was released in Aus. last November and will be launching worldwide early this year with a DVD as well… so it’s kinda all happening right now, and because its a studio alum not a live one there is a lot more content that needs filming and a bunch of creative ideas that need to be idea-ed-afied.

So this blog takes a back seat, but I look forward to writing some posts about the creative, songwriting and filming processes that will hopefully be helpful!

Talk soon!

My passions are pretty obvious… especially when it comes to food, and the incomparable Eva Stringleman provided a rather inventive Christmas present this year for yours truly!

Knowing my love of Chocolate in it’s many forms both milk and dark AND my devotion to Pepsi Max she devised the ultimate taste test for me. Can I tell the difference between 5 different forms of chocolate and can I taste the difference between Pepsi Max and Coke Zero?

Most people overestimate the ability of their taste buds to differentiate between subtle differences in food and drink. Professional food taster is actually a job, and usually requires a degree in food science. So I was not going to believe this would a simple task.

First of all I melted the five chocs into an ice cube tray because I would have been able to tell the difference in the shape of the squares – eg. Lindt has a very thin flat piece. Then put them into the fridge to harden again (now i’m not sure that affects the consistency of the chocolate but I think it worked ok!)

While I sat blindfolded Beci handed me small pieces of the chocolate to try and I tried to figure which brand they were.

So the result!

I was able to pick each of the different chocolates and got a 2/3 for Pepsi vs. Coke!

But it wasn’t as clear cut as I expected, quite a challenge to pick exactly what I was eating…

Anyway, I award this blog post ‘Random Post of the Year’, and would like to thank my sponsor Eva Stringleman for her brilliant idea!

Taste Test

For those of you interested the 5 Chocolates were:

• Nestlé Club Chocolate
• Lindt EXCELLENCE Dark 70%
• Cadbury Old Gold 70%
• Whittakers 50% Dark Block
• Whittakers 72% Dark Ghana

NOTE: I have a soft spot for Whitakers Chocolate a New Zealand family business dating back to 1896!

Occasionally I’ll read about the life of another person or at least the aspect they are sharing in the interview or book and think “Man, I wish I had that life”.

Usually the story will involve a private jet, holiday resort or some seemingly unattainable icon of insane wealth, which may have something to do with the mild fit of jealousy.

Then I remember what I get to do.

But not in a ‘fairy dust with unicorns’ kind of way, more like a I REALLY believe that I am living in the plan and purpose of God kind of way!

Knowing the infatuation that our culture has with celebrity, I have asked kids before if they would rather be famous and divorced or… have a wonderful marriage and be completely unknown in Hollywood…

Okay – I’ll admit, that question doesn’t really work. The ‘complete lack of romantic interest in the opposite sex until hormones kick in’ may have something to do with it.

But the truth is that God’s will trumps everything and I believe God is more concerned with WHO we are becoming rather than WHAT we are doing.

The grass is greener — right here!

It’s time for a random yet related fact.

So think about how many individual images go to make up a Pixar movie… the average frame (a movie has 24 frames per second) takes about seven hours to render, although some can take nearly 39 hours of computing time. (Source: Wired Mag)

P.S. Rendering definition here.

Finish of random but related fact.

We are creating our latest Hillsong Kids Big curriculum of which the media we produce is a very important part…

Why… In our culture because of the proliferation of media it is used to segregate and divide (you are defined by the music you like and the TV you watch – Hip Hop, Emo, Country, Pop, Beiber have their ‘tribes’). Having all your kids watch the same media at church is a small step in the effort to unite and build community.

So that’s why I’m wearing gold tights, drinking Pepsi Max and spending untold hours filming a ‘Christmas Story’.

It’s worth it.

For approx 35 minutes of video:

• Pre production: (Writing scripts/Recording songs): about 100 Hours
• Filming: 31 Hours

So here’s the thing. I have tried to film at least 5 different new leaders training videos over the last few years. But seriously it seems like every time we try something happens. We have hard drives fail, lost footage, evil clowns steal tape (not really).

It felt like there was a spiritual battle going on for the soul of our new leaders and powers beyond my understanding were working against me to stop this video from being created – (“what do you mean exaggeration???”)

But instead of deterring me, my resolve only got more resolved, and my gumption got more gumptionfied - I cast out the demons of fear and loss and tried again

How you start something is very important and I want to give our new team members the best start possible.

I believe that in our multi campus Church that including this video with all of our new leaders applications will really help give them that great start. This is one part of getting new team involved.

Here is the video:

Hillsong Kids New Leaders Training

Things that are awesome!

Number 1: Funny man Dan No. 8

Number 2: Steve and Jeremy

Number 3: Full Episode 1 from Hillsong Kids Big: Supernatural!

Big Message 1: Supernatural BiG

Number 4: Top 100 Baby!

I am honoured to be number 7 on the list of Top Children’s Ministry Blogs. (down from last year though!)

And that’s what is awesome!

So it’s clear from being at the brilliant Activate Conference with Tammy Tolman that there a lot of people in Kidmin that have a story about the infamous flash paper.

Flash Paper to Coin from Nathan LeGros on Vimeo.

So if you have ever used flash paper and lived to tell the tale, please share below…

I will share a fellow kids pastor experience of using a candle to light the flash paper and getting a small amount of wax on the paper which ended up on the youth pastors face after being thrown into the audience.

Share away! (Especially you gospel type illusionists/magicians)

There are a couple of awesome posts I wanted to highlight from our Hillsong Collected Blog.

The first is from our Senior Pastor Bobbie Houston all about doing ministry and life with children well, and the second is a recap of our Kidsong conference at Hillsong Europe!

“How do you balance family life and ministry life?”

This has to be possibly THE most frequently asked question in forums like this, and especially by young women in that fabulous season of early motherhood. However having said that, the question applies to pretty much every season of life, because there isn’t a season in any of our lives, where we don’t (or shouldn’t) feel something of the stretch and pressure of that new season.

Have you noticed that one word dominated this first paragraph … Seasons!!

This is the final installment of this little series. Thanks for everyone’s questions – we finished up the main studio time of our latest album and now it’s time to move on to our latest Curriculum filming. It’s that season which I will affectionally call ‘little sleep, much catering’.

Onwards for some questions.

Question 1: Love to hear about your point system or reward system in kidmin. – Cyrstal

I have found myself drifting over to the ‘no rewards’ side of the debate in Kidmin. I like the idea of example and relationship being the great motivator not lollies. But that being said, one of the most important things you need in order for kids to learn is FUN. Prizes are fun so we will use them!

See this post at Ministry-To-Children for an overview of the debate.

Here’s how we use them – we get little points stickers printed that say Hillsong Kids on them. And throughout our services we stick them on kids who are all divided into ‘pods‘ or teams. At the end of the service our ‘pod‘ leaders count the stickers and the team with the most wins a point for the leader board up the front of the room. At the end of each year just before Christmas we announce a winning team and all the kids in that team go into the draw for a big prize (like a Nintendo DSi or something).

This is for our primary school kids, we don’t really do it in our preteen age group, or with our toddlers.

Question 2: “Why do the All Blacks choke at every World Cup?” – Andy ‘I’m a weasel’ Kirk

For my international friends who don’t really follow Rugby there is a world cup going on right now in my homeland of New Zealand… (Even the U.S. has a team there!)

To answer your question Andy, I think I will just bide my time until the result is announced and the All Blacks win.