I’ve been on staff at my church in preschool ministry for 13 years. When you’ve been in the same place doing much of the same thing for so long, it’s easy to get in a rut, stay in your bubble, and forget what it feels like to walk into your building and experience your children’s ministry for the first time. … Read More
3 Things I Learned Doing Children’s Ministry in a Bar
I am the Children’s Ministry Coordinator at City Church Houston, which is a fairly young church plant. Our vision is to renew Houston by bringing beauty into broken places, and it just so happens that we have church in a bar. Since day one our church has met at the House of Blues in downtown Houston, and our children’s ministry … Read More
The Major Shift in Worship and Children’s Ministry that No One Is Talking About
A cosmic paradigm shift has occurred in the worship and children’s ministries of many churches. And though somehow this shift seems to have occurred under the radar, church leaders are awakening to its true significance. For a large and vital segment of our congregations, the role of worship leader has been transferred out of the worship ministry and given to … Read More
Wonderfully Made: Choosing Life
I watched this video for the first time with tears streaming down my cheeks in the lobby of an Orlando hotel. We have been so blessed over the years to have our songs travel all over the nation and even occasionally around the world. (I’m not exactly sure how it happens, I just know that my ASCAP statement includes royalties from Norway.) … Read More
Advent Week 3: All Things New
The Creator The darkness must have been impossible to comprehend. It wasn’t a darkness like we experience, a temporary veil that hides imperfectly objects which we know will reappear with the sunrise. It was the darkness of a world that had never known light. It was the deep darkness of nothing. And then, in the beginning, a single word was … Read More
Advent Week 2: No Small Thing
A Head Above This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. God had rescued his people from slavery in Egypt. He had parted the sea and destroyed the pursuing Egyptian army. He had endured their idol-making and their incessant complaining, though he had provided for their needs at every step of the way. He had fulfilled his promise though they … Read More
Advent Week 1: Light and Darkness
The story goes that there was once a man with three sons who devised a test of wisdom to determine which of his sons would receive his estate. He brought his three sons to a large room in his house and gave each of them a small bag of coins. “Purchase something that can fill this room with the money … Read More
BYE, DADDY!
Kids have needs. Lots of needs. Constant, mind-numbing, are-you-serious, can-mommy-and-daddy-get-a-break kinds of needs. Evan, our oldest, just started kindergarten this year, and at first it was a bit of adjustment. (This adjustment may have involved a few tears, some blood-curdling screams, and gym-full of kindergarten parents thinking, “Awww, poor guy. Well, at least that’s not my kid…”) Fortunately, he adjusted … Read More
PRECIOUS HOPE
Lyla Hope was born on May 24. She spent three minutes on this earth before Jesus brought her home and made her whole again. Lyla Hope’s parents are good friends of ours and we watched in admiration as they walked every step of this difficult journey, from the time her condition was diagnosed through a season of desperate prayer until … Read More