Pastor Ron Brooks

Action Bible review and contest from David C Cook

Ron Brooks — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:29:35 +0000

I had a chance to read and review the comic book style Action Bible (and New Testament, Handbook, and Devotional). In my opinion they are great for boys, all the way through pre-teen age. I also didn’t want to give you just my opinion on the Action Bible series, so I took them to church to ask the boys their thoughts. I share their response and more—- If you are interested in reading the review, or a chance to win, check out more details here:

Action Bible Review and Giveaway

4 Leadership Lessons from Moses

Ron Brooks — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:37:42 +0000

Exodus 17:8-9 The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”

In these verses we find Moses and the Israelites attacked by the Amalekites. If you continue reading the story, there are several things that we can learn from Moses and his leadership.

Moses had God with him

Moses took the staff of God with him. Any time Moses faced a situation, or God wanted to do a miracle, the staff was there. Think back to the plagues, parting the Red Sea, and getting water from a rock. It was not that Moses had a magical staff. The staff was a symbol of God’s Power. Carrying the Staff of God was a reminder that God was with him.

Leadership Lesson #1: A great leader does nothing without God present

Moses was not alone.

Exodus 17: 10 So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.

Even though God was with Moses that was not enough. Moses did not face the battle by himself. He had a right and left hand man with him.

To paraphrase Michael Jordan—your talent may win you the game, but it takes teamwork to win the championship. There is much value in a team.

Leadership Lesson #2: A great leader builds a team

Moses accepted help

Exodus 17:11-12 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. ¹²When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset

As long as his arms were up, the Israelites were winning the battle. As he lowered his arms, the Amalekites were winning. Moses could rely on his own strength for only so long before he grew tired. If he only counted on his own strength, the Israelites would only win for so long, but at the end of the day he would be too tired, and they would have lost. But the good thing is Moses did not just bring along his team just so he wasn’t alone. He accepted their help in holding up his arms. When Moses was too tired, they came alongside of him and held him up so their army saw success. Where Moses was weak, Aaron and Hur were strong. It is not enough to just build a team. Hopefully those on your team have strengths that are different than yours.

Leadership Lesson #3: A great leader allows the team to help in areas the leader is weak

Moses celebrated the success

At the Lord’s prompting, Moses wrote down the story of the victory. As a way of celebrating and remembering, he built an altar. Generations of people to follow would be able to look at the altar and be reminded, as well as read the scrolls to see how Moses was obedient and God was faithful and the Israelites were victorious.

Exodus 17:14-15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner.

There is nothing better to help get us through a tough time than to think back to past events when we were successfull. Success is a pwerful motivator. It is important to celebrate when we are successfull, and it helps to reference past successes when trying to press forward in a trying situation.

Leadership Lesson: #4 A great leader celebrates success

So what do you think about the lessons in leadership from Moses? Who else can you think of that we can learn some leadership lessons from? How can you apply these lessons to your own leadership?

My notes from #cpc13 session on God’s Truth with @sheilawalsh

Ron Brooks — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 02:10:49 +0000

As promised, I am taking notes at the Childrens Pastor Conference. As this is my first conference with a iPad, so I am taking my notes with that, and will post them for you. Keep in mind, these are first draft notes, very raw. I hope they make sense, but keep in mind I have not processed anything. I hope to go back through to expand and add my own thoughts at a later time.

God is doing a new thing–Denomination walls are falling. It does not matter, God is calling us to rise up

Isaiah 43 God wants us to know how much he loves us
We can’t pass on to others what we do not have ourselves
Sometimes we are overwhelmed by what we do not have, when all that really matters is what we do have

Initiative number 1
Imparting Gods truth
But what is that truth?
1. We have a great God
2. We have a real enemy
3. We are not home yet

#1 We have a great God

Have we forgotten that God loves us? We hear it so much we become accustomed to it, do we ever forget it? Or stop believing it?

We cannot protect anyone from something that God allows.
Before someone can know God loves them or not, there is the fact that he died and rose again for them.

having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:14, 15 NIV84)

Jesus canceled the record of out sin.

#2 The enemy is not omniscient

He is a liar, the father of lies.He brings lies to us, but he has no idea if we will fall for his tricks. He will keep trying, but he doesnt know the outcome. That is why we need to know God’s word against his schemes.

when you believe a lie of the enemy, it is like standing at the top of the stairs. If you believe, then you take a step down.

Each lie you believe, it is taking a step down away from where you should be, until you are in the cellar.When you know the bible, you can stand against the lies. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, his defense was “it is written” and eventually the enemy left him.There is power in knowing the Bible.

#3 We are not home yet, we are on a detour
in the world of shepherding, sometimes a mother ewe will reject its baby. The shepherd can do nothing to convince the mother to accept the baby lamb. If the shepherd does not intervene, the lab will die of heartbreak from the rejection.

The shepherd takes care of the ‘bummer labs’ as they are called. When strong enough, the lamb is introduced back into the flock. When the shepherd calls the sheep, the bummer lambs are the first to come running, because they know the shepherds voice so well.

How well do you know God’s voice?

That is why he is called the Great Shepherd–because he takes care of us when no one else will. When we face rejection, remember God loves broken people.God loves broken people it is ok to be broken come as you are….you dont have to tidy up in order to come to God

Anyone want FREE access to CM+?

Ron Brooks — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:37:46 +0000

If you are a part of children’s ministry at all there is a good chance you are familiar with cmconnect.org. If you are not, I highly suggest you check it out. It is a great place to share ideas, and the networking aspect is awesome.

This past week, Michael Chanley (creator of cmconnect) and team rolled out a great new training tool called CM+.

CMConnect+ provides an enhanced training group designed to network you with of community of leaders.

Members receive the following:

access to a growing list of archived trainings (current value over $20)

a 10 to 15 minute exclusive monthly video from a thought leader in Children’s Ministry

exclusive weekly discussions hosted by INCM

bi-monthly MP3 uploads from INCM ($96 annual value)

This content is designed to give members access to exclusive content for developing as a leader in Children’s Ministry. You will not only enhance your CMConnect experience, you’ll also improve your ability to lead in our unique calling!

So far there are several audio sessions from last years Children’s Pastors Conference (CPC). I am very excited since I have not yet been able to attend one of these great annual conferences. I am looking forward to listening and learning from some great leaders through the audio sessions. I also can’t wait to start the content provided for CMConnect+ members to earn a certificate in “The Basics of Children’s Ministry: The Five Initiatives of INCM.” I have been told that this is just the beginning of the resources to be added to this group.

I have the special opportunity to give away 10 ‘free one month trial memberships’. Since I am able to share this learning opportunity with you, I would like you to share something with me. The first 10 people to comment below and share about a favorite learning experience will win a free month access. It could be your favorite teaching technique. Or maybe your favorite learning memory from when you were in school. Share something and win!

Free Friday: Free (and sale) Apps for iPad/iPhone

Ron Brooks — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:57:12 +0000

Assuming you are one of the millions of people who own an iPhone or iPad, you know how easy it is to browse around the app store. It is not hard to find some way to spend your app store gift cards.
If you aren’t lucky enough to have a spare iTunes card laying around, you can try what I do to stretch your app dollars. I have found several websites that monitor the price of apps, and they will feature apps that go ‘on sale’ or even free.
If you want to go a step further, you can even sign up to receive emails from the sites to receive sale notification. I have enough junk mail, so I just visit the site directly. There are even apps that you can download to browse sale and free apps, but again, I prefer to visit the site directly.
http://www.iosnoops.com/

This is my favorite of the three because of the rating system. When you see an app you are interested in you can click to see a description. If you scroll down toward the bottom you will see “Our Verdict”. I have found the verdict to be pretty accurate.
The following two sites are very similar, but sometimes will feature different apps.
http://appshopper.com/
http://www.bestappsales.com/

As with anything, use your own discretion when purchasing/downloading apps. With hundreds of thousands of apps available, many of them are not of very good quality. Many times I have downloaded an app only to have to delete it after two minutes because it did not do what it was supposed to do.

What kind of apps do you use? Do you know any other sites to find sale or free apps? Leave a comment and let me know.

FamilyTalk ranks #18 on an Amazon best seller list!

Ron Brooks — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:30:17 +0000

You may have seen some earlier posts I wrote about Family Devotion times, or my book- FamilyTalk: a guide to family devotions. Whether you have seen the posts or not, I have some exciting news to share.

After much reading, learning, and experimenting I finally formatted my book for Amazon. The link went live on New Years Day, and after a few sales and several reviews from people that already had the print version, FamilyTalk ranked #18 on Amazon’s Best Sellers list for its category. That means out of over 300 books in the category, it ranked #18 in it’s first day!

Check out FamilyTalk on Kindle!

That may not mean much to you, but that was very exciting for me. It was not long after that I noticed it was #1 in the Hot New Releases for it’s category.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it is listed at a great price right now on Amazon. If you have a Kindle, or a Kindle app on an ipad or iphone this would be a great investment for your family. If you decide to get a copy, don’t forget to leave me a review! And you are welcome to post your thoughts here too

2012 in review

Ron Brooks — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:08:19 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Top Thoughts this Year

Ron Brooks — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 01:21:59 +0000

I was checking though some stats, and realized something. Several months ago I posted (what I thought would be) my last post here as I moved all of my posts to my new site. The funny thing is, because of the way different search engines work, this site often gets more traffic than my new site. I put links here to my new site, but it seems not everyone followed the links, so I lost some of you in the process. Please consider following/subscribing on my new site, since I update that much more than I do here.

Since you may have missed some of my recent posts, I thought I would take a few minutes to share a few of the top posts from this year, many of them coming after I moved.

By far. my most popular post was “how to talk to your kids when tragedy strikes”

I posted this recently in response to the Connecticut elementary school shooting. I shared a few of my own thoughts, as well as links to many other resources to help you talk to your kids after a tragedy. I was also privileged to interview Wayne Stocks and Linda Ranson Jacobs on a special podcast. They are both very experienced when it comes to helping kids through tragic events. You can listen here.

Some other popular posts:

Questions to ask when in Leadership

If Christians were birds

5 classroom and behavior management tips and tricks

Laying a spiritual foundation in our kids

What is Family Ministry

I am considering posting more here as well as my new self hosted blog, but I ask you to consider subscribing over there to make sure you dont miss anything.

As always, thanks for reading, and feel free share your thoughts with a comment!

I’m moving!!!

Ron Brooks — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:00:52 +0000

Thanks to all of you that read along as I type some of my thoughts. It is humbling to think that anyone would find my ramblings worth reading. I appreciate each and every one of you. And I would like to tell you of my big move!

I am moving my blog to pastorronbrooks.com

I have enjoyed my time on a free wordpress blog, but there are quite a few new things that I am learning that I can do on my own site that I cannot do with a free site. All of my posts here have already transferred over.

I encourage you to connect with me at my new site. I hope you will follow me over there. You can follow me or sign up by email, just like you could here. Please take a minute to subscribe or follow me over there. I don’t want to lose our connection! Take a look around the new site and let me know what you think.

Click to connect to my new home: pastorronbrooks.com

CMLeaders: 2 Characteristics of an effective leader

Ron Brooks — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:19:43 +0000

Listening to all the different aspects of leadership over the two days of CMLeaders was great. Reading through some notes, I did find some pieces that fit well together: pieces from multiple speakers. One of the bigger pictures that I found could be called ‘Characteristics of a Good Leader’.

#1 A good leader pays attention to patterns

This works on tow different levels. First, you need to be aware of the fact people are looking at you, and often imitating you. I have a lot of experience working with kids, and this is so true. The behavior pattern you model is the behavior pattern you will encourage. If you are a high-strung, disorganized, paranoid person, the kids around you will tend to pick up on that and imitate your behavior. On the other hand, if you model organization, thoughtfulness, kindness and any number of positive qualities, you will automatically enforce those qualities in the kids around you.

This is not only important when you are leading kids, but it holds true when leading adults as well. If you complain, are disorganized, unhappy, that will trickle down through those under you, and it will be increasingly more difficult to keep them motivated. If you remain positive, encouraging, uplifting, guess what. That will permeate your team as well and it will become easier to lead your team.

#2 A good leader knows the balance between imitation and innovation

There is no reason you have to reinvent the wheel. There are so many great ideas out there, so many people doing what you do, and often doing it better than you. There is no reason you can’t learn from those people, read those resources, or search for new ideas. The problem comes when we settle for imitation. We try to do exactly what the guy down the street is doing. We forget, however, that the circumstances surrounding their success is different from your circumstances. You can apply the exact same idea in two different situations and get two different results, because much of the success rests on the situation, not the idea.

The better solution would be to combine the imitation with a little innovation. There is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas. I share ideas all the time, and I borrow ideas from others. The key to success is to add your own innovation to that idea. You need to adapt the idea to fit your situation. You know your kids you deal with. You know your leadership team. You have a good idea of what will work and what won’t work. So take a good idea and add your own spin to it. Imitate others, but do not sacrifice your own innovation. Your own twist will be the secret to your success.

These 2 characteristics were taken from speakers Michael Chanley and Brian Dollar. I did choose to relay you the information I heard through my own filter, so some of my thoughts are mixed in with theirs.

Check out their blog or twitter accounts if you are interested in learning more from either of them. They are great guys!

michaelchanley.com/ briandollar.com/

@michaelchanley @brian_d_dollar

If you could add another characteristic of a good leader, what would you add?