I MOVED!!!

If you are looking for the blog for Dustin Aagaad, I moved sites. You can now find me at http://dustinaagaard.wordpress.com/ Thanks!

Parental Half Time by Bob Barnes

This is a great post from Bob Barnes via http://www.sheridanhouse.org/

If you are a parent of a school-aged child, January isn't really the beginning of your family's year; it is half-time. Your year began in August as the children started school and all their extra-curricular activities. The question is - what should you do during half-time? Coaches utilize the half-time break to instruct and encourage their players to finish strong and be successful. They evaluate and make the necessary adjustments. That's exactly how parents should view the first few weeks in January. As you reflect on this past year, are there any regrets regarding your parenting or family decisions? Ask yourself the question, "What would I have done differently with my children this first half of the year? What got away from us as a family?" As you review the first half - and you must - was there too much in your family schedule or was it just not enough of the best stuff? Chances are, it was a little of both; too busy and not making the best use of this year. This January, take full use of the half-time and finish the year strong. The most important element in a child's life is his/her personal faith development. It will directly affect each and every decision he/she makes and it will ultimately determine who they will become and how they will spend eternity. Therefore, it is imperative for you, as the parent, to put their spiritual development on the calendar each day. Some people have developed the habit of waking up early each morning to workout. Since their personal health and wellness are important to them, they make it a priority. Show your family that your #1 priority is their spiritual development. Lead your family each morning as they work out their salvation. Paul challenges us to work out our salvation God has placed in us when we come to Christ (Philippians 2:12). Helping your children work their salvation into their daily lives takes time, but it is extremely practical. Get the family disciplined to eat breakfast together at a table. While the children are eating, take a few minutes to read a passage from the Bible, and then spend the remainder of breakfast discussing what you just read. Finish breakfast with prayer. At the end of the day, be sure to follow-up with each of your children. Sit on the side of the bed with your children and pray with them before they go to sleep. Ask them what requests are on their hearts. Guide them through their prayer concerns and remind them later of answered prayer. Every great coach has a vision of victory for their players. As a parent, remember to look at the end of the game. In the years or months to come, when you are dropping your children off on a college campus, what do you want to make sure they know? I have to say, there are few parents who wish they had spent more time honing the child's soccer skills. I've never actually heard a parent say that they were disappointed that their child went off to college and walked away from soccer. No one has said that college so overwhelmed their child that he/she dropped a sport from their schedule. Over and over parents have asked me, "What did you do with your children to keep their faith in tact while they were in college?" My response was and is, "Both of my children actually grew their faith while they were away in college because it was a priority in their lives." Paul told his "children" at the Philippian church that they did what they needed to do when he was with them. Now, he was challenging them to continue to work Christ into the center of their lives when he wasn't with them. The same is true for our children when they are away at college and on their own. This is half-time. Don't go back out and play the same game during the second half. Make the appropriate adjustments. Go for the win. So, when the day comes for you to drop your child off at college, you'll be able to say, "I'm glad I did!" rather than "I wish I had!"

Answered Prayers from "Lift" Retreat

I began the New Year in Winter Place, West Virgina speaking at a Winter Retreat with 4 different youth groups from Florida & Georgia. Before I left I asked many people to pray for God to move in a mighty way. Well, this is a picture of one of the kids that gave his life to Christ. (Not the short one, that's me. He's the taller one with the mohawk.) I wanted you to see how real God answers your prayers. This is a real student, with real struggles, who just surrendered his life to a real God. Thank you to those who prayed for me & the students on this trip and thanks for partnering with me to expand His Kingdom!

My Son Riley's first Sermon

Last summer my family got together with a family from Hillsong Church in Australia (one of the most influential churches in the world). Through our time together their ministry to thousands not only inspired TJ & I but it also inspired our kids, both Riley and Callie Joy. Since our time together Riley (who is 6 years old) has said often that He'd like to one day minister to as many kids as Hillsong Kids Ministry does. So for some time He's been working toward speaking in the AZ Theater,which is our environment for 1-5 graders. We'll this past weekend He did just that during our 6 pm service and I couldn't be more proud of him. To see my 6 year old son speak and teach 1-5 graders was a true joy. I pray God continues to use him especially from a young age to glorify our Savior and King Jesus Christ. Thanks Hillsong Crew for your ministry and impact to a 6 year you that's never even been out of the country. May God continue to bless you as you continue to bless others.

Thankful for Martin Luther King

I just got finished watching this video with my kids and explaining to them why Martin Luther King Jr. was so important. Amazingly they couldn't comprehend why people would hate other people just because of the color of their skin. I am grateful for MLK as well as all the other black people before me that suffered and fought for what they knew to be true. Before my kids had their first ever dream, MLK's dream had become a reality. I can't think of how many good black friends I would have never known if his dream had not become a reality. Happy Martin Luther King day! May we as a nation and as a people continue to mature and root ourselves in loving one another as we are called to in the Bible.

Praying for Haiti

By now we are all aware of the horrible wreckage done by the earthquakes in Haiti on Tuesday, Jan 12th. This is horrific and breaks my heart personally, so I do not mean for the following to sound insensitive or belittling to the hugeness of the tragedy.

Last summer July 13 - 18 2009 during our Adventure Week aka LegoLand we challenged are kids & families to collect shoe boxes for kids and fill them with toilet tree stuff, books, toys, etc. We ended up collecting over 400 boxes. We worked through an Orlando based ministry called New Missions, check em out @ http://www.newmissions.org/ The goal was to deliver them for Christmas. But God always has the big picture in mind. Through unforeseen circumstances a team of missionaries headed over to Haiti to deliver our shoe boxes along with 9,600 others this past weekend and yes they are still there (pray for a safe return for them). So a total of 10,000 shoe boxes just arrived just outside Port au Prince just before the earthquakes. How God is that! No one is able to get in or out for aid but God is using our measly old shoe boxes to let Haitian families know they are not alone nor forgotten. I'm not dumb or being insensitive. I realize that a shoe box is a shoe box and it's not going to fix everything in Haiti. But I couldn't help but praise God when I found out that our little notes of love, prayers, and encouragement are hitting the people of Haiti during a time they need it most. Please continue to pray for the victims and families in Haiti and find ways to help by going to New Missions site @ http://www.newmissions.org/

Ski Trip

Lift Ski Trip

I spent last week in West Virginia with 4 youth groups as they came together for their Winter Retreat Ski Trip. I was there as their retreat speaker and had a blast getting to know them and all God is doing in thier lives and communities. Here was the video they collected and showed for day 1 of the trip.

Bring on the New Year!

Toward the end of last year I decided to take a brief leave from the blog for various reasons with the biggest reason being a lack of time. I spent some time praying and processing what this blog will look like in 2010 and what purpose it will serve. Here is what this site will strive to look like in 2010. I initially started a blog to communicate with my family through pictures, videos, and stories. However I am making a switch where the site will have very little personal family updates and will be mostly focused on 3 areas of ministry. 1) To collaborate and communicate with other Children Pastors (aka CM) from around the web. 2) To share with parents & leaders what is happening in & through FOkids. 3) To share personal insight on my own spiritual journey. I've decided to keep family updates to a minimum due to their safety. Might sound weird but I'm just trying to be careful of who is watching my family while anyone can access our website. If this sounds weird to you it's because you don't have the most adorable daughters in the world :) I look forward to moving forward with site. Happy New Year!

Taking a break

As you may have noiticed I am taking a break from the blog to realign the blogs purpose and direction. Will start back up in the new year. Thanks, keep praying God continues to move in my family, my ministry, and in my own life.

Leadership 101; a new era has begun!

A couple of weeks ago we embarked on a new program at FOkids that I am really excited about. It's simply called Leadership 101. The thought behind it was that I saw a trend with 5th graders. 1) I noticed that too many 5th graders were checking out of FOkids around the middle of their 5th grade year, that's a problem. 2) 5th graders have the most influence they have ever had and they have no clue what to do with it. Thus came Leadership 101: which is us simply teaching the basics of what it means to be a leader. All leadership teachings and principals come directly from the main man himself Jesus, the greatest leader to ever live. The format: we'll have 4-5 off site field trips for 5th graders only for us to have fun, connect with each other in unique settings, teach team building/leadership exercises, and end with a creative environmental leadership teaching from scripture. For example for our inaugural trip we went to a place called "Rebounderz". Rebounderz is an indoor trampoline warehouse. Their are trampolines on the floors and walls. Kids loved it. After that we did a variety of leadership exercises then I taught from Exodus 2:17, which says this, "So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds.” So right after jumping like monkeys for an hour we talked about how we need to be like Moses and jump up and rescues people. People all around us need to be rescued from loneliness, gossip, hate, etc. We taught the kids instead of being a coward, "Jump up and rescue people." Jump up and invite the lonely kid to sit with you. Jump up and defend your friend that people are gossiping about. Jump up and love someone needs to be love. At the end of the day the kids had a blast, connected with each other, and for most of them were taught leadership skills for the first time of their life. Great stuff and we couldn't have done it without the great leadership team that helped pull this off. Thanks Kevin Wendling, Stacey Simmons, and Suzi Barr. You guys ROCK!

Phenom Book!!!

I'm going to go on and say it, "the best book outside the Bible that has helped me grow in my faith is this book called 'Devotional Classics' by Richard Foster. Richard is the author of another great book called 'Celebration of Discipline'. The book isn't written by Foster but it is written by some of the greatest men and women of our faith all throughout history. By Christian greats such as C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, St. Augustine, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Martin Luther, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fancis of Assisi, and Soren Kierkegaard are just some of the authors. Richard takes a similar theme to his 'Celebration of Discipline' book by making this piece all about a variety of disciplines that helps us all draw closer to Christ and reflect Him more accurately. I must worn you though that in the introduction it does accurately say that this book and principals are not for everyone. They are by our 21st century standards foreign, difficult, and maybe even weird. However if you can hang with it this book has the power through Christ to continue to transform you more into His image.

Beach Baptism from 10/11

Several times a year we head over to the beach for Beach Baptisms. A couple of Sunday's ago we did this for the last time of the year. It was great. Check out the video. Dustin. FO peeps, you Rock! Let's keep advancing His Kingdom for His glory!

2009 Beach Baptism from Fellowship Orlando on Vimeo.

Riley's Big Adventure:

Ever since Riley was 2 years old he loved race cars and just wanted to be a race car driver. He never got the chance to drive anything beyond a typical go cart, until today. A friend told us how a local race track was having a special day for young kids to test out real "1/4 midget" race cars. This was a dream come true for Riley, he loved it. Enjoy and feel free to laugh out loud, Riley is ok and loving it!

Longer behind the scenes version



Shorter, to the point version.

Riley's Big Adventure from Dustin Aagaard on Vimeo.

Callie Joy's Joy Ride

Callie Joy went right after Riley. Due to her inability to steer the race car correctly they improvised. They pick up the car put it on a 4 wheel dolley and had 3 teenagers push her around the track. Best part is she swears she was driving all by herself. She had no clue about the kids or about the fact that she 4 inches off the ground. Enjoy!

"The people God hates" via CNN.COM

This was on the front page of CNN.COM This is frustrating in so many ways. No wonder many people view God in a bad light. No wonder so many people are spiritually confused. Ugggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Disney Institute: Day 4, Quality Service

Today I spent the first half of the day playing golf for the FCA fundraiser golf tournament. FCA has played a huge role in my life and making me the Christian leader I am today. You can find out more or support them at http://centralfloridafca.org/ I mention this because it meant I missed a good portion of the Disney Institute. But I'll give you what I got and what notes I was able to gather.

Today's topic was on "Quality Service". Quality: high degree of excellence. Service: meeting needs. Disney's definition of Quality Service is to 1) "Exceed our guest expectations". 2) "Pay attention to all the details."

Hollywood Studios: today we spent an hour at Disney's Hollywood Studios to observe the following: safety, courtesy, show, efficiency, process, cast, sets. The amazing part about Disney isn't that are so good but it's that even when you examine them they still are nearly flawless. I was reminded of the HUGE value of simply slowing down and examining your own footsteps to see where you are at and where you are heading so you can determine which way you may need to turn.

Great Quote: "You don't build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them." Walt Disney

Infrastructure: The greatest thing I heard all day was regarding a grid Disney uses to evaluate their current reality and to determine what should happening next. It's difficult to explain the grid but the premise is while thinking of your organization think of these three questions. 1) What in your organization are the non-negotiables. 2) What in your organization are obvious things you should be doing, things your clients expect you to do. 3) Lastly name the things that if you did they would be considered going above and beyond. I spent some time thinking about what these questions would mean within FOkids and I realized they truly are brilliant. They help you focus on the proper things at the proper time.

Disney Institute: Day 3, People Management

Today was another great day!

Create your Culture: "Don't let your culture just exist, craft it by design to what you want." Four components of a successful culture: 1) By design. 2) Well-defined. 3) Clear to all. 4) Goal-oriented. They walked us through the new hire orientation process which sets the tone in creating and crafting the culture they have. During the orientation they creatively and passionately share their heritage, traditions, standards, and values. This seems to be where they fully ingrain the new staff member into the Disney way. They don't rush this process and understand the value of building a strong foundation for each employee. This reminded me of the impact of a great new hire/volunteer process can have. Something I look forward to working on in the future. One other thought was they listed 5-8 things they specifically and physically do to discourage potential employees. They want to make it difficult to go through their application process. They want you to want to be there. They believe if they make the hiring process easy then they are more likely to hire, train, and empower more of the wrong type of employee's. They only want to spend their time, money, and energy on people who have a real future and potential in the organization.

Great Exercise: Split into two groups and were told to, "as a team name as many Disney animated characters as we could in 60 seconds". We all jumped in and had fun with it. The winning team had 43 characters and our team had 35ish. Then they asked the question how many characters would we have come up with if we did the exercise alone. Clearly everyone knew there was no way we'd name nearly as much. The point: TEAM, Together Everyone Achieves More.

Earn Your Ears: After you are hired they "make you earn your ears" which means they take their time in training the employees until they are for sure ready. The trainee wears a special badge that describes they are in training and to please be patient. Thought this same idea would be beneficial in the church culture.

Cool Thought: Disney celebrates lateral moves just as much as they do promotions. Thought this was a huge conviction for most churches and most communities. Do we celebrate when our volunteers or staff go to different departments in the church? What if they went to a different church? If we are Kingdom minded shouldn't we celebrate that as well?

Pride: One of the exercises they led us in was to come up with the top 5 things we are proud of in our own organizations. Whatever those are we must bring those up in the new hire orientation process. This will give them a sense of pride as well to be part of such a team.

No Excuses: We went backstage to the Epcot's Cast Members (their employees) only area. This place was unreal!!! There goal is to remove all excuses for their employees to be "show ready" when they go on their shift. Check out what they have available at each employee center and there are lots of them. They have shoe shinning, a hair stylist, computer lab, place to cash check, mail things, get a notary, Driver License center, break areas, food venues, and you don't have to do your own laundry. You turn your dirty clothes in and get clean ones. They even have a "no excuses vending machine". Put your money in and you can get such items as deodorant, shaving cream, mints, and panty hose. There is NO reason their employees shouldn't be ready for action. It was pretty cool to see.

Walt Quote of the Day: "You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality." Walt Disney. Walt cared for people more than anything because he knew they were the ones who would make his dreams come true.

Diseny Institute: Day 2, Leadership Excellence

Today was another awesome day out at the Disney Institute. One quick note, one member of the class is from Germany and as we were talking he was amazed people can go to church here in the States for FREE! He said in Germany everyone pays taxes for church and the government pays for the churches to run. I was in shock, needless to say I invited my new German friend to our FREE church this weekend. Siegfried, if you are reading this-you are the man! Praying for God's grace and peace to keep you and guide you, blessings!

Stories & Values: Disney will tell you they are in the story making business. Everything they do they are making a story, including every "cast member" (their term for a Disney employee). They phrased it like this, "every leader is telling a story about what he or she values". Meaning don't tell me the mission statement or the business card with your vision on it. I see what you value by your actions. I see what you care about and what drives the organization by what the employees/volunteers do not what they say they do. What is it we say is important by our actions? Another great quote of theirs is, "we judge ourselves by our intentions. Others judge us by our actions." Think of Simba from the Lion King, what does he value in the movie? Whatever your response it was because you watched his story which you determined what you thought he valued. He never came out with a written statement on what he valued, he told you by a story. We are all writing stories.

Funny Trade: Hilarious story was told about Al Michaels being traded to Universal for a original Disney Rabbit. Full story @ http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/10/business/fi-rabbit10

Fun Fact: In the original Disney movie Fantasia, Walt Disney wanted movie theater employees to spray water bottles during certain scenes and incense during other scenes to enhance the story. Talk about ahead of his time. Of course the movie theaters told him, "there is no way".

#1: The CEO of Walt Disney said, "I'd like for the Walt Disney Company to be universally recognized as the most admired company in the world." This statement set the tone for the day and for the leadership at Disney. A reoccurring theme we heard all day was how much they focused on their cast members not their customers. The whole business model is go above and beyond for your teams and your teams will do the same for the customers. Disney employees love working there. As a matter of fact the average tenure in their laundry department (which is the biggest in the world) is 23 years. That my friends is vision. When people don't want to stop doing laundry because they love it that much you have a successful leadership model.

Vision: They talked a lot about vision and the importance of clarifying your vision and communicating it often, passionately, and creativity. A cool story about Walt Disney, when he cast vision for the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". They said Walt invited 40 employees out to his studio which only had one light bulb (they say to save $) bought everyone dinner and dessert then shared for three and a half hours the story of Snow White. One huge importance to notice was that Walt was willing to sacrifice (1 light bulb) so his employees were taken care of (as they ate a nice meal and dessert).

Make Time: Another theme I heard over the day was that Disney makes sure its employees have time to evaluate, reflect, take risk, do research/surveys, etc. to take their departments to the next level. Most business and ministries complain that there is no time to do all that, we need to tend to the clients/customers. Disney philosophy is you don't have time not to do it. In the church world I often see myself and others take way too much on without proper infrastructure in place to run with it. Thus I find myself with my head down focused on the day to day instead of the future and where we are going and how we are to get there. Make time to evaluate, to plan, to be creative, to celebrate victories, etc.

"The actions of one, multiplied by many, can change a culture."

Character of a leader: Was boiled down to 3 things. 1) Set the example for others to follow. (Christ didn't tell what to do, he gave us an example to follow; my interpretation.) 2) Create relationships for life, (I Thessalonians 1:18). 3) Spark excitement and enthusiasm in others.

Great exercise: Think about your role model, mentor, or someone who has had a positive influence in your life. What did they do to build you up? How did they teach you or care for you? What made them a credible leader? What values did they reflect? How did their influence your progress in life? Whatever your answers are those are same ideas, thoughts, and suggestions we should use to lead and influence those in our ministry/organizations.

If you have any thoughts or questions you'd like me to ask the instructors feel free to let me know and I'll post the answer.

Disney Institute: Day I, Creativity

All this week I have the awesome honor of being able to participate in the Disney Institute for Business Success. Someone provided a scholarship for me to attend this in hopes I'd be able to learn how to use the same principals to further His Kingdom (not Mickey's, God's). So many people have already asked that I share some of the main points or thoughts. So God willing I'll be blogging every night what I learned that day. Today's topic was on "Creativity". Tuesday is "Leadership Excellence". Wednesday is "People Management". Thursday is "Quality Service". Friday is "Brand Loyalty". Hopefully I'll explain my thoughts clearly but if you have questions on anything just let me know. Now there is no way I'd be able to share everything I learn so what I'll do each day is share what I thought was particularly useful.

1. Collaborative Culture: Disney is know for its consistency throughout all aspects of their entertainment. They explained that if they come out with a theme like "Pirates" then every department would come together and learn from one another on how to implement that theme throughout each department. So the "food and beverage" department has freedom and is expected to share thoughts to the "merchandise" department and this happens throughout each department including the "janitorial" department. My first thought was what if each ministry in churches collaborative together to openly support each other. Then I expanded that thought with the Kingdom in mind and thought, "what if churches collaborative together for His glory and didn't worry about their turf/crowds/etc." So the question was how can we help our organizations have a better "collaborative culture". My thought was you have to have at least one department set the trend. One department has to look after and serve another to bring everyone's insecurities down. For example last week Chad Harper our Student Pastor and Jack Thomas are Creative Arts guy both took most of their week and helped me transform one of my environments. It had nothing to do with their "department/ministry" yet they served me with their ideas, hands, and time. Them leading like that totally makes me want do the same back to them or other ministries. Also Disney nominates one person on staff to give a couple hours a week to head up this idea to bring "accountability" to ensure collaborating gets done.

2. Brainstorming Exercise: They did one exercise I thought was great. They had a problem; lets say it's "How can we make people feel welcomed at church". They then took a sheet a paper and posted 9 sticky notes on it. At the top they wrote the problem, "How can we make people feel welcomed at church." The directions were to get in a circle around a table. Pass the paper around and write one way to solve that problem per sticky note. Don't think about the details just dream about potential solutions. Try not to read the others, just post your thought and pass it on. Imagine 10 people in a group with 4 problems being tossed around in a circle. In a matter of minutes we had 50 plus potential solutions and were able to hear from 10 people; very effective.

3. Brainstorming, "Yes if or Yes and": Disney made it clear one of the main ways they come up with their "magic" was by a very strategic way of brainstorming. Some rules to their brainstorming are: 1) Bring diverse people to the table. Bring different departments, ages, etc. 2) When brainstorming do not analyze ideas yet. Accept all ideas at the beginning, analyze later. Disney's rule is "Yes if... or yes and..." Meaning if someone throws out an idea you can not say you like it or don't like it you must say "yes we can do that if..." or "yes we can do that and..." For example lets say to solve our previous welcoming problem example we wanted to hire Miley Cyrus to sing in the lobby every week to welcome people, someone would then say, "yes we can do that if we kidnapped Miley or had a billion dollars to pay her."

Hope this helps and again God willing I'll be sharing some thoughts every evening.