I want to commend a free PDF book by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church. You may not agree with everything that Mark teaches, though I think he is practically and boldly biblical, this book will be a great tool in your hands as you disciple fathers in your ministry. Print it out and make them available to dads. Mail a copy to a dad who you know could use it. It’s a short little read, but very thought provoking. I read it last week and have a new sense of direction as a father now!

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Temple. That’s what your body is. It’s a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, it can become easy to treat it like a temple of YOU. However, let’s not go too drastically in the other direction and not see our body as a gift from God, on loan from Him.

Nutrition Data is a great tool to help you stay on track with your eating, health, and fitness goals. Get on it, track your calories. Stop leading your life down the road of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and dare I say…gluttony…

Be an example to your kid and families about what it means to honor your Spirit-filled temple.

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No this is not a personal ad. I’m completely happy with my wife Michaella! I’m letting you know about a great tool that our technological families may want to have. It’s called Cozi and is an online family organization system. Here’s a quote from the website:

Use Cozi to manage your busy family life with a shared online calendar, shopping lists, to do lists and more. Plus, capture favorite holiday memories—all in one spot. Cozi is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, and any mobile phone.

I’ve been wanting to try it out, especially since I could sync my family calender with Outlook, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll probably need to wait until we replace our 9 year old computer! Have you dealt with the application? Let me know by commenting below!

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I not only like to provide free resources on this blog, but also free “nuggets” that you can use to make your ministry more healthy. This month, I’d like to share with you some awards that I give to volunteers each year at our volunteer banquet. I have the volunteers nominate people for these various awards. When I present them, I speak a few words about the individual, and present them with a nice certificate (which you can find here). The awards are:

• Cardiac Award: The volunteer with the biggest heart for kids.
• Legacy Award: A volunteer who has committed a great deal of years, time, emotion, and energy to your ministry.
• Rubber Band Award: The volunteer who shows an attitude of flexibility each and every week.
• Boy Scout Award: The volunteer who shows themselves to be the most prepared every week.
• Lexus Award: The volunteer who shows a commitment to excellence in all that they do.
• Up and Coming Award: Goes to a new volunteer who shows unique promise in doing great things in Children’s Ministry.
• Spirit Award: Awarded to the volunteer who is a wonderful example of godliness to the kids and other volunteers
• Out There Award: Goes to the volunteer with an extra measure of goofiness and ability to relate to children on their level.

You may also be interested in:

1. No Other Ministry Promotion Poster
2. Volunteer Performance Evaluation

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I guess I’ve been on an audio kick. I promise that the next several posts will not deal with audio! If you would like some Christ-centered audio regarding church leadership, leadership within the home, and a whole host of other leadership topics, you can find them at Leader Source.

Go here to find more info regarding teachings covering a wide variety of topcis. Leader Source is an interesting organization. Check them out.

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Let me make two qualifications on the post:

1. I do not advocate debt (except for real estate)–I’m a big fan of Dave Ramsey
2. I will never send something your way that I do not trust

Credit Karma is a pro-consumer company that offers you free credit score monitoring by allowing financial and insurance companies to advertise on their site. They offer their service for free in much the same way that Mint does. You can log in and get your credit score (something that is not available from AnnualCreditReport.com) at any time you wish.

This service is good for you to monitor if your credit is being used the way you want (i.e. identity theft) and for providing you assistance in getting out of debt by looking at offers that may present better interest rates. Nonetheless, it is a helpful financial tool. Give it a spin!

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If you are like me, your ministry to children, families and volunteers does not end when you leave the office. There are few jobs in the world where you have to commit your whole life in order to be successful. Ministry is one of them. What this means is that you may have to access things at your office when you are in other places. I do this using a service called LogMeIn.

There are a lot of services out there to remotely access your desktop. Window’s XP includes a remote access component, but it is very finicky and runs through the operationg system rather than through the web. LogMeIn allows you to access other computers through your internet browser.

It is very convenient, but the drawbacks are that you can not transfer files (unless you opt for the paid version) and you have to install the program on each computer involved. The way to get around the file transfer issue if you are in a bind is to email yourself something to a web-based email client and then access that email from the remote computer’s desktop. Aside from that, I have found that LogMeIn is very easy to use and has been a lifesaver in many circumstances over the last 2 years. I even maintain my parent’s computer from it on a monthly basis.

If you would like to see some other options for remotely accessing your computer (i.e. if you are a little more tech-savy and could handle a VNC) check out this post at the tech blog Mashable.

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If you are like me, (frugal and tight), you have a problem paying out money for things like insurance. I have all the right methods of insurance now, but some dark little man inside of me tells me that paying for “risk” is like throwing money away. Now I know that’s not true, but even so, how could I pass up a chance at $50,000 of free life insurance.

Mass Mutual operates this program (called LifeBridge) as part of its philanthropy arm. Essentially, if your household income is between $10K and $40K per year (which is the case for many in Children’s Ministry), you work in some capacity and have children, you are eligible for this program. It is a 10 year term policy (not the kind to buy, but hey, take it if it’s free) and can only be used for your child’s educational expenses (at any educational level).

When I applied 4 years ago, I was below the $40K mark. Although I can not find this in any information, I did ask the representative what would happen if my salary went up (which it did), and he said that it did not matter. They do not monitor your salary. They award you the insurance upon a one time application. From then on, you could become a millionaire and still have it. I think that if your salary lines up with this, it is a great way grab some security for your children. It is also a definite resource to spread to needy families within your church. The program ends in December of this year, so get on it!

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If you are not familiar with RSS, it stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a way for websites, news, weather, etc. to broadcast when new material has been published. For the purposes of Free CM Stuff, it is important to announce to you, the faithful reader, when a new free resource has been posted.

In most web browsers, you can simply set up an RSS feed as a link, however, if you have several blogs (like mine) or news sites you like to keep up with, you need a reader. My suggestion is that you go with the Google Reader. It is free, much like most of Google’s services (yes, Google is more than a search engine), and has a simple and clean layout.

Here’s what my Google Reader page looks like (click to enlarge):

You can also check here for more info about other readers that are available (as software or web-based). Please let other readers know how you keep up with your feeds!

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Yes, every kid in America (well, pretty much) can bowl 2 free games throughout the entire summer. I’m not sure how they are doing it, but KidsBowlFree has made arrangements with a slew of bowling lanes for kids to bowl free.

I’ve announced this to parents in my ministry as a fun family activity. Been wondering what kind of fun stuff to do with kids in your church during the summer? You may want to get kids signed up for it in your ministry and take weekly bowling outings to provide children in your ministry with a regular summer church kids fellowship.

Here’s how it works (from the website):

1. All of the participating bowling centers are listed at http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/all_centers.php.
2. Select a bowling center near you.
3. Register directly on the bowling center page (The registration is valid only at the bowling center where you register and cannot be used at any other bowling center unless otherwise noted.)

As with most free stuff, there is an opportunity to spend money. Families can pay about $24 for a summer long family pass. It’s actually a pretty good deal. they offer this because the free bowling is available only for children.

All participants do have to pay for shoe rental, but if you really want to get into it and be involved as a bowler past the summer, you can find kids bowling shoes for less than $25. After about 12 times bowling, you would have paid for them.

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