This post is meant to be a huge shout out to Shine Middle School and the people at stuffyoucanuse.org and also meant to be an encouragement and challenge to leaders out there.
First of all, I love Shine and the things that they do for their students and leaders. I’ve had a few conversations with Kenny + Elle and always come away impressed. I recently heard about an event that they did called Nerf Wars and saw a video that they posted with a Justin Bieber appearance.
I really wanted to pull this event off for my students and thought it might be fun to shoot some of my preteens with nerf guns. So I emailed back and forth and they gave me a huge packet of everything that they did for the event. It took a huge burden off of me and made me seem really organized to the people that were volunteers for the event.
It made life easier and allowed me to concentrate on building relationships rather than planning programs.
Here are some things that I learned in the process that I’d like to pass on to you.
1. Don’t reinvent the wheel
You don’t have to create something new every event, series, or even email. Use the other people that you know, that you trust, to help you out. Shine’s hard work on Nerf Wars not only was huge for their students, but it was also huge for ours!
2. Learn from others
The Dropbox package that they created with everything that they had for their event was such a huge benefit to me. Not only because of the resources for the event, but also for the thoughts and structure involved in their event planning. Definitely encouraged me to get on the phone more with leaders I think of highly.
3. Get over your ego
I love to create, but as I’ve shared, I’m learning my time could be used better elsewhere. It’s important to see what is most important for your ministry and what’s more about you and what you want to do. Don’t get me wrong we should work in our area of giftedness but as a leader my time is best served pouring into others rather than creating an event.
4. Create for Others
When you do create something, do you create it in a way that can be shared? Are you creating so that you can use it again later on? It’s so important to create things that can be repeated. How are you creating for others in your ministry?
What are some areas that you need help in? What are some things that you have to help others?
