UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your backstage pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Miles. How's it going? Going very good. Thank you for having me. It's been a little bit. Been a little bit. Yeah. I'm glad we got in here. Yeah. I'm glad we got in here. Man, it is pouring down rain outside. Yeah, it is. All right, well, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

We're talking about our

SPEAKER_01 0:54

topic is specialty or versatility. Specialty or versatility. I've been wanting to talk about this. And so, you know, we've all heard the saying, jack of all trades, right? Master of none. And so that kind of puts a negative light on those like, you know, they're really, they can do a lot of stuff, but they're just not super good at one thing. So it's like master of none is what everybody seems to focus on. And then, of course, there's the quote master, the one who does one thing, but they're the best at it. So they're the ones you hire if you want the highest quality. And so I think that we tend to place a high value on these quote unquote specialists. And it's rightly so, but they're not the right fit for every situation. And so there's those people that seem to know a little bit about everything. And these people are extremely valuable to have around and can accomplish so much. But then on the flip side, sometimes they can't reach the level of quality that you'd desire for whatever the project is. So today I'm not necessarily advocating for one or the other. I kind of want to see where this goes. I just want to have the discussion of the merits of the two and see if there's like, you know, any kind of balance that we can have.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah. It's definitely, it's definitely very interesting to think about no matter what you, wherever you find yourself, whether you find yourself a master or a good at a little bit of one thing. One thing that came to my mind is we want to keep it messed as we do it with a spirit of excellence. We do it with the best that we can do. And honestly, Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

an appeal to that when you see somebody that's just super good at something. So I made a few notes. And again, I don't know that we will even answer the question today. And that's not necessarily the goal. I just wanted to bring this discussion up. I think it's interesting. And so I made a few notes just on this just to kind of try to hit it from a few different angles. And so I wrote one note is the handyman. And so if you think about it, you know, if you are hiring a handyman or a maintenance contractor, or, I mean, we got, we, there's a couple people around here, but one in particular brother around here that does, he does everything, you know, it's like the vacuums broken. I call him. Yeah. If you know, like, Hey, you think we could get some shelves in here? I call him. Yeah. You know, Hey, what's wrong with the, you know, the light over here. I call him. And so, so there's, there's an advantage to that handyman type person, you know, that can do all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah. It's actually funny. You, You mentioned it. My very first job I ever worked for was actually for a handyman. So actually gave me a general life experience. It gave me to, I mean, you gave me a house that I could, I'm pretty, I can probably get it done. It may not be the best or the quickest done, but like I can get it done. Right. And it's kind of very interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah. It's a totally different, it's a different, I don't know, like, I guess some people are just naturally gifted that way. You know, like they, they can figure out the mechanics of something or they you know like I do you know quite a bit of stuff but man there's some things where I'm just like I'm clueless like you know like I don't you know I can change the oil in my car maybe I've changed the brakes I think one time with some help but I'm not a mechanic at all you know and so but there's some people that are just inclined that way

SPEAKER_00 4:45

yeah I think you and I were thinking of the exact same person I was thinking about how that one person I mean there is I can't remember or what event it was, but like you came into the fellowship hall downstairs and like, Oh my word, with all like the lights and the hanging, the hanging things. And then that's actually a person that they, with the way that they help with a firework show. And I'm like, Oh yeah, maybe this is wrong, but like, I'm kind of jealous in a godly way just because this man's just so, it's so talented in so many ways. He's just got, God's really, I believe it's a godly thing that God really helps certain people be good at so many things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then, and then there's people that they, they They capitalize on that. They do it really well. And of course we have a team of people. Yeah. But if you have one or two people, then yeah, you got to be able to perform. You got to be able to write a script if you, if you, or lessons, however you want to say it, we would call it a script here, but you got to be able to write script. You got to be able to come up with object lessons. You got to be able to come up with, you know, costumes, decor. You got to do it all. Yeah, you do. And so you got to perform multiple functions and it takes, you know, a kind of a different mindset. And part of why this whole subject even came about is that I was just talking to somebody just the other night that wants to be involved in Sunday school. And they were talking about a specific area of Sunday school. I'm kind of trying to be vague, but they were talking about a specific area of Sunday school. And I said, yeah, that would be great. We can use more of that. But I said, what about some acting? And they're just like, oh. I don't know. And so then we talked about a few other things. They play some music too. And I said, so I said, the reason is, is I am usually looking for more than just one facet at a Sunday school staff. And part of the reason is because we rotate so much. Yeah, we do. And so, and I said, acting is one of the things in our Sunday schools, like kind of that's the backbone. Yeah, it is. And so I said, so that's one of the reasons why I leaned to acting is kind of not, we don't enforce this all the way. But kind of everybody in Sunday school is an actor, you know, and so they might mainly do this other role. But kind of everybody is an actor. Yeah. And so then the other thing about this, I was going to mention before we go on to the next bullet is with this, you know, that it might be important to have someone that can perform multiple duties is that you have to have somebody that you should always, I guess, be willing to perform other duties.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

You know, like you shouldn't be too good to. clean exactly or whatever you know we have sometimes like when we were doing the Navy and and pirates sometimes we'd have to do the switch over Sunday morning after practice yeah and so you guys would get on ladders in your suits and pull

SPEAKER_00 8:05

the ropes down and

SPEAKER_01 8:07

switch out the ropes and nets to make it you know from Navy to pirates or whatever the flags yeah and so being willing to do and we have you know our staff is great everybody is willing some of them have to go to a practice right after So they can't, but, um, but they're willing to help out

SPEAKER_00 8:24

and make it happen. My perspective on that, as far as somebody that was actually involved in it, it's, it's not necessarily, it's not about me or my wants anything. It's about God and it's about his kingdom and it's whatever I can do to help, uh, manufacture where God can move, where a kid can repent. I mean, Oh, that's good. Um, what is the scripture comes to my mind? It says heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. It doesn't matter. It doesn't say an adult. It says one sinner. So that could be a kid. Yeah. It doesn't matter one kid. It's one soul. It doesn't matter. Whatever I can do to help out. Yeah. Well, and

SPEAKER_01 8:56

that's good when you take, yeah, exactly. When you take self out of it, then it's all about the objective. You know, what are we trying to do here? What's the ultimate, you know, goal, the ultimate purpose of what we're trying to do and trying to accomplish is we're trying to, you know, connect kids to God. Exactly. So, okay. So then we have the flip side, right? And we have the spectrum. Yes. And like I said in the opening is I do think we all have an admiration for the specialist, right? I mean, there's just something about, you know, a juggler, you know, whatever. They can juggle all the stuff. There's something about something that or someone that's supremely good at their craft. That's a master at it. Yeah, that's a master at it. And so different areas of minimalism. Oh, sorry. I jumped ahead on my notes there. So here's the note I made. And I thought of the Sunday school doctors. But if you're having heart surgery, you want a specialist. You don't want the Sunday school doctors. No, you do

SPEAKER_00 10:08

not want the

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Sunday school doctors. They have done heart surgery in Sunday school before. Does the audience know about doctor? We've talked about the doctors a few times. Yeah. So I will. Were you in? last week i was yes i was in last week okay so you were in the the quote-unquote panel of salvation experts right yes i was yeah so was who was was it brother kyle that came out and was he said he was dr pepper

SPEAKER_00 10:34

yes he was dr pepper yes

SPEAKER_01 10:36

yeah so he was like he was a doctor dr pepper and so i immediately was like oh i wonder if they have a dr pepper suit We probably do. Maybe if we could get a doctor suit and then one of them, we have these white lab coats. Yeah, we do. So they both have the white lab coats on their wigs and all that. They come out and then they're arguing about like who's in charge. And then the one could rip off his lab coat. Well, I'm Dr. Pepper. That would be funny. That would be funny. When Kyle said that, when Brother Kyle said, I'm Dr. Pepper, I couldn't remember what we had in the fridge back here. So I ran backstage to try to find, see, we had a little can of Dr. Pepper. That would have been perfect. We had Pepsi and whatever, root beer or something. So I was like, oh, man. But that would have been really funny. It would have been funny. Like, here's your Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper. Oh, man. But yeah, so if you're having heart surgery or brain surgery or something, you want a specialist. You want somebody that's what they do. That's the only thing they do. They live, eat, and breathe this because it's such a fine line and it's so important. And so I was trying to correlate this with you know I put some examples in my notes here but I was trying to correlate this with Sunday school and I want to make sure that this doesn't get misconstrued yeah I think that you don't need to be a specialist you anybody can pray for kids so I want to be clear on that but if if you think about it when we're trying to pray kids through to the Holy Ghost it is a fight for their life it is their spiritual life and so if you think and maybe this is a stretch analogy, I don't know, but the heart surgeon and the one praying for a kid, you want, ideally, you have somebody that is a quote unquote specialist. And what I mean is they can connect with God for one thing. And hopefully all Sunday school staff can do that. But they can connect with God and they know how to pray with kids. And so I don't at all mean to be an elitist or anything like that, but there's, you know, if think of it, if it's your kid that's praying in the altar and they're like getting close, you know, they, they never got the Holy ghost before and they're getting close. Well, you would love it if, you know, the pastor would come over or the evangelist or whoever, you know, and pray with them versus their friends maybe. Right. I mean, you know, there, and again, I'm not trying to be an elitist and I'm not, uh, I'm not disparaging, you know, the, younger people praying with them or anything like that hopefully I'm being clear on that but but if you just be honest you really would like you know a powerhouse to come you know the specialist to come and pray with them and there's people that have a reputation for praying people through you know to help facilitate that and those are the ones that like oh my kids praying hey can you

SPEAKER_00 14:08

come over here and pray with them there is especially when involved talking about children's ministry in church there is one lady in particular that comes to my Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and I guess that's,

SPEAKER_01 14:40

that's what I mean is like anybody, You can pray with kids. Absolutely. Anybody can. But if you have somebody, if you have somebody that's gifted in that and, and has, you know, that leaning, that's, that's your special forces, you know, call them in, you know, when it's altar call. So, you know, one, one thing we had, there was a girl, it's been a couple of years now. She wanted to be in Sunday school and I was just kind of like, wait, let's wait, let's wait. We'll see, you know, and the night that put it over the top was, it was a Sunday night and there was some, girls praying in the altar and she was right in there praying with you know they were younger than her they were young girls and she was right in there praying with them praying for them and I took a picture in fact and that was what put it over the top I was like okay yeah you're ready you can be in Sunday school and so and I have you know I just thought of this haven't done this in a long time but I did a few years ago we were just that was kind of a focus as our altar services we wanted to bolster them so I asked one of the ladies in our church and she's not old but she's older like my mother's age okay so she's not old but and she didn't work in Sunday school I mean maybe a long time ago when she was younger or something I don't know but anyway she's never been in our Sunday school but I asked her to be in Sunday school not as a regular staff but just to come I asked pastor first But I asked her to come for a few Sundays in a row. I think it was three Sundays in a row. And I said, you know, she could sit amongst the kids. She could sing, whatever. She could be as much of a part as she wanted to. I said, but I wanted her specifically for altar service. And it was effective. And the reason is I've seen her. I've known her, you know, most of my life. And she is effective in prayer. She's powerful in prayer. And so she, we called in the special forces. Yeah. So, yeah, there's, I mean, there's definitely benefits to having that quote unquote specialist. And I'm glad I thought of that example because again, I don't want to be at all like, you can't pray for these kids because you're not good enough. It's not that.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

We all, we, we all have the exact same Holy ghost. Not one person has a different Holy ghost than others. Right. We just got to allow ourselves to be sensitive to God. Yeah. God

SPEAKER_01 17:11

to

SPEAKER_00 17:11

work through

SPEAKER_01 17:11

us. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, and, And so here's the next note I have is what expertise is required. And so I think that when we're looking at, and again, we're not trying to solve this conundrum here today necessarily. We're just kind of looking at the yin and the yang, the two sides of it. So when you're looking at the handyman or the versatility and you're looking at the specialist, a lot of times it's determined about what expertise is needed here. What do we need to do? And so different ministries or areas of a ministry can require different levels of expertise. So I wrote a couple of examples. Cleaning, not to make that lesser than. In fact, we have an awesome cleaning team here. But cleaning might require a different skill level than altar work. And another example is a soloist that solos vocally might require a different skill level than the general choir member. Absolutely. Yeah. And so you're going to be doing some singing tonight. I am. I am. So, um, are you going to solo?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

No, no, I don't think as much as I would totally willing a hundred percent. Like I would love to do that. I don't think that that's where my expertise lie, which I'm okay. I'm okay. Acknowledging that I'm okay with being a general choir member. It's okay. I love being a part. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Oh man. Yeah. So I think that, and so if you think about the opposite of that is if you get somebody in a position that they really shouldn't do you know like we talked about drummers earlier yeah if a drummer can't keep time well they probably if they can't learn it you know and there's a grace in there i mean i was one of those um if they can't learn it then they probably need to do something else yeah you know and so um yeah there's there's a little bit of there's a little bit of a wisdom I guess, you know, and looking at what expertise is required. But like, you know, I've worked in the construction industry all my life. Yeah. And so when you, well, even on just about any project, like say building a house, you have a general contractor. Yeah. And that's the position I've been in most of the time. And so you have the general contractor. Well, the general contractor, and you're an electrician by trade. Yeah. The general contractor hires an electrician. or a subcontractor. And the electrician most likely doesn't frame anything. They don't do any drywall. They don't lay carpet. They don't build cabinets. They run wire and do finishes. They do electrical work. And then on a more extreme level, on high-end projects, and I've been on a few, on high-end projects, you have specialties Within a field. Yeah. Like you have not just any electrical subcontractor. Yeah. You know how this specialty electrical, you know, and so that and it's different requirements, you know, for different levels of project. I've worked on high rises. And so on high rises, it's a lot different than, you know, a three bedroom house. It is a whole, it's a whole different ballgame. you know, to try to balance this conversation out, you know, we, we can kind of myself included, we can look at those specialties and be like, oh, they're, they're pretty cool. You know, they're, they're amazing. But I've also, I've also been around where I'm trying to be careful here. So I, so I've had it, I've seen it where somebody is really good at something there. Okay. Here, here's an example I can think of. Is there There was a gentleman from another church years ago that was an incredible musician. I mean, phenomenal. We have really good music and I feel like I say that just as a qualification that I kind of know what I'm talking about. But this guy could have been professional. I mean, he was very, very good. And we were at our youth conference and he of course played music and stuff and he hung out with all the guys and everything from the church. And then they were getting ready to play basketball. Yeah. And I was like, where's, you know, this, this gentleman. And they're like, oh, he doesn't play. I was like, oh, really? I was surprised because he was like best friends with all of them, you know? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, no, music is his thing. And so I thought, well, that's interesting. And that's not bad, you know, it's fine. But I was like, that's interesting. You know, it's like, he doesn't play any kind of basketball. He didn't like really hang out. Music was his deal. And you could tell, I mean, he was so good. And so – but then I've been around people like that where they're really good at something and you just kind of – when somebody's really good at something, you almost think they're good at everything. You know what I mean? Yeah. Have you ever experienced that? Like somebody's like really good at – I don't know. I can't even think of an example. Say they're really good at – with computers. Yeah. You know, they're just super good with computers. And then you get them, you know – Well, okay. Here, here we go. I've had it like where, um, somebody is, uh, I'm thinking of somebody I know that's really good with electrical and, um, they know their stuff, but then when it comes to like low voltage and like computer type wiring and stuff, they just, they're like, man, I can't do it. I won't, they won't even touch it. They won't do any, have anything to do with it. And so that's an example of, uh, I guess the downside is so to speak, or the balance of the specialist.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah. Being an electrician, there are certain things like some people come up all the time and they ask me questions and I'm like, just because electricity flows through it doesn't mean I know your answer. I mean, I know the answer to a lot of things and I can Google a lot of things, but just I don't know the answer to everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah. That's funny. Just because electricity flows through it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so I guess with that you know is sometimes you you i i have had it uh where i'm trying to think of an example in sunday school and and i might be able to think of one but one example i can think of is there was a there was a guy one time um he's really funny he's just he's hilarious and seems you know pretty confident and stuff around people and whatever so i recruited him this is years ago okay for uh acting part in one of our productions it wasn't sunday school but It was a production we do. And I guess I didn't really use some wisdom in how I did it. And luckily, I was able to get out of it. But when we practiced, he was awful. I mean, terrible. Like, I was shocked at how terrible he was. And I had just assumed that, you know, because he was a funny guy and great and everything, that he would just, you know, be a natural. Oh, it was terrible. So, yeah. You had to be careful. I remember another time I got, there was a guy that, one brother that there was a part and I was like, man, this would be perfect for him because he already kind of acts like this. It was kind of funny part, but he already acts like this. And same thing. He, when he got it, I was envisioning his true real personality. Well, when he got it, he was thinking he needed to act. So he was going over the top and it just, it ruined it. You know what I

SPEAKER_02 25:14

mean? And

SPEAKER_01 25:15

how do you tell an actor, no, I want you to just be yourself, you know, and they're trying to be a character. And so it didn't work out either. So yeah, different expertise on different, you know, or what is the expertise, you know, required. And that determines, I guess, who you recruit. So final point here that I have before we end is I put a next level. And so I used to read a lot about Navy SEALs and And so I referenced them a little bit on the podcast. I worked for a Navy SEAL one time. Anyway, so Navy SEALs as a whole, they're specialists just in general, right? If somebody's a Navy SEAL, they are a specialist. The whole team is. But each squad or sometimes they're called fire teams, each squad of SEALs has specialists. And so like you might have the breacher that That places explosive charges at the door or something. You might have a sharpshooter that might be on the roof across the street or whatever. And then you have your first aid person. You have a driver maybe or your pilot or whatever. So, they're each a specialist. But here's the thing is they're all trained in every facet. They are. So, like your guy that's the worst... at doing the sharpshooting is still better than like, you know, 99% of all the other soldiers, you know, because they're so highly trained. And so that's, I think that is the ultimate. Yeah. Is where you're going back to our original analogy. Your handyman is so incredibly skilled. Very skilled. Yeah. And so if you have that, I mean, like imagine a choir, you know, we talked about the general choir members. And so if you look at some of these choirs, Kirk Franklin or Ty Tribbett, some of these choirs are just incredible. Absolutely, yeah. Well, they're made up of amazing, amazing singers. Each and every one of the singers on their own is incredible. And so then you have this incredible choir and we could get into teamwork and all that, but we don't have time. And so that's where I think that the next level is where we could go or push for in our ministries. It's like, if you think about the specialist and then what if you could get that skill level in all these different duties. All the areas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

That would be, that's the ultimate right there. That would be, that's like you said, that's the next level. That is something to think about to push and then grow and to stretch.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah. Yeah. And here's the thing is I know that a lot of this applies in a professional environment more than a volunteer environment like church. And so I understand that. But, you know, something I learned from pastor is throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. That kind of idea. And so when he is tackling a problem, that's something he taught me a long time ago is, well, let's do it from this angle, this angle, this angle, you know, and see what sticks. Somebody just recently was trying to find a job.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

And they're like, well, what if this one, I can't remember, they got a call back or something and they had applied at another place. I was like, just go for it all the way because you're way better off having to decide between two places than settling for somewhere. And so, man, if your back's up against the wall and there's two places that want you, hey, that's good. That's a good problem to have. Yeah, that's a good problem to have. Now you got to make that decision. And so I said all of that to say this as far as throwing everything at the wall that sticks is I think that, you know, like I'll mention Brother Brennan, he was talking about learning QLab, which is what we use for our sound effects and tracks. And he would like to learn that. And so and we're going to figure that out so he can. But the thing is, is Brother Brennan, of course, he's so skilled in all kinds of areas. Yeah. And I think he's pretty elite in most of those areas. And so but he's a is such an incredible actor that I can't, I can't picture him being in the sound booth. That is a hard picture. It's like, man, I don't, man, I don't know if we want to have you in there. If you're, if you're here, we want you up on stage. And so, but there is a balance to that too. Um, but with that is, I think that if we can get other people, push them and have them, okay, let's try acting, singing music, uh, the, the gulag, you know, whatever, you know, all these different things. And then what can happen is we can see what sticks. Yeah, exactly. Because sometimes people are, they're just gifted in a certain area, you know, and so you can push towards that. And if we could have the, the handyman side of it is where every, okay, here's an example. Adrian had to go just a couple of weeks ago. We were doing our, our March momentum, which is where we had a guest preacher every Sunday. And so Adrian had to go down and play music or something. He had to leave Sunday school early. Well, he was running QLab and somebody, I can't remember who, you know, sat down back there, but they had no idea what to push. They didn't

SPEAKER_00 30:55

know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Right. And no fault of theirs. They just, they didn't have any idea. And so I had to do it. And I looked around, I was like, nobody else but me knows how to do this. And so at the very least, you know, it would be great if everybody had a general knowledge of, you know, QLab, like, okay, this is this is what you do you don't have to learn how to set it up but if you know at least how to play and stop tracks and choose a choose which one and you know that would give more value you know like if skyland is back here helping with costumes or something and she knows how to run out there and do q lab i mean that'd be pretty incredible

SPEAKER_00 31:31

i mean i know yeah it was actually sunday we ran into that exact same situation again where we had uh an actor and a q lab person was still involved in music oh yeah because sunday school the way sunday school was dismissed yeah like uh yeah but But thankfully it was a little bit different, this situation though.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah. We had a couple last few weeks, we've had some long Sunday school. So these, these guests preachers are pastors. So I told pastor, our pastor, I said, I said, man, I said, these pastors preach a lot longer than evangelists. We went like two weeks in a row. I remember the time it was an hour and 35 minutes. And then it was an hour and 37 minutes. Yeah. I won't say who the preachers were, but yeah. All right. Well, I guess maybe just to kind of recap, we've been kind of recapping this whole way through, but just to kind of recap a little bit, the specialty versus versatility is you want a handyman. When you want a handyman, you want somebody that can do it all. And so in Sunday school, I would say, especially with a smaller team, you want somebody that It's so valuable. or that teacher what about and you know and bring somebody in and maybe if you can't you know have that all the time you know obviously it has to go through your pastor but if it's like okay we're going to push you know for this Sunday altar service or whatever it might be maybe you want to do some kind of music live music and you don't have the skill level currently in your Sunday school but you have some people that can come in and do it this one Sunday they can do it you know and so you call in the special forces. Um, and then I guess this kind of leads into the right into the next thing is what expertise is required. Yeah. If, you know, you do need that skill level for music or whatever it may be, then you have this certain requirement, you know, somebody has got to be able to play it. Um, and then, you know, if you're pushing for all to call, this is why, you know, sometimes we bring in people even from outside the church, you know, or not, not the apostolic church. Yeah. Our own church, to be clear. And then the next level, of course, the utopia, the ultimatum or the ultimate, not ultimatum. The ultimate is to get to that next level like the Navy SEALs is just to get to where our versatile people are as good as any specialist. That would be the high point. Definitely would be. All right. Well, we are definitely out of time and you got to go sing. So I think that's a wrap. Thank you for having me.

UNKNOWN 34:48

Yeah.