Blog Challenge 1: Elevator Pitch

I just picked up Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog as part of the Build a Better Blog Challenge spearheaded by Lindsey Whitney of Growing Kids Ministry. The first assignment is writing my elevator pitch.

My Elevator Pitch

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100–150 words).” Wikipedia

I previously covered the whys and wherefores of this blog project in my first post in this blog. So you can look it up, or you can check out my report to the Blog Challenge.

From the Blog Challenge over at Growing Kids Ministry Blog, I wrote:

Reporting in from Oregon, I’m Frank Tan, former Pastor to Children & Families of Village Baptist (Beaverton, OR) and currently unemployed and actively seeking ministry position.

Blog: Jonah 101 

Elevator Pitch: 101 ways of teaching the story of Jonah from the Old Testament Bible 

Rationale: “Prof” Howard Hendricks often quipped, “It is a sin to bore people with the Word of God.” I agree and hope to help equip those entrusted with teaching the Word of God to avoid going down that road.

I first thought about starting Jonah 101 Blog in 2006, but the original seeds were planted about five years earlier when I started a new ministry at Fort Bend Community Church (Missouri City, TX) in 2001. More than one Sunday school teacher came up to me with their dilemma, “How do you teach a Bible narrative in a fresh way to church kids who have heard the same lesson many times over?”

The first lesson I taught the kids in TX was the story of Jonah. In subsequent years, I would teach Jonah’s story each year in a different fashion. And so, when it came time to pursue a worthy blog project, Jonah 101 was born.

However, no sooner than I had set up the blog than the demands of life and other interests took over, and I failed to proceed any further. With this Blog Challenge, I hope to resume my task and successfully move forward, or at the very least, be a lot more consistent.

Keep me accountable, guys and gals.

BTW, I did looked up Wikipedia's article "Elevator Pitch" and it mentions Will Smith’s “effective and impressive elevator pitch” in The Pursuit of Happiness. I saw the movie years ago and will have to look it up again to find the particular scene.

Reviving this Blog and a Challenge to Blog Regularly

I got hooked up recently with Lindsey Whitney's Growing Kids Ministry Blog  and now one of her recent posts is serving to both convict and challenge me to "come back to life" or more specifically resurrect this blog back to life.

Lindsey is inviting delinquent and backslidden bloggers, as well as neophytes to join the Build a Better Blog Challenge. You can get more information on this here . So far, 12 people are stepping up to the challenge and we may get a few more by the end of the month.

The challenge to blog starts October 1st, so I'll have a couple of weeks to prep and get ready. My goal is to blog on Jonah every Monday once a week, which should get me up to 52 ways to teach Jonah in a year. I'll also plan to blog on other children's ministry-related issues as needed.

I'll also look to friends for suggestions, so let me know if you have a great suggestion to add. Let's build this blog together!

101 Ways to Teach Jonah

Being in children's ministry, one of the most common problems teachers face is how to teach seasoned students, you know, the PK's MK's, EK's, DK's and SSTK's (children of pastors, missionaries, elders, deacons, and other Sunday School teachers). These kids live and breathe Bible stories. They know the stories by heart and probably know more than we do at times.

"Fear not," I responded in 2001 to a question like this from one of the Sunday School teachers in our church. They may know the story well but not the way you tell the story. Anyway. I believe that the Bible is written in such a way that the accounts and stories in them always contain something new, even for the most seasoned of Sunday school children. I also believe in the creativity of God, passed down to us Christians, that we can still make the Bible interesting.

Thus began my quest for the holy grail.

I set a challenge for myself back in 2001, that I would find 101 ways to teach the story of Jonah. I taught the story of Jonah to the kids at the church again and again the following two years, always on the lookout for a new different approach. I kinda forgot about my quest for awhile, but am reminded once again of this journey. But now, I want to invite others to join me in this quest. I plan to outline the different approaches to teaching Jonah that I have done in the past (this will involve a bit of digging through boxes) and am asking for more suggestions. Hopefully this blog and its approach will inspire teachers that no story is ever boring.

"It is a sin to bore Christians with the Word of God." Howard Hendricks (Christian Education professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of Living by the Book, among others)