Our Children's Church BlogPlease pray for us!We are having a plague of sickness! We're getting over the roseola... and now we're inflicted with the stomach flu! I feel like walking death, and all three of my kiddos are sick! I have staggering spring break visits next week from my mom, my sister (and her 3 little ones!), and my dad. This weekend I am going to sanitize the whole house!! I hope no one contracts our crud! I've been really stressed about getting the newsletter out. With all the sickness, plus the computer sickness (I am actually typing on a new-to-me computer now, praise the Lord!)... I haven't been able to pull it off. So if my loyal readers will please pardon me, I will just let March slide; and you can look for your April newsletter on the 15th! March 25, 2007I didn't get to go to church today -- my little ones have roseola! My computer is also on the fritz, so I ran to the library to check my mail and such while my Beloved babysits. I was SO hoping to do a lot of "building" this weekend, but... it ain't happening!Hopefully we can get the kiddos well and the computer well and the newsletter out in the next few days! Thanks to all those who are patiently waiting. I have only one week left in March, and I like to get it out mid-month. Please say a prayer for us! We are looking forward to Easter, our children's church quarterly activity, and our Spring Campaign. I think I talked about those in last week's blog entry, but I'll keep you posted... March 21, 2007Where do I begin... since it has been a MONTH since I've worked on my website!?!?! Ugh -- life has really been *happening* to us lately! Even today I've dealt with feverish, puking, sick little ones; but on the bright side... they are all asleep now!On another bright side, today is special for me -- it's my 20th spiritual birthday! I have reflected all day on the wonderful hand of God on my life! It's just too good to be true! I am so thankful for the opportunity to be in His service and be wed to a WONDERFUL Man of God!! As far as children's church goes... this past Sunday was fantastic! I taught (yes -- *I* taught for the first time since we've been in this ministry [15 months]) on the history of Saint Patrick. Chris always does the preaching/main lesson (although I do other stories, missionary biographies, etc.), but this week he handed the reigns over completely and played photographer while I taught. The lesson was on "God Keeps His Promises" -- we taught on the true reason behind the rainbow (and sorry, but there's no pot of gold at the end! I can personally testify to this because the end of the rainbow was once right in my driveway! Really!). I'm going to create a St. Patrick's page with the full story of that lesson & children's church hour, so stay tuned... We are looking forward to our upcoming Spring Campaign. I purchased a (past) VBS kit from CEF for twenty bucks -- regularly $150. We're using it for the five weeks of the campaign, and the prize... we're taking the winning child to Silver Dollar City (utilizing our free guest pass that came with our season passes)! It's gonna be so exciting; I just have to still work out the particulars and meet with our preschool teachers this Saturday... I'm really trying to get back in the groove of web building on Monday & Thursday evenings, now that life is calming down just a little. If anyone has any requests for priority content (like -- "Hey, Kristin, are you EVER gonna put any sample lessons on here?!"), feel free to use the Contact Us button to get your two cents in. We'll do our best -- promise! February 22, 2007Typing that date reminded me... today is our engagement anniversary! Chris asked me to marry him 7 years ago today. Last night he informed me that he has some secret reservations somewhere Friday night... so I'm pretty curious! What an exciting month I'm having! Hot Springs trip, then this, next week couples retreat...Speaking of Hot Springs, did any of you receive your newsletters last week? I haven't gotten any feedback on them, so I hope the mail out did okay. I launched it a week ago today. If you aren't subscribed yet, you can read the archive here. As far as our children's church goes... I had the privilege of leading three kids to the Lord this week! We are also still on the Ten Commandments series; but to be honest, it's getting a little boring. Not the lessons, but the schedule and game (it's just getting monotonous -- at least we think so; the kids still like playing). So we are going to do some rearranging this week with the schedule, and we might forsake the Ten Commandments game that I made up for a week or two. We ordered some stuff from CEF for our children's church ministry, and I bought a lot at the Teacher's Store last week, too. I can't wait to implement all of it! Anyway, back to the Ten Commandments... this Sunday is #7 -- Thou shalt not commit adultery. So we're going to combine with #8 -- Thou shalt not steal, since adultery is stealing someone's spouse, right? We don't want to go into too much detail on sexual sins with the kids, but it is important that they learn the Truth from God's Word. February 13, 2007Wow, what a great weekend we had! My husband whisked me away to Hot Springs for my birthday/a friend's wedding, and we had the opportunity to visit Gospel Light Baptist Church! It was incredible! I had the privilege of interviewing the Children's Church Director, Bro. Tim Wharton. I gleaned sooooo many awesome ideas for my own children's church ministry, as well as some incredibly helpful information for the website. The results of that interview will be posted in our free newsletter, which is launched the 15th of every month. Don't miss it! We also were able to interview Bro. Jim and Mrs. Molly Gulledge, child evangelists with H.E.L.P. -- Helping Evangelize Little People -- Ministry. The results of that will be in an upcoming issue.For all of you fellow Oriental Trading fans, now is a good time to stock up your treasure chests because they are having a shipping deal:  I appreciate you always linking there from my site, since I get a small affiliate commission! I am diving back into my webbie work, so stay tuned for future updates. I am going to be editing and adding to each page, as well as writing new content and adding more pages. Thank you so much for your patience and support. If you would like for me to mail you some business cards with our logo and domain, just contact me with your snail mail address. February 6, 2007I haven't had time to do much with the website lately. We're in Missions Conference this week, and one of the missionaries is staying in our home. That's really been a blessing! My mom was always very hospitable, and that love for hosting Men of God and their families in our home carried over into my life.We are excited about attending Amanda Brown's wedding in Hot Springs, AR this weekend. We are really excited about attending Pastor Eric Capaci's church, Gospel Light Baptist Church, and interviewing his Children's Church Director, Tim Wharton. To see the results of that interview, you should sign up for our free monthly newsletter! As far as an update on our children's church... we didn't have children's church! We were surprised to receive a city full of snow Saturday night (you know -- that 10% chance that turns into 6 inches!), and we didn't run the buses. Our organist was also unable to make it in due to the inclement weather, so I had to fill in for her as well. Our entire church only had an attendance of 95 this week! :-( What a way to start a Missions Conference! I must say though, today it is a beautiful sunny 50 degrees; and I've been outside with my children! If you don't like Missouri weather... hang around til tomorrow! Here's a neat tool you might enjoy, if you're an overwhelmed homemaker such as myself: Motivated Moms January 21, 2007Oh, the spaghetti brain of a multi-tasker! Is it no wonder I have a hard time concentrating on what I'm doing! I have four browsers and three documents open! I never thought I would master so many web-building skills in three short months!Now let me get my brain into children's church mode... ah, there it is! We did commandment number three this week (you know, not taking the Lord's name in vain). My husband taught an interesting twist on this one. We usually think of "taking God's name in vain" as using His name as profanity. But it doesn't say "use the name" -- it says "take the name..." In other words, maybe we shouldn't take on the name "Christian" if we don't want to live up to it. Something to ponder...
Be sure to sign up for our new free newsletter -- Children's Church Treasure Chest! January 14, 2007I am so excited about our children's church! I had a great idea for a new review game while I was washing the lunch dishes on Saturday, so I ran to my 'puter and got it all worked up and printed out. I have all these great ideas and no time to put them on the site (and I still can't figure out how to post graphics! Ugh!).Thanks, Everyone, for coming to look at our children's church site. I'm sorry that we don't put new stuff on more regularly, but... what can I say? I spend my days with four children under the age of five, and I don't DARE take my eyes off of them to get on the computer! Monday and Thursday nights are my officially website building times, so you might want to check in then. Or if you have RSS, (as you can see) you can now keep track of us that way! I think it is so neat! If you don't know what that is, it's worth looking into. If you have My Yahoo or My MSN, just click on "Add Content" and enter our RSS URL (which you do by right-clicking on the little orange RSS button under our nav bar and copying, then going & pasting into My Yahoo & My MSN). I probably sound confusing; I just have so many thoughts right now, I can't get them all out of my fingers! If you have any trouble, just go to "Contact Us" and I'll walk you through it! Anyway, back to my game idea... we started the Ten Commandments series the first Sunday in January. So I printed 20 scrolls, each with half of a commandment on the back. Like "Thou shalt have..." on one and "no other gods before me." on another. The kids played a memory-type of game. They got to come forward and pick two scrolls. We turned them over to see if they made up a commandment. If not, we put them back on the board; and they had to try to remember where all the fragments were. I have some parchment paper that I printed it onto, and I have some neat parchment-type stationery (got it long ago out of a clearance bin for 80 cents!) that I printed Moses with the stone tablets onto, along with the name of the game. It was a hit (although church dismissed a bit early and we didn't have time to finish playing)! I also found a neat puppet skit at www.fishers of kids.com that went right along with the lesson very well. The children's church kids really loved the puppets. I usually have "Nelly" and "Rudy," but this week we introduced "Dixie." She is so cute! I've given her a heavy Southern accent (not difficult, since I have one!). I am shooting to replace our poor worn out puppets before long. January 7, 2007This week in our children's church we began a series on the Ten Commandments. It was actually weird having a "normal" children's church after partying for almost the past month! Needless to say, the kids were not all too attentive during the lesson. I do not recommend a month of partying!We used a puppet skit from Fishers of Kids that was pretty funny. That site has several lessons relating to the Ten Commandments, and we'll probably utilitize some of the skits and/or puppet skits. I taught the kids a song called "The Perfect Ten," but I can't remember the beginning of it for the life of me. If anyone knows it, please contact me! The part I know starts like this: "Number one, we've just begun; God should be first in your life. Number two's the idol rule; those graven images aren't nice..." I just can't remember the prelude part that says something about "There upon Mount Sinai God gave the rules we should live by when God gave out the shalts and thou shalt nots." Anyway, our goal is for our children's church kids to memorize the Ten Commandments. I bought a poster at the teachers' store of Moses holding the stone tablets, but it wasn't KJV. So *brilliant* (said with tongue in cheek!) me decides to edit it. I stay up til midnight redoing it several times so that my parchment KJV edition lines up perfectly with Moses' fingers. Then as we're riding along in the church van on Sunday morning discussing which commandment is which... I realize that I left out number eight! I stole "Thou shalt not steal" from the Ten Commandments! Chris never let me hear the end of that! And he didn't even use my prized poster project! He will be editing it himself this week! Oh, yeah, I almost forgot... our website is up to #10 in the Top 100 Sunday School Sites! As you can see, I've added RSS to the site. If you have My Yahoo, My MSN, or Google Reader just click on the link to the left (under the nav bar) and go to "Add Content," where you'll be able to add this site to your RSS reader. That way, you'll be able to see at a glance when I've added something new to the site. Later this week I'm going to get my "Children's Church Toolbox" newsletter up and running, so be sure to stay tuned on that and subscribe when I get the form up.
Click here to view our Children's Church Blog 2006 Archive |