Our Children's ChurchSeptember 25, 2007Life has really been *happening* for us! We have gotten into the gear of homeschooling my oldest, who started kindergarten last month. We are also preparing for our newest arrival, who is due 8 weeks from today! I have been decluttering my house, freezing food, trying to get the baby bill paid off (!), and otherwise fulfilling my "nesting" duties. We are also happy to announce that our newest website is now live on the web: Afford To Stay Home. Yes, I am insane; and no, I don't have much time to devote to this site, much less another one! But I purchased two domains last year and had to get this other one up and running. So I managed to build a few pages and hope to add to both sites slowly but surely (and regularly!). I am contemplating the purchase of a laptop, so that I can work on the sites on the go and while watching my kids play, etc. I am also wanting to purchase software that will make it possible for me to publish e-books. These will be made available on the site and should be a true blessing to children's church ministry workers. But... first things first! I have a baby to pay for (and deliver)! Our children's church ministry has really grown in the past few weeks since school started. We always experience quite a summer slump! Our pastor just petitioned the church family yesterday for prayer and giving toward a new bus, since ours are becoming quite packed. I hope you will consider saying a quick prayer for us in this regard! Thank you for your continued visits to this site and for the encouraging notes that are now arriving on a daily basis. I do make an effort to answer every one of them personally and quickly, so thank you for your patience as I do so! I have a great resource to recommend for the children and youth of your church: Glow in the Dark Devotionals. Here is some information about Glow Junior from the website: Are you looking for a daily devotional for your children? Introducing... Glow Junior! Each issue is filled with character building lessons and written at an elementary reading level. Every week will focus on one character trait and memory verse, with daily devotions giving examples of that characteristic. Each concept is reinforced with fill-in-the-blank memory verse practice for Thought-to-Glow word puzzles. Help your children, like Josiah, to seek after God while they are yet young. Both the youth and junior editions have accompanying leaders guides with games, skits, and other great resources. June 28, 2007Our upcoming bi-monthly newsletter is in the works, and we are excited about it! We apologize for the delay (we like to get the newsletters out mid-month), but we are awaiting further information from a C.L.A. attorney who has graciously volunteered her time and valuable expertise to help children's church workers through our ministry. If you are not signed up, we recommend that you become a subscriber today! Just click on the "Free Newsletter" link in the nav bar. Don't worry; you'll only hear from us six times per year, and we don't share our mailing list with anyone!Please tell me that we are not the only children's church ministry experiencing a "summer slump"!! I totally thought that some of our Sunday School teachers were just late dismissing this past week, but nope... all the kids were there! Like, a fourth as many as we usually run! Our kids are coming and going to camp, vacations, and plain ole lazy syndrome from being out of the school routine. I'm really looking forward to our V.B.S. next month to perk things up! Send in your remedies and advice for the "Summer Slump," and we'll feature you on our website! Just use the "Contact Us" button. June 11, 2007What a fabulous time we had at S.M.I.T.E.! The red hot preaching from Pastor Dan Carr of Gulfport, MS was out of this world! We really got motivated with our children's ministry and in our personal walks with the Lord. We will be talking more about it in our newsletter this month, so if you aren't subscribed... subscribe now!We wrapped up our Spring Campaign and took our winner, John David Mulford, to Silver Dollar City last month. We all had a wonderful time, and he thought that was a great prize! My husband and I just returned to our ministry yesterday after a month of being out! In May a pastor friend of ours in Dora, MO tragically and suddenly lost his wife in death; so he asked Chris to fill his pulpit for a couple of weeks. That was incredibly difficult, but by God's grace Chris did a fabulous job and was a comfort and help to the church and pastor. Then we headed to S.M.I.T.E., missing one Sunday; and although we were excited to return to our post last week... we got back in town late Saturday to find an message on our machine that a visiting evangelist's wife would be doing our children's church for us so that we could attend our church's revival services! That was a blessing, and the revival messages were tremendous; but we sure were glad to return to our ministry yesterday! We are exciting about decorating for a new season throughout this week and preparing for a great summer and VBS! May 10, 2007Our Spring Campaign is going great! It is really getting competitive! We have a little girl who rides my husband's bus, and she's in the lead. She has been bringing lots of first time visitors! But there's a little boy who is right on her tail; he is a "church kid," and he has been learning memory verses like crazy to try and catch up. I wish that they both could win! Perhaps we'll end up with a tie... (Of course, there are other children who are just a few points behind those two!)We've had an exciting but busy spring! For starters... we've learned that we are expecting another baby! I'm about 10-12 weeks and feeling pretty well, although I have been EXTREMELY EXHAUSTED!! (That would largely be why my contributions to this website lately have been nil! Sorry!) I'm usually pretty tuckered out the first trimester, so hopefully this will pass soon. We are also so thrilled about going to S.M.I.T.E. again for the first time since we've been married! We went as teens (actually, Chris & I met there!), and I worked on staff for CEF Evangelists "Uncle Jerry" and "Aunt Vicki" during and after high school. We're thrilled to be going back this summer. We've not been able to go up to this point, since I have a track record of having a baby or miscarriage EVERY summer since 2001! We are taking another young lady who heads up our preschool children's church, and she is looking forward to it as well. We are now busy trying to raise the money for our tuition and travel expenses. We're hosting a barbeque next Saturday, and we've been peddling tickets all over town (unfortunately, with less success than we'd hoped!). I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew -- Chris has to work that Saturday, so it will just be me and the teen girls! At least he can help with the meat and potato salad prep ahead of time! If you care to assist us in this venture, please make your flight arrangements no later than Friday, May 18 (LOL, just kidding)!! Actually, I'll make it easier for you:
Speaking of May 18... that's Chris's birthday! If you want to bombard him with e-cards, here's his address: chrismmcpherson@yahoo.com. April 13, 2007I am so excited -- tomorrow is our children's church quarterly activity! We are *supposed* to have a picnic and play day outside; but the forecast consists of 100% chance rain and temp in the 40's, so... we're just doing a pizza party and indoor games! It will still be fun though!This is the kickoff for our Spring Campaign, which begins Sunday. The kids are really excited because the points system for the five-week contest is on an individual basis, and the winner gets to go to Silver Dollar City with us! If you have never shopped from Oriental Trading, they have a lot of inexpensive and neat prizes and games for children's church ministry.  View January - March 2007 Blog View 2006 Blog
|
