Home Archive by category "Children’s Ministry" (Page 67)

Category: Children’s Ministry

Avoiding the GIMMIE GIMMIE’s

How do you help kids develop an “Attitude of Gratitude?” Every holiday seems to get derailed with the wrong focus. Christmas is about getting presents and Easter is about candy – and Thanksgiving can end up being about FOOD! MANY many years ago I wanted to develop a game for my students at church that would help them focus on being thankful, but in a fun and engaging way. I also had the issue of it being a low attendance Sunday with families traveling and as a result I often was short on volunteers. What to do? I ended up creating a large group game that became so HUGELY POPULAR it became an annual tradition. The game has been available on Kidology.org for over ten years in my “home made” version – but we finally decided to create a “real” version worthy of the FUN that it creates and make it available for wider use! If you have ever played Parker Brother’s classic card game of PIT – you will already know the basic rules – and get a mental image of how fun the game is. But instead of just a few players yelling out, “One! One!” or “Three!…

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Princess Leah Now a Disney Princess?

Twitter and Facebook blew up yesterday with the news that George Lucas sold Star Wars and all its rights to Disney. As the YouTube video of George’s explanation spread, fans seemed divided over whether this was a good or bad thing but were hesitantly excited about the simultaneous announcement that there would be new Star Wars movies as a result. One of the most interesting reads was George Lucas Just Saved Star Wars by Firing George Lucas. Others had fun proposing possible names for the new movies to come from a Disney-owned Star Wars franchise: Here are a few: — When You Wish Upon a Death Star. — Finding Greedo. — Song of the Sith. — Snow White and the Seven Droids. — The Princess Leia Diaries. — Emperor Palpatine’s New Groove. — The Wookiee. — Lilo & Sith. — Droid Story. As I trick or treated this year in a Star Wars inspired costume… After getting a taste of the Power of the Force on Endor, where he was first honored as a god, C3-PO secretly decided to begin to study the ways of the Jedi around him until finally in 2012 he would reveal himself as a true…

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Pumpkin Fun! Ministry Fun!

Tonight was the night for our annual family pumpkin carving. Which means, I carve two pumpkins and Sara carves out hers. (I’m not letting Luke handle a sharp knife just yet!) But we did let him design his pumpkin on paper first. It was fun looking at pumpkin designs online first – and boy oh boy are there some amazing pumpkin designs out there! So much potential in a simple pumpkin! You start with this plain ol’ pumpkin, and yet it can become anything you want it to be. It all depends on how creative you are willing to be, how patient you are willing to be, how careful you are willing to cut away at it, how much time you willing to spend on it, and how unique you want it to be. You can settle for something like everyone else – or you can decide to be different and unique. And of course, practice helps you improve over time. My least favorite part is cleaning out the insides – but it is a necessary evil if you want the light inside to shine out! It kind of reminds me of how we build our ministries. There is so…

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What Are You Teaching Sunday?

How are you handling Halloween? Kids are seeing a lot of scary images. Our culture is obsessed with evil. As you probably know, I wrote a Halloween Series this year. I just got this e-mail in from someone who just finished it: We just finished up our final Spooky Lessons of the Bible last night. The kids LOVED it! Great lesson series Pastor Karl. The kids really enjoyed the gross guessing game. We used peeled grapes for eyeballs, a loofah sponge and jello for a brain, REAL pigs feet from the meat section of the grocery and for the final night, we used pickles and pistachio nuts for gorilla fingers. But most important, our kids better understand that they don’t have to fear death if they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. The most powerful story in the series was the final night – the lesson of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Again, thank you for this fun and powerful series. I look forward to seeing what else you have in store for us! Lori Clark Gainesville Church of God, Florida Lori mentions the last lesson. Well, I have taken that last lesson, and made it available as a SINGLE LESSON…

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The Freedom of Childhood

And Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3 Children are free from so much. Unlike adults, their default is play not work, imagination not reality, exploration not explanation, curiosity not cautiousness, and best of all they worry about nothing other than their immediate needs and loved ones. No thoughts are weighed down by the future or world affairs. They can swing for an hour with no thought to the things still undone on a task list. They accept complete dependance on those who care for them without question. Perhaps these are a few of the reasons Jesus asked us to come to Him as children. Then we would be free indeed.

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