We All Got “Stuff”

Tonight I kicked off a new week of camp speaking at Camp Timber-lee. I’ve been a camp speaker here since 1997. They keep having me back, even after I moved to Colorado, which is an honor. This year’s theme is ‘Anchored’ and it’s a super topic – for when we have our lives anchored to God, we can survive the storms of life. I’ll be covering the ‘Water Stories’ of the Bible. Tonight we began with the Wise and Foolish builder in Matthew 7:24-27. For each story we will be looking UP (something we learn about God), IN (something we learn about ourselves), DOWN (identifying a ‘bottom line’ Eternal Principle) and then OUT (what will we DO differently as a result of this story?). One of the neat things about tonight’s chapel was when I introduced a new puppet tonight, named Shredder (a skater dude). He embarrassed to share his real name, so he goes by this cool nick name. He mentioned that he ‘s got some ‘stuff’ going on in his life that he could use God’s help with. When I asked what he meant, he said he didn’t want to give details in front of all these kids,…

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Be God’s Man in God’s Place

I’m at MBI right now for a children’s ministry conference being put on by the seniors in the Children’s Ministry Major program. A major not available when I was a student. They are doing an incredible job. It is such an honor to be here. As I walked around the campus yesterday posting pictures to Facebook of the campus changes, and what’s still the same – it brought back a lot of great memories. It was actually pretty significant that I was here on May 2nd. 24 years ago, on May 2nd, 1990 – I got to go out to take the President of Moody Bible Institute one on one. I had valet parked his car a few weeks earlier and left a note inside asking if I could treat him out to a meal. When he called my dorm room a few days later, my room mate answered, and shocked said, “It’s the Presdient!” I answered, “Bill Clinton?” And he said, “No, Joe Stowell!” We scheduled our meal, and I picked him up at the “Arch” in my little Chevy Chevete and took him to the Rock n’ Roll McDonald’s, where I was the ‘house magician’ – and where…

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The Day the King Unlocked the Gates (free eBook for kids)

Found another hidden treasure! One of the most difficult things to explain to children (or adults for that matter) is the ‘problem of evil.’ It is a philosophical issue that troubles even the most inquiring minds, but doesn’t escape the simple minds of children either. What is ‘free will?’ Why did God give it to us? Why do so many people not believe in God, or even know about Him – if He is truly all knowing and all-powerful? And if He is so loving, why does He allow so much evil in this world? He must be either not all-powerful, not all-knowing, or not all-good for there to be so much in this world that isn’t good! All fair questions. I attempted to answer them years ago with a story I wrote called THE DAY THE KING UNLOCKED THE GATES. I’m no artist – but I even did the illustrations myself and reproduced this book for the kids at my church. I have only a paper master, so I’ve scanned it and created a eBook PDF for your enjoyment. I do hope you will read it to your kids and let me know what you think! It addresses free…

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That Which Shall Not Be Named, Obama and Feet

What do “That Which Shall Not Be Mentioned in the House of the Lord,” Obama and Feet all have in common? They all were in my Kids Church lesson a few weeks ago. It was a fun lesson on being a servant using the story of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. Imagine the President of the Unites States coming over to your house and taking out the kitchen garbage? It included a fun shoe game, Gus complaining out chores, including having to clean up “that which shall not be mentioned in the House of the Lord” and some fun props that led to a bunch of fun feet puns when I posted the following picture on Facebook: (Read the Puns Here) It was a fun lesson, and you are welcome to use anything from it to teach on this topic. You can watch the entire lesson here. (The opening game is edited down so you can see the rules and a bit of the game play without having to watch the entire thing.)  

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Kingdom Kids Historical Documents

When I was a “rookie kids pastor” back in 1993, not even married yet, before the dawn of the personal computer, (or before they became truly practical anyway) I used to hand draw my Sunday Kid’s Bulletins.  I also used them for a Mail Box Club as an outreach tool. Doing some “Spring Cleaning” this week, I discovered a box filled with original masters of these bulletins as well as many completed by children. It was fun to find these blank bulletins that I spent hours creating each week as a follow up tool for my lessons. I used to photo-copy them and send them home as well as use them as a follow up tool for magic shows at outreach events. This is all back in 1993 when I was the first Children’s Pastor the historic Moody Church which was founded by the great evangelist D.L. Moody well over 100 years ago. Below is a downloadable PDF of one of these Kid’s Bulletins / Mailbox Club Bible Lessons. I post it for two reasons. The first is simply for fun and enjoyment, as a “historical document” of how kidmin was done in the “old days” before all these techno…

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