Children's Sermon - Directions for our Lives

Good Morning Boys and Girls!

Have you ever had to go somewhere but you didn’t know how to get there? Welcome to my life! I don’t know if you know this, but I can’t find my way down the street. I get lost so easy! I could drive and drive and drive and I always wind up going around in circles. Has that ever happened to you? It’s so frustrating. You know what happens when I get lost? Sometimes I stop at a gas station to ask for directions, then a little down the road I’ll stop again at another gas station. I do this until I recognize where I am. Sometimes, people give me the wrong directions. Then I get more lost. It makes for a long and scary ride.

What do you think I should use to help me find my way? (Listen for responses)

A map or GPS sure would be handy when I’m driving. Sometimes in life we keep going and going and we don’t know what to do are where to turn. Things sometimes get scary, or hard and we can feel alone. Kind of like being lost right? Well God gave us some very special directions to help us during those times. They can be found in the Bible. This is the Bible that my mom gave my dad for his first Father’s Day! (Show my Bible)

See boys and girls when we don’t know where to turn for directions we just need to read our Bibles. It has all kinds of directions to help us find our way to Jesus. When we are sad we can read John 14 that says “Do not let your heats be troubled “,or Psalm 23 when you are scared. It says “I fear no evil because you are with me”.

Can we pray?

Dear Lord, Thank you for thinking about our needs before we were born. Thank you for giving us directions in the Bible to keep us on the right path. In your loving name we pray Amen

Craft - Jelly Bean Prayer

Lent-Jelly Bean Prayer

For Lent this year I decided to teach my kindergarten-1st graders how to apply the Jelly Bean Prayer to their little lives. I believe that teaching children what the Bible says is important, but to show them how to use what they learn in their everyday life is priceless. I purchased a copy of this book ant Family Christian Store. I'm not sure if they still carry it but here is a link to it at Amazon . If it doesn't work please let me know so I can find a new link. It's a super cute book and the kids love it! I spread this lesson out for 6 weeks:

Week One: Speckled Jellybean

This week we learned about Sin. It was a short class, and I was able to do this on Ash Wednesday. I made a basket so every week we could put our "jellybeans" in it. I cut out brown construction paper, and I had the kids glue beans to the outside. The beans were the speckles, and they represented the "dirt" (sin). I know it's not a perfect jellybean shape, but the kids didn't seem to mind :)

On the inside I wrote "Dear Jesus, I am sorry for..." .The kids wrote down something that they did that did not please God. ( The week before we learned about Jesus' baptism, and how God was pleased with his son. This was the beginning of our theme about pleasing God.).

I found a great Lent calendar at Catholic Icing . This site is awesome!! She has tons of craft ideas for every holiday. I am not Roman Catholic but I do find so much stuff I can use in my class. Please check out this site. I promise it's a great site and very much "Pin" worthy :)

Week Two: Red Jellybean

This week we learned about Love. This was a great class because there is so much you can do to teach kids about love. First we made our red jellybean.

I typed up John 3:16 and cut it out and glued it to the front.

The inside says "I will show love by:..... The kids wrote down things they could do to show love to friends and family. I totally recommend getting a copy of Jesus Saves: Take- Home Mini -Books. It has little books you can copy, craft ideas and a nice outline for the lesson with a take home parent letter. Although I didn't use it for this class, there is a lesson about love in the book, Jesus Loves his Family and Friends.

Week Three: Blue Jellybean

This week we learned about Faith and Trust. I loved this lesson. I really wanted the kids to understand that their family and friends should have faith in them and they should also be trustworthy.

The outside says "Trust the Lord your God" .

The inside says "I will be more trustworthy by:..."

We did an awesome little experiment to go with this. I got this idea from Children's Ministry and it's called Lies in God's Eyes. I took a gallon Ziploc bag and poured two cups of water in it. I added two or three drops of blue food coloring. You don't want it too dark and if it's too light then it won't work. On a white sheet of paper I wrote with an orange crayon: Lies, Gossip, Secrets. I had the kids take a green crayon ( I know that the instructions said a blue crayon on the website, but I found it totally worked better with the green crayon) and scribble all over the paper to cover up these sins. I explained that they wouldn't like it if someone told secrets about them or told stories or lies about them. Then I went on to explain that no matter how much you try to cover up these sins God can always see through them. Lay the sealed Ziploc bag over the white sheet of paper and you can see the words as clear as day!! Now I will admit that the little kids were amazed at the blue water and wanted to know if they could drink it or open the bag. Once you can lure their minds to the fact that God wants you to please him with honesty and by being a good son, daughter, sibling, and friend then this is well worth trying to get them to not pop the bag :)

Week Four: White Jellybean

This week we learned how God forgives us and washes away our sins!

The front says "Wash me and I will be brighter than snow. Psalm 51:7"

The inside says "I will be more forgiving when:" The point was to teach the kids to forgive others and don't act out in anger if someone does something to you.
We did another awesome little experiment with this lesson. I took some white house paint and put it in a plastic Ziploc container (not a bag, but a storage container for food). I had a little bottle of Deco Art craft paint in a dark plumb color. As we talked about what we would do in situations when someone asked us to forgive them I had each of the kids squirt a few drops of the dark paint into the white paint. I explained that these were our sins and we are asking God to forgive us. I stirred the paint and it turned white!! The kids (and my co-teacher) were amazed. The kids all did it again and I stirred, and the paint stayed white. God washed our sins away and made us brighter than snow!! I will say that after the third time when they squirted almost a whole bottle of paint into the white paint there was a purplish hue, but it still was pretty darn white.

Week 5: Yellow Jellybean

Ok so this was suppose to be the last lesson, but I have something planned for the green jellybean so it has to wait until the last week. Our lesson is being Thankful that we will share in the kingdom of Heaven one day.

The inside says "Give thanks to the God in Heaven, His faithful love endures forever. Psalm 136:26"

The inside says "Thank you God for:"
The craft I decided to do with this lesson is actually very cute. We did an Ascension craft:
You will need:

• Plastic Cups (blue, cloudy or clear)
• string
• cutouts of clouds and stars or cotton balls
• a double-sided picture of Jesus

We decorated our cups with foam clouds, a moon, sun, and star (I picked these up at Staples for $1.oo. You could purchase foam sheets and cut them out yourself, copy them and cut them out from paper or just fill the cup or attach cotton balls with a glue stick)
I made a hole at the top of the cup and pulled our string through it.
Glue Jesus to the bottom of the string and any bead or decoration to the top of the string.

The kids loved this project, and I love that it explains the concept of Jesus going to heaven.

Happy Crafting!

Craft - The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd

This was an easy craft for the little ones. I found a sheep head online and shrunk it down a bit. Then I went into Word and used a cloud shape. The kids glued each piece to construction paper, colored the background and some legs. We added our little verse and viola! A great project for a class that is tight for time!

Craft- Who is God?

Who is God?

This was a challenging craft. This lesson is for Kindergarten and 1st grade. While the 1st grade is getting a better grasp of who God is, the kindergartners are still trying to figure it all out. I took the God is love approach. Then they needed to share who they love. I found this craft as a Noah's ark craft initially. It had a line of hearts in rainbow colors coming down from the cloud. I really love how adaptable this craft is. You can use it for just about any lesson! The kids were able to use some Christian foam shapes to decorate their clouds. Then we taped chenille stems (pipe cleaners) to the back of the cloud. Have the kiddos write or draw the people or pets they love and then tape to the front of the chenille stem. If you use this template below make sure you white out the little bubbles at the bottom of the page. This was originally a talk bubble and I was trying to get rid of the extra bubbles.



Craft - Noah

Noah

I love the story of Noah.  Ever since I was a little kid I was fascinated that he could live on that ark with all those animals.  I remember always watching documentaries about finding the ark.  It really was only the last couple of years that I realized that the story isn't about an ark and animals.  I wanted to find something that didn't focus so much on the story we all know and love.  I wanted the kids to read between the lines. I didn't want them to wait 45 years before they got the real meaning of the story "God keeps his promises". I looked all over for a good craft. There are tons of them. This is the one I chose to go with

I got the idea from another website.  You need:

• Paper plates
• cut outs of Noah and a few animals
• verse

I cut one paper plate in half and stapled it to a full plate.  Staple the backs together to make a pocket.  If you plan to color then do that before you staples.  It really makes it easier.  I went to DLTK Bible crafts and found some coloring sheets. I copied them into Word and shrunk them down to a quarter sheet.  I traced a thick line around the animals and copied.  The line helps the little kids guiding them as they cut out the animals.  I then went to  Making Friends and printed out paper dolls and cloths to make the Noah.  This took a while, but it is worth it.  We cut everything out and voila! Make sure to have teachers stress the rainbow at the top of the plates.  This is the symbol of God's promise. I will post the templates I used as soon as I find my jump drive :)

Happy Crafting! 

Bulletin Board - Fall

Fall Bulletin Board

Oh bulletin boards. I just love how they look, but I really don't like doing them.  I have quite a few to do and there is one ginormous one in our Fellowship Hall.  I took a different approach to that one.  I decided to section it in half. The bottom half would have "photo albums" and would advertise our programs and events.  This wouldn't change much other than updating the information and photos.  The top half will change quarterly. 

I'm not sure if you could tell how large this board is , but I'm 5'7 and have to reach to touch the top of the "books" 

One of our volunteers made the books out of poster board. She cut out the squares and laminated them. We tape the pictures to the squares and they can be removed easily without ruining the book.  We take the whole book down during VBS time.  That will be another blog post. 

I blew up our Bible verse onto two 11x17 sheets of paper and cut clouds out of poster board.

 The tree was made by taking big sheets of bulletin board paper and twisting it tightly.  We twisted 6 strips.  Then we tied the strips together with fishing line. Hanging it was a bit of a challenge.  When I was at the top of the ladder trying not to fall, the strips started slipping out of the string.  I had to lean against the trunk and staple a few of the branches. I also bent some so the leaned forward.  Once the tree was stable I staples the roots in place.  We had die cuts of leaves and apples.  I needed to fill in all the empty space that was left. I think it worked out great!  I got the graphics for the scarecrow at DJ Inkers.  They have great clipart and it is very inexpensive.  These are high resolution so you can blow up the images and not loose the quality. 

Here is one of  our information boards leading to the Sunday School Rooms. We customize each board to the grades that are on that particular floor.  This is for our 2nd-5th graders.

 

We have one board in the hall for our younger students.  I decorate this one quarterly also.

I used scrapbook paper and a Fiskars stencil for everything.  I laminated all the pieces so hopefully I can recycle this board in the future. 

HAPPY FALL!

Children's Sermon - What If We Don't Talk About Jesus?

Good Morning Boys and Girls! 

How many of you have been to a restaurant?  What is your favorite one?  What makes it your favorite?   If you go to a restaurant and really really like it would you tell all of your friends about it? They will probably ask their parents if the can go and if they like it they will tell more friends right.  What if no one ever talked about your favorite restaurant? Do you think it would stay in business? Probably not because no one would know about it.   

 

Now just imagine if no one talked about Jesus.  See if his disciples hadn’t told others about him then we wouldn’t know all the wonderful things that he did for us.  How sad to never celebrate Easter, or Christmas.  We wouldn’t have our church.  As a matter of fact even our year 2013 would be different.  Life as we know it would be totally different. Believe it or not  there are still people who haven’t been told about him. They don’t know Jesus’ story or how much he loves each one of us. Boys and girls we need to tell others about how awesome Jesus is and we need to teach others.  If we don’t talk about him then there will come a time that people will forget, and when Jesus does come back he will be sad and wonder why we didn’t love him enough to talk about him.   

 

Can we pray?

 

Jesus thank you for all you have done.  We promise to keep your name alive and tell everyone we know about your amazing life and love for us.  In your  name we pray. Amen

Children's Sermon - Judging

Look at this car boys and girls.  Isn’t this the coolest car you have ever seen?? Would you love to own this car?

For those that can’t see the car it’s a van with no hub caps, rust everywhere, a hole in the back door, and the back door is bungee corded closed. 

 

What?  You don’t like this car? !! Well boys and girls this is my car.  Do you know why I love this car so much? This car was the first car I rode in when I moved to Wisconsin 14 years ago.    This car has driven to CT 8 times,  Canada 10 times, Florida 4 times, Cleveland 12 times, Virginia once to see my son graduate, and has driven almost every inch of Wisconsin.  I saw the Mississippi River for the first time in this car.  This was the car that took me to the hospital when my sons were born and took me to the hospital every day for a month while they were still in the hospital.  This is the car that brought my babies home from the hospital.  This car was stolen and every single thing, even the seats were stolen out of it, and it was rear-ended on the highway. This car has seen a lot of tears, heard a lot of laughs, it’s been there as all 7 of our children have grown, and it will be there for our grandchildren.  It’s been through it all and yet with over 350,000 miles it still gets us where we need to go.  I think when you hear this cars story you’ll think it’s a pretty neat car.  

See boys and girls we judged this car because of how it looked and sometimes we do the same thing with people.  Instead of hearing all the wonderful stories a person has to tell and getting to know them, we judge them because they might look different, act different or dress different than we do.  The Bible warns us about judging.  Matthew 7:1 says “Judge not, that you be not judged.”  That means that if we don’t want other people to judge us, then we shouldn’t judge others. 

Can we pray?

Lord, we know judging others is wrong. Open our hearts to the stories that make them who you made them to be.  In your loving name we pray, Amen

What kind of love - JJ Weeks Band

An amazing song that reminds us of why we are part of an amazing ministry.

It's been so darn long since I posted last.  Now that I am working full time at my church, I am hoping to update more often.  This is going to be great!  I am having a hard time finding crafts and activities and bulletin board items so I will start posting my own ideas.  I have to tell you sometimes the effort I put into finding these items seems like an eternity, and I never really find what I wanted anyway.  Even though I think I'm a crafty person I have issues coming up with my own ideas.  So it is out of necessity that these ideas are born.  The LORD has definitely blessed me and I know that when I least expect it he puts a thought in my head and I run with it.  I think he is testing my patience levels though because he waits until the very last minute to put the idea in my head.  I really need a refresher in that area :)  I hope you enjoy and please feel free to use these ideas in your ministry!