The Rapture

As usual, we began the evening with some energetic worship songs.

Some of our praise team this week included Christina, Riley, Alexandria, Megan and Amber:


Some more praisers - Amber, Delaney and Connor:


Our lesson this week was about being ready for the rapture, so our game followed that theme. Andrew and Megan correctly answered review questions to play "Racing the Rapture" where they had to use a magnet attached to a string to race around the room and "catch up" 4 paper doll type people. We didn't want a single one left behind! It was close enough to call it a tie for the winner.

Andrew got another one!


Megan is on her last one!


After some worship time, Sister Dawn taught a Bible lesson about when Jesus ascended into heaven. She had some children looking up, wondering where He was going. Then, some angels came and told them that He would be back! What great news! He wants us to all be ready when He comes back to take us to Heaven with Him.


Our Bible verse this week was:

"Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come"

We put some motions to the words and practiced several times:

Our object lessons helped the children see the importance of being ready and why we DO NOT want to miss the rapture! We talked about cleaning out our heart like our parents do when a guest is coming over for dinner. We don't want to be ashamed of a dirty home and we don't want to be ashamed if we have a dirty heart when Jesus comes. We need to repent, be baptized and have God's Spirit living in us to be ready - then we need to live a life that is pleasing to Jesus.

Sister T showed a demonstration of the verses in Matthew where 2 are working in the field and one is taken while the other is left. Two women were grinding at the mill - one was taken and the other was left. They all agreed that being left would not be good. We want to be ready when He comes for us. What if the one time we - watch what we shouldn't, go where we shouldn't, do what we shouldn't - what if that is when He comes for us? NOTHING is worth missing the rapture for! The children's hearts were stirred and we took some time to pray and repent and ask Jesus to help us be ready at any time and to make good choices as we grow.

We then had some open discussion with them and had some good conversation, before ending with more energetic worship! I love when they plead to do praise songs!

Ben and Peyton having some fun:


Faith in praise motion:


We love your kids and pray that as they grow, they will follow Jesus with a passion that nothing in the world can rival! We want them to be ready for the rapture!

We are gearing up for our Children's Crusade in a couple of weeks where we are expecting God to do great things in these children!

Love the Lord Your God

What a fantastic service we had in KC this week! We kicked things off with some Praise in Motion, as we do each week. Here are a few scenes - our children are WORSHIPERS!! (Wait til you see the pics later!):

Jeremiah:


Jaylah, Aman and Jiliane:


Caleb and Dylan:


Jayce:


Next up was game time. Our game this week was called Love Ball, since we were learning about the love of God. Riley and Colbert correctly answered review questions to qualify them to play this game for their teams (boys and girls):


For the game, they had to use a bat to knock Styrofoam balls with letters written on them into a box across the room, spelling out the word love. It was harder than it sounded!

Colbert trying hard to get ball 3 - the V - into the box:


Riley knocks her third ball in, too:


It was close, but the boys won in the end. Good job to both for trying so hard!

Our memory verse this week was:

Love the Lord your God with
ALL your heart, and with
ALL your soul, and with
ALL your mind.
Matthew 22:37

If they can still remember it on Sunday, they may just get a prize in Sunday School!

Sister Dawn taught the Bible Lesson:


We learned about Peter, a fisherman, who followed Jesus. Jesus asked Peter how much he loved Him. We learned that, by what Jesus said, we are not supposed to let anything come between us and our love for Jesus.

The children listened so attentively:


Our object lesson this week was taught by Sister T. We learned how much Jesus loves us - so much that He died on the cross for us!



Does He ask us to go through what He went through to show our love for Him? No! He asks that we love Him with ALL of our heart, soul and mind! How easy is that - to just love Him! But, sometimes, we can say that we love Jesus and then let things get in the way of spending time with Him like we should. Then, we had some examples.

Brother Mark represented someone who loves to play sports - fish, ride bikes and scooters, play ball, etc. Sometimes, he even wants to stay home from church to play his favorite sports with his friends:



Christina represented a person who has gotten a new job. She is able to buy her own clothes and she even pays tithes now. The only problem is that she has to work weekends, so she misses a lot of church - but at least the money is great, right?



Evyn represented a person who LOVES a sports team - for him it was the Steelers. He watches every game, knows all of their statistics, collects their sports gear and reads every article written about them. His Sunday School teacher asked him to read a part of the Bible each day this week, but he really wants to read the new article in the paper about the Steelers. He decides that he will get to the Bible later.



Sister Shanna represented a person who came to church, but she is going out with her friends after service. She can't wait for church to be over - she hopes that the preaching is short and that there is no altar call made. She just wants to get to where her friends are hanging out.



Sister Dawn represented a person who loves video games. She plays them every chance she gets. One day, she was ready for church and she decided to play for a few minutes before she had to leave. All of a sudden, she looked at the time and 2 hours had gone by and she had missed church!



Each time one of them would come to the front showing their activity, they would then take it over and place it on the cross, then stand in front of the cross.



All of those things were blocking their view of what Jesus did for us on the cross.


Now, we talked about the fact that there is not anything wrong with any of these things. BUT, when we let them come between us and Jesus, when we make them first - that is when they become wrong! We never want to let anything come between us and what Jesus did for us. We want to love Him the most! So, we realized that to tear those things away from the cross, we needed to repent. As the 5 helpers removed their items from the cross and turned to kneel, the children were encouraged to come forward and repent if they felt like they had ever let anything come before Jesus in their lives. What a site:







Many others prayed at their seats.

After our prayer time, we realized that we had some extra time on our hands. We played a quick game and then, by request, had more worsip. These children are awesome worshippers! So energetic!

Hands in the air, jumping and dancing for Jesus, all with a repentant heart - JOY unspeakable!


I love "The Crazy Song" - worship, prayer and lifting hands all in one awesome song!










After service, Jayce and Conner posed for a shot:


So did Riley, Kirsten, Jiliane, Aman, Amber, and Jaylah:


Such an incredible service with the best kids on the planet!

Easter Lessons

This week, we started a new curriculum in kid's connection. We will spend the next 8 weeks or so learning about all the Jesus did for us and all that He wants to give us to draw closer to him. This week's lesson focused on Easter and what it is really all about.

We started the evening with a couple of games. The first one involved plastic eggs with various items sealed inside them. The children were allowed to shake the eggs and then make their best guess on what was inside (we did provide a list of the choices, since it was challenging!). Out of the 15 items, Blake Farrow guessed 12 correct and won a large chocolate bunny as a prize!

Here, Holly helps Delaney figure out one of the eggs while Christina works on her next egg:


Caleb and Andrew are hard at work with their guesses:


Andrew checks to see how Blake is doing:


Alyssa and Ben pause for a picture:


Our next game was a relay race. Three 9 year old boys and 3 nine year old girls were able to see who could complete the relay first. The first person ran down and filled the Easter basket with all of the goodies:


Then, they ran back and handed it to the next person who had to empty the basket out without letting anything fall on the floor.

Jeremiah and Christina are up first, trying to fill their basket:


Ben and Erica hurry to unload their baskets:


Angelica does her best to load the basket one more time, but the boys won:


After games and worship, we moved on to the memory verse for this week:

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"

We practiced several times to make sure they had it before moving on.

Finally, we got to the Bible Lesson. For the lesson, Sister T took the kids through the Easter story using pictures and props. Without being too gory, she shared with them what Jesus went through for us and why He deserves all of our praise. Many of the children seemed to be understanding these truths for the first time. God's Word went out and reached into their hearts in such an awesome way. They were able to see what a great thing Jesus did, for each one of us, and most importantly, for themselves. We were able to praise Him together for the sacrifice and then rejoice for Easter mroning - He is Risen! What a precious truth to hold close to our hearts! We will continue building on this lesson next week.