kid's Connection: 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!