Superheroes Continues

The past several weeks we have continued to learn about how to be the kind of Superhero Jesus wants us to be - based on His Word. We have had exciting and energetic services full of fun, learning and worship.

Views of the dynamic worship that our children engage in:


Joseph gets right out there in the middle to worship!


Some of the girls:


And some of the boys:


Pure energy!


Jaycie and Presley:


Each week, we have had a skit of a Bible lesson for the kids that demonstrates someone who practiced the Superhero trait that we are learning about.

For one lesson, Mark was Mordecai and Dawn was Esther - a young girl who had to be courageous enough to do what was right, even when it was hard.


Brother Jack was the King and Brandon was the wicked Haman, who Dawn points out as the one who wants to kill her people:


In another lesson about courage, Brandon was Gideon - a man who was too scared to fight, but who God used to save His people using only trumpets and lanterns. Here, Tyler, Steven and Nick help him:


Faith and Jadyn listen attentively:


Another week, we learned about self-control through David and King Saul. David and his army are trying to keep away from Saul:


David (played by Evyn) showed self control when King Saul was trying to hunt his down and kill him. Saul came to a cave where David and his men were hiding, but Saul did not see them. David had the chance to kill Saul, but chose to practice self-control instead. He simply cut off a piece of Saul's robe to prove that he could have killed him.


Our next lesson was about showing compassion to everyone. In our skit, Caleb was the leper who was unclean:


When Jesus came to town, the leper pushed through the crowd to get to Him to be healed. The crowd was horrified that a leper would come near them:


However, Jesus had compassion on the leper and healed him right there:


Brother Jack is an awesome teacher who often helps wrap things up and prays with and for the children:


We have learned so much in the past few weeks. As the children start heading back to school, it is our prayer that they will carry all of the lessons with them each day to be a light for Jesus wherever they go.

Week 2 - Be Confident!

KC kids never tire of worship, and they do it with all their hearts and ALL their energy. It is awesome to watch them and see their love for Jesus:













Our lesson tonight was learning how to be Confident and stand up for what is right, even when no one else is. Brother Jack was our Storyteller/Johnny Cash who sang and told the story of Elijah standing up to King Ahab.


Brother Mark was Elijah and Brother Brandon was King Ahab. They did a southern style king and Elijah that kept the kids very entertained and interested!


Elijah shares a message from God with King Ahab and his prophet (Sister Dawn!). Elijah challenges King Ahab and his 450 prophets to a showdown on Mt. Carmel. It must have taken a lot of confidence in God to stand up to a king and 450 prophets like that - especially when you feel like you are the only one who is serving God in the whole country!


Elijah wonders what is wrong with Baal - is he on vacation or busy or maybe he's asleep and they need to wake him up? King Ahab and the prophet are tired from praying so hard, but still, there is no fire on the altar.


Elijah steps up to pray to the one, true God:


King Ahab and the Prophet stand in awe as the altar "ignites" and the flames rise:


Elijah worships the God who answered with fire:


Our Superhero this week was Kid Confidence who reinforced what Elijah taught us - that when we are in a situation where everyone else is doing the wrong thing, we can have confidence in God and stand up for what is right. Our "Remember" point this week is "You can always count on God - Be Confident!"

If the kids know this next week, they will get to add their name to our drawing for the grand prize at the end of our 10 weeks. They will also have more chances when they bring offering, bring their Bible or bring a friend!

Superheroes, Week 1

We kicked off our new Superheroes unit this week in our new Children's Chapel in our Family and Fine Arts Center. This exciting unit will go on for the next 10 weeks and we are so excited to see all that God is going to do in and through our POA kids! Click on the picture below to check out some pictures from the evening! More to come soon.

superheros kickoff

Starting next week, kids can put their name in a drawing every time they: bring their Bible, bring offering, bring a guest or remember our main point from last week. (This week's was "Nothing is more powerful than God!") At the end of the 10 weeks, we will draw 5 names and those children will each win one of our Superhero cutouts! The more things they do each week, the greater the chance they have to win!

Catching Up

The past few weeks have been so exciting following our Children's Crusade. We all enjoyed and were blessed by the ministry of Brother Jeremy Joyce and had an awesome time of worship, fun, learning and definitely felt the presence of God throughout the weekend.

The teachers dressed in "Crazy Praise" for the crusade:


Kid's Praise:


Kid's Praise:


As well as having awesome review games, activities and worship each week in KC, we have also been preparing for our new curriculum that will take us through the summer - SUPERHEROES - which we will start next week in our Children's Chapel in the new Family and Fine Arts Center! We are so excited about what God is going to do in our children this summer. Be sure to invite friends to come to KC each week - you never know what might happen if you do!

Misc. pictures of some of the children over the past couple of weeks:

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!