more on silence

we've got some snow

Jesus wasn't the only one who was a fan of silence.  The apostle Paul said this in I Thessalonians 4:11-12,

 "and make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you , so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."

James, Jesus' half-brother, counseled in James 1:19 : "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry."

There are several verses in the Psalms about silence - probably the one that is best known is Psalm 46:10a: "Be still and know that I am God..."

My favorite one, and the one our pastor lovingly emailed to the resident fisherman to encourage him in his silence is Proverbs 10:19:  "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise."

My hubby quipped (via email) 'Sounds like a case for shorter sermons.'  

All in good fun of course, we love our pastor and really appreciate his messages.

Two days before hubby's surgery, we were singing along with the worship songs in church.  I looped my arm through his arm.  He really does have a wonderful voice and I realized then how much I was going to miss it.  

Moments later I headed back to children's church to teach the day's lesson.  It was on King Solomon and part of my teaching habit is to spend a bit of time reviewing.   I asked, " Who was the king of Israel before Solomon?"

I was shocked when a little girl in the front row raised her hand.   I have been teaching these kids for the past several years.  Children's church includes Kindergarten - 4th grade.  I have taught this particular little girl for at least 3 years.  She had never before raised her hand.

There is a reason for that.  Her mother shared with me that H. has  'selective mutism'.  She can speak, but doesn't in social settings.

Time paused for a moment as I prepared to hear her speak to me for the first time. 

Instead, she got out of her seat, came up to me and took the white board marker from my hand.  She went up to the board and wrote 'David' - the correct answer. 

She was beaming, I was beaming and, to be honest, close to choking up.  It was a precious, precious moment and I learned an important lesson.

You don't have to talk to communicate.

Children's Ministry

This weekly posting is primarily for our church children's ministry team, but if anyone else has ideas to add, please feel free!

This is the Bible we use for Children's Church.  The kids enjoy using it - it has some great ideas to help the kids understand the passage.  One negative - either we are really hard on Bibles or some of the binding is not very strong.

Our Bible passage for this weekend is Psalm 103. I do not have Pastor's outline on this yet, but his topic is 'Worship".

One reading of this Psalm shows why:

Bless the Lord, O My Soul

Of David.

103 ^yBless the LORD, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

2  ^yBless the LORD, O my soul,

and ^zforget not all his benefits,

Read the rest here.

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This is such a beautiful Psalm! 

PRAY
The first thing I do when preparing to teach is pray - pray that God will show me what He wants me to get across to this precious kids.

WRITE
If the passage is a chapter or less, I write it out.  If it is more than one chapter, I outline it.

As I write it, I look for patterns, repeated words or  phrases.  Repeated ideas.

This passage repeatedly says - Bless the Lord -
or the kids version says - "Let all that I am praise the Lord".

The Hebrew definition of bless includes kneeling and adoration.  There is a sense of whole-hearted worship. All. No holding back. I will discuss with the kids what this means.

I like to have the kids open the Bible .  We are teaching them where to find books of the Bible and how to study.  We have 4 year olds up to 4th grade - about 20-25 kids on average.  I instruct the older kids to help the younger non-reading kids.

Verses one and two set the theme and the stage for the rest of the chapter.  "I will never forget the good things He does for me."

We will list the good things mentioned in the chapter.  As you write out the verses you notice that there are two separate categories.  The things He does (i.e. forgives all my sins) and the things He doesn't do (i.e.He does not deal harshly with us).
We will put these things into  a chart on the white board - Things God Does
Things God doesn't Do

Then we will make a third category.  It will be based on verse 2 - May I Never Forget the Good Things He Does for Me.   This is where I will invite the kids to call out things God has done for them.  Be prepared to be blessed by this!

That ends the lesson part of our time together.

CRAFT
As a result of out enumerating the things God has done - we will see that He has done unique things for each of us.

Since it is winter time - I thought it would be appropriate to make snowflakes.  We are all unique.  Snowflakes are all  unique.  God's blessings to each one of us is unique.  After we cut out our snowflakes, each child can carefully write some of his/her blessings on it.

Supplies needed - scissors, white paper( or you could use coffee filters), pencils

GAME

I plan to print out a copy of the chapter and cut apart verse by verse.  Each child will get one (or more if we have fewer than 22 kids) verse.  They will then have to go around to each other and put the verse in order.  Then one by one read it out loud.

SONGS

Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia, Praise Ye the Lord (Old School, I know)
10,000 Reasons
The God of Angel Armies (from verse 21)
I don't think we have the last two songs on DVD, but in the future with enough advance notice we could perhaps ask Dan or Luke to play a particular song or Jeremy set up a video of the you-tubes (if we have copyright clearance).
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Children's Ministry Monday (posted late this week) will be a regular feature on this blog.  I will be sharing the link with those on our ministry team who are not blog readers.  But if you are (one of the few) a regular reader and have any input for the lesson - please chime in!  I'm hoping the comment section will be come a place where we can share ideas!