I had forgotten until yesterday that, with Mom preaching today, it would be my day to do Kidz Church. Not a big deal really, but....well, I had a day to get ready. So many times when I do Kidz Church alone, things fall sooooo flat. It's just very difficult to keep the attention of so many kids with such a wide age-range (about 3 to 14).
We've got Kidz Church scheduled to follow Foster's six Traditions - we do two months on each stream. We're on the Evangelical Tradition. Was it a coincidence that I recently finished Foster's chapter on this stream? I was going to grab an easy out - show a Veggie Tales or something, but decided not to. The first things Foster said should be done in practicing the Evangelical Tradition is to "get to know our Bibles." Well, how can you possibly do that with a bunch of kids who seem to loose interest at the very sight of a book, not to mention a rather thick book lacking pictures?
I cracked open Calhoun's Spiritual Disciplines Handbook....what a rich resource!! She's got a section on memorizing scripture....so I took that idea, along with all the scriptures and ideas she included in the section....and did what I could to set it in a "kid friendly" framework.
So....we (myself, a friend, and about ten kiddos) gathered around my laptop to look at pictures and talk about things we've memorized. We learned that memorizing stuff can be both easy and fun, and we looked at three reasons why we memorize words out of the Bible: it's a cure for boredom (the whole wandering mind problem), it gives us tools for life (watched a clip from Nim's Island), and...just 'cause it tastes good (we had some reeeeally yummy cookies to help us understand this). Then we worked together on a memory verse: "God, I love your words! I can't stop thinking about them!" Ps. 119:97. We paired the kids up, an older kid with a younger one, and had them work on writing our the verse and going over it with each other....and we played memory games to help us remember the verse.
I'm delighted to say....we had a blast.
Thanks, God.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Kidz Church
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2 comments:
I'd be interested in hearing more about how Kidz Church is structured around Foster's 6 Streams...
Basically...and very simply :), we do two months (eight Sunday's) on each stream. We're in our third year in this rhythm. The streams are all soooo rich that there's no end to the stories, activities, and object lessons that can be used. And it's amazing how much you can learn by taking those truths and communicating them in ways that a five-year-old can grasp. It's great fun.
What you're doing with The Loft is inspiring! We're slowly moving in the direction of touching on a wider range of learning styles. Keep it up (and keep me posted)!!
Blessings...
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