Like Father, Like Son

Powered by GoodWidgets.com

Today was the performance for BOARDER SKIRMISHES which was the finale of Kid's Drama camp at The Ritz theater. Daniel, our son, was the lead male in the play (playing Jacob Grimm). Mattie, our daughter, was assistant director for the play.

A great performance by the group was enjoyed by all. They all are growing so fast! Daniel's beard isn't real--but it soon will be.

Creativity Remix-SUMMER CAMP

We just finished our first week of SUMMER CAMP (VBS). This is our fourth year to do it off site at the Boys/Girls Club just down the street from the church. This is also our first year to split the camps into two weeks (younger and older). I think that went well!

Let me just remind you that all of our prep has to be off site (food, media,etc) and we can't get in the facility until 30 minutes before--so it's hectic each day moving in and moving out, setting up and taking down and all of it in the heat of the day when it's about 1000 degrees in the building. But the kids love it.

The set this year is simple--we reused some of our backdrops (www.backdrops.us) tha we've used in the past and painted graffiti on them with the summer camp logo. We're also using a SHOE theme since we collected shoes in April and May to give away at the end of the week.

Traci (children's minister) did a great job of simply explaining the gospel with 2 rolls of carpet (one with SIN on it and the other with TRUSTING JESUS). She used different pairs of shoes to ask the kids to guess where these shoes were going (tennis shoes=sports; dress shoes=church; house shoes=sleep,etc). Each night she built upon the story with a Stop sign and a Yield sign. It was all so creative and simple. The kids really got the message.

It just reminded me that whatever we do to teach the gospel that it should add to the understanding of the message of Christ. All of these visuals really communicated to these K-3rd graders the simple message of christ's love. Many of them had never heard it before---isn't that what VBS is suppose to be about?

What creative things have you used to teach the gospel?

Worship Confessional, June 21, 2008

This post is part of Sunday Set Lists over on Fred McKinnon's blog.

Set List:
Scripture Reading: Psalm 150 (NIV) and The Message

Let Everything That Has Breath (Redman)

Welcome/Announcements (We updated everyone on our Summer Camp last week--we start week 2 tomorrow-older kids)

You Never Let Go (Redman) Great trax David--we were scheduled to do this one in May and it didn't work out. Now I know why!

Scripture--Psalm 139-The Message

Grace, Greater Than Our Sin (Hymn)

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)-(Tomlin)

Video (We used the NEMO video where Dori talks WHALE)--then Russell came up and said "(Speaking Whale) Take your bible and turn to Jonah chapter 1)--Everyone laughed.



Message: Jonah (Chapt 1:17) What's Your Whale? Russell did a great job with this passage today. So much of the story of Jonah fixes on the Whale--but the greater story is of God's grace (his saving and sometime uncomfortable grace that preserves us and saves us for His glory)--Powerful!

Big Enough God (Riddle) Third week for this one and the people are really beginning to sing out on this one.

Still (Morgan)--Reprise from last week. I had so many calls about this song last week that we did it again. This is the Moen arrangement that has BE STILL AND KNOW in the last part of it.

Dismiss

How was your week?

Worship Confessional, June 14, 2009

This post is part of Sunday Set Lists over on Fred McKinnon's blog.

Well, no sound surprises like last week. We were still without our Sub (blown amp that we'll have to unrack and send back this week--we borrowed the Youth Sub for today and for the coming weeks)
Set List:

You, You Are God (Gateway) Always a good one--it's exciting especially with the track that David made for us.
Welcome/Announcements/Offering

Big Enough God (Riddle) Second week for this song. Sarah Carpenter joined us on team today and did a great job leading on this one.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness (Hymn--but Lincoln Brewster arr.)

A good familiar choice

Scripture Reading (Matthew 8 and Psalm 69)

Saved Me (Gateway--Kari Jobe song). My daughter Taylor sang this

for Maundy Thursday. I asked her to sing it again today since it went along with the sermon about Jonah.

Morning Message: Jonah (Throw Your Cargo Overboard)--from Jonah 1: 4-16 and also Acts 27. Russell did a great job in comparing Paul's shipwreck with Jonah's plight and the response of both to the storms of life. He ended with the illustration from UP!(The Disney movie) where the old man realizes all of the stuff in life he was holding on to--and he lets it go. We put a card in each folder and asked people to write down their cargo today. A few did so and brought it to the front to put in the boxes. We've seen more response the last two Sundays to an extended time of worship at the end. Lot's of movement. (Simple staging illustrations with boxes for cargo--do you know how hard it is to find wooden shipping crates in Snyder?)

Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us (Hymn Charts arr.)--Different arr..but good (Key of C) and then went into STILL (Hillsong-Morgan). Great closer.

Tomorrow starts 2 weeks of VBS--we do it at the Boys/Girls club near the church. So 10 nights of set up and take down of sound and set. Should be a good workout!

How was your day!

Tuck Your Shirt In!

There's a big storm brewing here over the insistence that kids wear their shirts tucked in and wear a belt. My son (going into 6th grade) is in arms that they can't wear certain kinds of shorts and have to wear belts. I showed him this video and his jaw fell open. Look what they can bring to school in those baggy pants.

I'm in favor of it---make them wear a belt and tuck those shirts in!!!

It's VBS Season

It's VBS season--for those of you who don't know the acronymn it's a top secret Christian term for VACATION BIBLE SCHOOl, begun sometime in the early 20th century to teach the kids while they were out of school.

I laughed this morning when I read a local newspaper and they described their VBS this way:

Something incredible is happening at XXXX Baptist Church (corner of XXX and XXXStreets). It’s Crocodile Dock Vacation Bible School, where fearless kids shine God’s light. For children ages 5-12, the action starts Monday, June 15. Daily sessions last from 6-8:45 p.m. nightly through Thursday, June 18. Bayou Crews experience daily swamp excursions with their Crew Leaders. The Swamp Stomp begins the daily activities with singing and playing. Immediately following The Stomp, children will experience The Dockside Drive-in (daily video Bible point), Bible Bayou (daily Bible story with group discussion), Crawfish Crafts and Missions (crafts to remind them of the daily Bible story), Gator Games (where children play games connected to the daily Bible story), the Snack Shack (what else? Snacks!) and the Firefly Finale, which includes the Swamp Stomp songs and drama presentations to reinforce the day’s Bible story. You don’t want to miss out on the action! You’ll meet characters like Flash, Jacques le Croc, Belle, Blossom and Tucker. This Dock rocks! You can pre-register your child(ren) by calling XXXXXX Or, for more information, call XXXXXBaptist Church’s office at XXX-XXXX All that to say--we're having SONGS, RECREATION, CRAFTS and SNACKS!

Each year it becomes a competition between churches who can out do their neighbor church with VBS. Who will bring in the live camels? Who will hire the fire eating juggler to entertain during the opening assembly.

I laugh because it's become BIG BUSINESS to the Christian Publishers what the VBS material will be. LIFEWAY secretly guards next years theme until it is unveiled under lock and key at a Glorieta or Ridgecrest conference. (there was some espionage' a couple of years ago with one publisher trying to break the code and find out what another one was doing). Silly!

VBS should be about the kids. Most of them don't care about a theme, or the EXTRA EXTRAS that go into it. Give them some good music, some fun rec, some good refreshments and some good information and they are good to go.

So this week, let me see, I could send Daniel to Rome or to THE CIRCUS--nah, I'll just send him to our SUMMER CAMP where we're trying to reach community kids with the gospel and give out some new shoes to them. I think that's more valuable.

Worship Confessional, June 7, 2009--JONAH

We started our new series JONAH this morning, and something in my spirit told me that this was going to be a trying day. We had an opening video, a drama, sound effects--all a receipe for disaster. Was I ever right.

We went into rehearsal and we knew that our subs were iffy--just didn't know what it was. Then our amps went on our mains and we were toast. We had to quickly adjust by brining powered speakers and sub from the Family Life Center over for worship--all of this while we're trying to do a full run of the songs. Oh brother!

ButI knew that we serve a BIG ENOUGH GOD that he could get us through. He did and I would say that the Spirit of the Lord was there.

Here's the set--it's part of Sunday Set Lists over on Fred McKinnon's Blog

Opening Video (from Christ Community Church in Omaha)

You Are Worthy of My Praise (Ruis)
Joyful, Joyful (Hymn Charts)--If I had it to do again I would have flipped these two songs--both in E---Joyful had more energy and faster tempo. Oh well--you live and learn.

Welcome/Announcements/Offering

Enough (Tomlin)

Big Enough God (Jennie Riddle)-- a new song from the writer of REVELATION SONG. We're using it for a theme song for JONAH. I got a nice email from Jennie this week and told her that we were singing it this week. Take a listen--I think you'll like it.

Drama--we wrote a sermon intro that basically made fun of THE JONAS brother--two teens talking about how cool our pastor was preaching about the JONAS brother. Needless to say they were disappointed when Russell corrected them about the series.

Message-JONAH--We All Have A Nineveh--a great introduction to this book. Only 4 chapters but we're carrying through the summer as our series. A great word.

Softly and Tenderly(Hymn Charts)--and if it wasn't enough with the speakers going out, I get up to sing this response song and theres a honking big red light on my mic that says "YOUR OUT OF BATTERY!" Great--I'm signaling to the team to carry on... the Minister of Youth has to bring another mic up on stage. This is a great arrangement and would work well with YOU ALONE too.

Mighty to Save/The Stand---by the time we got to these songs I was done... and then I heard the congregation singing "SO I'LL STAND WITH ARMS HIGH.." They were loud... I mean loud. We closed out by singing the chorus accapella!

Out Music---Belly of the Whale (Newsboys)--we played the mp3 of the song used in the Veggie Tales JONAH video.

Here are pictures of our stage. We got the banners from Backdrops.us. The side banners we made ourselves using TYVEK banner material on our HP DesignJet large scale printer.

How was your day?