What's in Worship by Delia Halverson

The new Delia Halverson book is awesome. It is a small book with lots of information. She teaches the reader about what and why we worship, why all age groups including children should be included in worship. It explains the order of worship, and talks about the importance of sacraments. She also has a brief chapter over the church seasons and symbols and talks about what you can find in a hymnal. There are also appendixes included to help explain why children should be include, a layout on how to create a worship service, and how to create a children's bulletin. It was a quick read and very worth it. I will be using it as a main source for a presentation I will be helping give to the Oklahoma Conference. It is a great resource for anyone included in the worship planning process or anyone just interested in learning more about liturgical worship.

Web Wednesday :)

I have found a really great blog that I think is worth sharing! Check out http://ministryideastudios.com/! The author has been a Children's Minister for 25 years. She works as a Development Director with the ReThink Group. Her blog is a great place to seek advice and learn better techniques to be a leader. Check her blog out!

Trunk or Treat

Halloween is just around the corner and what better way to celebrate Halloween with our kids than to have a Trunk or Treat! We are having our first annual Trunk or Treat this Wednesday to provide our church community a safe place to wear costumes, get candy, make crafts, and to fellowship together. The various adult Sunday school classes will be there with various decorated cars and cookies and candy! I am so excited that we will be having a true intergenerational event. It is always a blessing when the various age groups get together, something great always happens. I hope that your church family will partake in this fun holiday by nurturing your children's creativity and showing them the fun and the love of our Creator.

Week 3: The Joy of Laughing

This past Wednesday we discovered God in our laughter. Our group could not contain it's joy this week to settle down! We had a story about being clumsy and how the
embarrassment became a joke to her and we had to laugh right along with her.
In the last few weeks we have been discovering that God is in big things and small things alike. God reveals God's self through everything, we just have to be paying attention.
I am looking forward to this Wednesday to see what God has in store for us. We will be taking a break for the week to participate in Trunk or Treat. It should be a great intergenerational event for the church.

Children's Sabbath Day

Every year the Children's Defense Fund asks religious affiliations to hold a special program to educate their groups on the needs of children in our communities, states and nation, and to celebrate our children. This is the first year that I will be participating in this National Observance and it had reminded me why I wanted to be a Children's Minister in the first place. The children of our world all deserve to live in a world that cares about them and for them. They deserve to have a warm bed, a loving family, food in their bellies, a chance at a successful life, clothes on their backs, and education. No child chooses the circumstances they are born into. The decisions about whether they have food to eat, whether they have a way to go to school, etc, are not made by them. The world's children are everyones responsibility. They say it takes a village to raise a child and I believe that whole heartedly. It is our responsibility to make sure that all children have an equal opportunity to life. It is our responsibility to be the helping hand if no one else is there to offer it. God calls all of us in every faith to love our neighbors, even those smaller than we. God asks us to look out for each other and to take every opportunity that God presents to us to love. I ask that you take this blog post and remember why you are working with children. Take this quick little paragraph and find the fire in your heart for your communities' children. Look for the detours God presents to us to love our neighbors, especially those who cannot help themselves.