OT BX3 Croftlands

This afternoon I have once again been at Croftlands Juniors with the year 5 groups doing the third lesson of Bible Explorer.  As we slightly ran out of time last week due to the classes coming in slightly later I had a job to do today to catch up and finish today's lesson at the right place.  So I did the last few hands signs from lesson 2 and moved right into the ones for today.  We heard about what happened after Moses had died and Joshua took over.  We had the walls of Jericho story and moved on to explain how the land was divided up by the people after they had secured it all.  Next came the story of the judges and in particular Deborah, Gideon and Samson.  We finished with the story of Ruth ready for the David story next week.

OT BX3 St Peters

Had a delightful afternoon over at St Peters today.  I was doing the third Bible Explorer lesson which covers the stories of Joshua and then into the Judges.  We then focus in on just 3 of the judges Deborah, Gideon and Samson.  Then we finish on the delightful story of Ruth.  The children were a little surprised in that we have done 3 out of 5 weeks and only really looked at 8 books out of the 39 that are in the Old Testament.  New week we shall see a few more books ticked off the list and an explanation about some of the other books.  So next week we look at the last judge, the first king and that followed after that.

Low Furness School

This morning Sarah and I went to Low Furness School.  The theme was humility so after singing Be Happy Sarah told a short Dr Seuss story about Yertle the Turtle.  The story was about a turtle that wanted to big himself up and be the best and in the end ended up falling down in the mud.  This linked to the story Jesus told of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector so I told this part of the story and linked it into some of the actions that Jesus did like washing the disciples feet and the words he spoke the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Sarah concluded the assembly talk with a short prayer about being humble then we sang Great Big God.

Millom Fun Day

Today we have been over at Millom in the Network Centre for the joint churches fun day.  We had a great time.  I did 3 different shows during the afternoon each one had a gospel message for the people.  The first show had a lot of children friendly tricks in it with a message at the end, the second and third shows slightly less children/family tricks and more gospel illusions.  I ended the show with my glass that represents the world with water in it - the people but the world became dirty and unclean - ugly as sin entered the world God had the answer and as the cross enters the glass/world and touches the water/people it cleans it and the water becomes clear again.  I followed this with the 4 points illustration and invited people to take a copy if they wanted one at the end - lots of people did - children, teens and adults too.  As people came into the shows we gave them a Smile Jesus Loves You sticker, I am not sure how many we gave out but they are in packs of 60 and we used almost 3 packs.  Looking forward to other fun days later on this year particularly as I have a number of new tricks for 2014 which I have used today for the first time.

OT BX2 Croftlands

This afternoon I was at Croftlands Junior school for the second part of Bible Explorer. The children all came in and sat in readiness for the lesson. We had some part of last weeks story to complete,  so once that was done we started on the story of Moses.   The children really got into the swing of the lesson as we went through hand sign after hand sign.  As the stories went along. The lesson was all to quickly over as the school day came to an end. Next week we start on Joshua and the rest of the judges.

Ignite - Youth Alpha

Wow!  I say again WOW!  Tonight at our Ignite group we started the Youth Alpha course.  We had 16 young people in our living room all engaged in watching and listening to the Youth Alpha Film Series.  At various points in the video there were questions so we stopped the video and asked the young people what there answers might be - we looked at :- If you only had 24 hours left to live, what would you do? Why do you think people find it awkward to talk about their religious beliefs?  Assuming God is real; if you could ask God one question, what would you ask?  We made sure that all the group answered the questions and we were amazed at the answers the children gave.  As we settled down for the videos Sarah said that she felt it such a privilege to be apart of the group as they all connected with the two presenters as they looked at John14:6 I am the way the truth and the life.  Tonight was just the intro to the course looking at Christianity Boring, Un-true irrelevant. There was some funny stuff as well in the form of jokes and stories which I read out, as well as a funny video clip of a baby biting his brothers finger.  All in all a very good night Praise be to God for all those young people.  Please pray for them you may not know them but God does and pray for us too as we continue this course.

 

OT BX2 St Peters

This afternoon I was again at St Peters doing Bible Explorer Old Testament.  I had left the Joseph story until this week as we ran out of time last week.  So this week following a quick recap of last week I launched into the Joseph story and then went right into the Moses story.  I managed to get through all the Moses story so make me back on track again for next week.  The children loved being part of the stories as they came out to join in and play the various parts.  They are also keen to learn the hand signs and to do them, as I was setting up some of the children helped me and they were going over last weeks signs and encouraging each other as they did which was great to see.  Next weeks lessons will focus on Joshua and the Judges finishing with the lovely story of Ruth.