Advent

Wow...it's been busy around here lately. I started a new basketball clinic for kids at our church. It's kind of a pilot program right now. It's a small 4 week session made up of kids from my Sunday School class and around the neighborhood. In January, I'm planning on doing a larger session that's open to everyone else. So that's one thing keeping us busy. But we've also got ADVENT!

A couple of Christmas's ago, we started doing a new thing where we give our kids almost all of their Christmas presents before Christmas. The idea is that getting the presents out of the way will make it easier for us to truly celebrate Jesus' birthday. And it's been working great for the past 2 years! I like it because less importance is placed on the presents. The kids like it because they get their presents early. (Mrs. BigKat is not as thrilled about the new system as I am, but she does see the need for it and enjoys the fact that it's working so well.)

Anyhow, at church, they asked us, as a family, to light the Advent candle this Sunday. And my job is to tell about our family traditions that help us keep Jesus as the focus of Christmas. Now everyone at church will get to hear about my crazy idea!

There's another Advent activity that LilKat1 and I are doing. It's actually something that I'm doing with my Sunday School class. We're doing an Advent Calendar, but it's a little different than your normal Advent calendar. You know the calendars where you open up the doors and eat the little chocolates (or get Legos or whatever)? Well, instead of getting things, we're giving things. Each day leading up to Christmas, we're giving a gift of service to Jesus. On our calendar, we write down something we can do to share God's love with someone else for each day of the month. Then, as we give our gifts of service, we draw hearts around whatever day it is to mark down what we did. For example, one day LilKat1 spent some time with his sister playing her favorite game. Another day, he emailed his favorite Bible verse to his grandmother. Another time, he helped make cookies, which we sold to help raise money to buy blankets for poor people in India to help them stay warm during the winter. So on Sunday, I'll be able to talk about our Advent Calendar too!

Here's a little video I made for my Sunday School class to illustrate the idea:

The Donut Store

Our church does not have a fellowship hall. After church, if you want to hang out and talk with your friends, there really isn't a great place to do that. There is an area right outside the main room that people just kind of stand in if they want to talk. But it's not very wide and if you hang out in one place, you basically get in everyone else's way.

For the past few summers, I've been suggesting that they take some tables and chairs and put them outside on the patio. That way people can sit outside and have a comfortable place to chat. Unfortunately, I no one's listened to me because it's never happened.

Well, the other week, Mrs. BigKat and I decided to make it happen. Not only that, but we also made it into a cool service project for kids! As a parent, I know how hard it is to find good service opportunities for young kids, so part of what I do as a Sunday School teacher is to come up with creative ways to get the kids involved in ministry. Last winter, our Sunday School class found out about a need in India. There are families there who have no doors on their houses and no blankets to protect them from the cold in the winter. So our class raised money during February to help provide blankets for them. I had planned on having my class do another 'Blanket Month' project in September. But we saw a great opportunity to have the kids get it kick started in August. That led to the creation of...

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL DONUT STORE!!!

Here's the plan. Each Sunday in August, between 1st and 2nd service, our kids will run a Donut Store in front of the church. We'll have tables and chairs so that people can have a comfortable place to relax and enjoy donuts with their friends. There are a bunch of different jobs for the kids: making signs, creating table decorations, passing out flyers, serving lemonade, collecting money. The donuts cost a dollar each, and the money will go towards buying blankets for families in India. So not only do our kids get a chance to help out people who need help, but our congregation gets a place for people to socialize after church.

Last week was our first Sunday. I wasn't sure at all how many donuts to buy. At first, I was going to go with 3 dozen. But we decided to bump it up to 4 dozen. We had considered 5 dozen, but really didn't want to be stuck with any leftover donuts, so we just stuck with 4.

Turns out we really didn't have to worry about leftovers! After first service, people started lining up at the Donut Store. And I mean EVERYONE! The 4 dozen donuts were gone in a couple of minutes, and there was still a line going into the parking lot. And people were very generous. Our 4 dozen donuts led to $128 in donations. That's 25 blankets! Next week, we've decided to bump it up to 15 dozen and see how that works.

I think this will be a great illustration for the kids to show that God can use anyone for ministry. When we're helping others in Jesus' name, God can do amazing things through us. We might be limited, but He is not. I am very excited to see how the next four Sundays go!

Prayers

Wow, seems like a lot of people I know are needing prayer right now...

1) One of my Sunday School kids, B, is out in Philadelphia right now. He just had back surgery yesterday. If this surgery is successful, it may make it so that he does not have to have another more major surgery later on.

2) A friend of the family, H (9 years old), had to fly our to Utah last night. She's going to have open heart surgery on Wednesday.

3) My dad had pneumonia and ended up having surgery to drain fluid from his lungs on Sunday.

If you could take some time to pray for these guys, I think it would be great.

Gotta Have God

I've been searching for a new Bible resource for LilKat1 for a LOOOOONG time.

Last year, we went through My First Message: A Bible Devotional for Kids and it was fantastic. The text that it used was from the Message. I thought this was great. It was more like reading from a regular Bible and less like a storybook. There were interesting questions and activities in each section, which LilKat1 absolutely loved. He could not get enough of this Bible. He looked forward to reading it every day.

The only downside was the limited number of sections. Since we were reading it each night, we blew right through it! And I've been on the search for something as good, or better, ever since.

Well, we've finally found another great resource. It's Gotta Have God: Ages 6-9 by Diane Cory. Here's what I like about this book:

1) A bunch of small sections: I think there are over 100. We're going to get over 3 months out of it!

2) A short Bible verse to look up at the beginning of each section: It's a great way to get LilKat1 used to looking up his own verses. He's still a beginning reader, so having to only read one verse is very comfortable for him.

3) Devotionals are about God: Imagine that! It takes a section from the Bible and uses it to teach about God! I really do not like books that focus on the Bible characters like Noah, Jonah, David, etc. The Bible is a book about God. That's who we should be learning about!

4) Nice pictures: The artwork is done well enough so that it makes the book attractive to my son.

5) Questions: There are a couple of questions for the child to answer at the end of each section. There's even a space to write down answers. This is great! LilKat1 loves writing down his own answers in his book. And, so far, the questions are actually good, relevant questions.

5) Activities: There's a worksheet-style activity at the end of each devotional. My son loves doing stuff like this. They have things like little crossword puzzles or secret decoder pages.

6) Nice short sections: Each section doesn't try to pack to much in. My son never gets to the point where he feels like it's taxing his attention span. 

7) Boy/Age specific: The lessons are appropriate for him. There are also similar books available for different ages (2-5 and 10-12). There is also a whole similar series for girls.

This book has been a great resource for helping LilKat1 to experience daily Bible study in a fun way. It makes me smile to see how excited he is to grab his book and do his Bible time with me.

And do you know what I found out today? There's a 2nd book in the series, Gotta Have God Vol 2 waiting for us when we finish this one. Woo hoo! 

Helping

One of the nice things about Christmas time is that it provides opportunities for us to get our kids involved with helping out others. Mrs. BigKat and I are always looking for ways that our kids can do things to get them personally involved with sharing God's love with people who need help.

Last month, we did a couple of different things. The first was Operation Christmas Child. It's a program through Samaritan's Purse that shares shoeboxes filled with gifts as well as the Good News about Jesus with kids in tough situations all around the world.

We had a great time with it. We took our kids to Target and bought up a ton of stuff to fill shoeboxes with. We had a list of the different types of items that we wanted to get (toys, candy, school supplies, clothes, toothbrushes, soap, etc.) and the kids all got a chance to pick out which things they thought the other children would like the most. The boys even got to spend some of their own money on special items that they wanted included. At home, LilKat1 and I carefully laid all of the stuff out, divided it up, and filled all of our boxes. Then we drove all of the boxes down to the dropoff location. The boys liked being able to see the hundreds of other shoeboxes that were already there. We talked about how God is using people in our community and all over the country to share His love with people all around the world. And of course we prayed for all of the kids that the shoeboxes are going to.

Another thing we got to do was box up food for a local food pantry. At LilKat1's school, there are many families who depend on the free lunches that the school gives their kids. When their kids are home for winter break, they can have problems providing enough food for their families. The food pantry provides them with boxes of food to help them get through the couple of weeks when their children are home from school. Our Bible study group decided to help out with this situation. One of the members of our group was able to get a bunch of food to donate to the food pantry. All of the families got together one night and worked assembly-line style to box everything up. All 3 of our children had a great time with this.

Me and LilKat2 were in charge of canned peppers and boxes of breadsticks. Each food box was to get 2 cans of peppers and one box of breadsticks. As a food box would get pushed in front of me, I'd yell out "Two cans!" LilKat2 would run over to his pile, grab 2 cans of peppers, hand them to me, and I'd drop them in the box. Then I'd yell "One box!" and LilKat2 would run back to his pile, grab a box of breadsticks, hurry back, and hand it off to me to put into the food box.

Mrs. BigKat, LilKat1, and PrincessKat were in charge of tempura mix and rice. LilKat1 was in charge of rice. PrincessKat was in charge of tempura, but under LilKat1's supervision. In other words, if she got distracted, it was LilKat1's job to make sure that 2 boxes of tempura still got into the food box. 

That night was a lot of fun. It was great seeing how excited the kids were to do things to help out others. They seemed to really like the idea that they were actually in charge of an important job that was going to really help some people in need.

This month, we're going to be able to go to the store and purchase any other food that the food pantry needs. And hopefully, we'll be able to help distribute the food as well.

I think it's pretty cool that our kids are now getting to the age where they can do things like this. As a Christian parent, I want to make sure that the whole idea of ministering to others and serving others is just part of their normal lifestyle. It's not always easy to find opportunities for small children to do things that they can actively participate in, which is why I think it's important to try and come up with creative ideas.

One idea that I had that I would like to start doing it going around to neighborhood garage sales on the weekend and find jackets and blankets that we can give to the people at church that minister to the homeless. I think I would also like to start making it a regular part of our weekly grocery shopping where the kids can go down the canned food aisle and pick out stuff that they'd like to donate to the food pantry.

Like I said, I like it that there are these great Christmas-time opportunities for our children participate in helping others. But at the same time, I want to make sure that they know that serving others isn't something we do just once a year, once a month, or once a week. It's part of sharing Jesus' love which is an all the time thing.

Prayers

I was tucking LilKat1 into bed last night and we were saying our prayers. I've been encouraging him to tell God things that he's thankful for. Here's what he came up with...

"Thank you God for giving us food so we don't die...so soon."

Yeah, it's kind if a grim way of putting it, but it's all true! I had to pause from praying for a second because I couldn't stop laughing.

Kids are great. I think I'll have him pray this at Thanksgiving next year.

October 22

Remembering my friend K on her birthday. She would've been celebrating her 10th birthday today. Instead, she's celebrating eternal life with Jesus.

I went to the cemetary today, same as I do every year on this day. It's been 3 years in a row now that God has decided to make October 22 a beautiful sunny day, right in the middle of fall.

I miss K. But it's wonderful knowing that I'll get to see her again someday.

To live is Christ and to die is gain

Last month, a youth pastor near where we live was struck by a car and killed. This article appeared in the local paper on Sunday, giving some insight into the lives of the youth pastor and his wife. It's a great story of faith and forgiveness. Check it out.

The Week in Review

A lot happened this week, so I thought I'd give you a quick review...

1) Camping! Me and LilKat1 went on our first camping trip on Saturday. We went to a place not too far from our house. We took LilKat2 with us, and Mrs. BigKat and PrincessKat caught up with us after PrincessKat's nap. It was quite fun. We set up our campsite, did some hiking, fishing, and marshmallow toasting. At around 7pm, Mrs. BigKat took LilKat2 (who did NOT want to go. He was very sad...) and PrincessKat home. That left me and LilKat1 at the camp. We went out and did some more fishing. It started to get dark, so we went back to the campsite and got ready for bed. Unfortunately, the people next to us were really loud for a long time. The camp ranger guy even had to come out and scold them. But it didn't help. So LilKat1 had a lot of trouble falling asleep. He eventually did at around 11:30 or so, but was awakened 2 and a half hours later by BOOMING THUNDER! His first time camping and we get caught in a Big Loud Thunderstorm. He didn't like it one bit. He asked me if we could go home. At first, I was thinking that we should just stick it out and stay until morning. The tent was keeping us dry, and we wouldn't be able to pack up until it stopped raining anyways. But I knew that he would not be able to fall asleep all night and would be pretty much miserable, so I agreed to take him home. Besides, my air mattress was leaking and I was basically just sleeping on the ground. Getting a few hours of sleep in my bed sounded much nicer than where I was at the time. So at around 3am, we quickly packed everything up and headed home. And that was LilKat1's first camping experience! Mrs. BigKat asked him if he'd like to do it again sometime, and he gave her an emphatic NO!

2) Mormons! When we got home from camping, I left all of our stuff in the truck. So the next day (Sunday), I had to unload everything. Right as I was starting, 3 Mormon guys rang our doorbell. Now anyone who knows me knows that I love talking to the Mormons. It basically gives me an opportunity to share the Gospel with a group of people and they have to stand there and listen to it and not go away! And sometimes, they even come back for more! I always see it as a great opportunity and have fun with it. These boys that came were very nice. One of them had actually come by a few weeks back, and it was clear that, this time, they had a game plan. But I wouldn't let all the talk of latter day prophets deter me from sharing my faith with these fellas. We talked for about an hour and a half. Mormon theology has a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense to me, so I was able to bring these things up to give them something to think about. It was also a nice exercise for me because it gave me an opportunity to try to articulate my beliefs in a way that people with different beliefs can understand. Plus, I was able to unload all my camping stuff while we talked, so I didn't feel like I was not getting my jobs done.

3) Dinosaur VBS and the crazy pastor! LilKat1 was invited to go to a VBS program at a local church. It was a dinosaur themed program, and LilKat1 LOVES dinosaurs. He only heard about it yesterday, so today was his first day. When he came back, he was all smiles. He had a fantastic time. He handed me all of the stuff that he got, and I started looking through it. Then I noticed something strange...on his handout, there was a lot of stuff about dinosaurs, but also a lot of stuff about Noah's Ark. I didn't get the connection. Then I saw the big picture on the 3rd page and it all made sense. The picture talked about how scientists have many ideas about how the dinosaurs became extinct, but they're pretty much wrong. You see, the real reason why the dinosaurs are extinct is...THE FLOOD! As in the Noah's Ark Flood.

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. I had never heard of anyone believing this. I quickly called LilKat1 over and asked him if they talked about how the dinosaurs became extinct. He said 'Oh yeah...The flood!' I had to have a talk with him right away and let him know that I didn't think that this was right. He was pretty disturbed by the fact that I disagreed with the VBS people, so we had to have a big talk about it to settle him down.

I wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be in for any more surprises tomorrow, so I called the church. I was able to talk to the pastor, and I expressed my concerns. Now, this guy was amazing. He fully believes that not only were dinosaurs made extinct by the flood, but there were a bunch of them on Noah's ark. Now, I personally don't believe this (like I said, this was the first time I'd even heard of it), but I'm actually ok with someone else thinking that it's true. After all, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a whole lot about the ins-and-outs of Dinsaur-ology. But there's a good reason why I haven't studied the subject very much: Because It's Not That Important! You see, this guy acted like his view about dinosaurs was a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. Basically, he was telling me that either you believe this version of how the dinosaurs became extinct, or you didn't believe that the Bible was the Word of God and you didn't believe that there is a Creator of the universe. I tried to tell him that it was hard for me to believe that something so trivial as when the dinosaurs existed would play a role in God's Plan of Salvation, but he was having none of it. According to him, I had a decision to make, and apparently, what I believe right now is not one of the options. It took me quite a while to get him off the topic of the Importance of Dinosaurs and on to the topic of Is There Anything in Friday's Lesson That I Need To Be Worried About, but finally, he filled me in. I'm a little apprehensive about it, but LilKat1 is still going to the VBS program at the crazy church tomorrow. I would rather he not go, but he just loved it so much that I can't not let him go. And I figure that if they teach him anything wrong, I can always set him straight like I did today.

One big problem that I had was that the pastor did not seem to care about the emotional impact of telling a kid something that contradicts what their parents and teachers might be teaching them. I mean, this is an outreach ministry, but he didn't seem to care at all about looking at things from the perspective of the kids that they're supposed to be ministering to. If you're going to teach the kids something as controversial as this, you'd think that you'd want to put a little preemptive effort into alleviating any confusion that the kids might have. His thing was that he wanted to be able to get to the parents with his message about the dinosaurs through the kids. I don't know, just seems kind of rotten to me. Hopefully, things will go smoothly tomorrow.

4) Soccer! Soccer's still going on and I found out something about LilKat2 today. That kid has WHEELS! Oh my goodness! He's 4 years old, but he's on a Kindergarten team. Today, we played a game of Sharks and Minnows. In this game, the minnows have to get from one side of the field to the other side without being tagged by a shark. If they are tagged, then they become a shark in the next round. Well, at one point today, everyone was a shark except for LilKat2. He was the lone minnow. I said 'Go!' and he took off. He headed towards the sideline with the whole rest of the team chasing him. Then he turned the corner and flew past everyone, and made it to the other side untouched. Now, I understand more than anyone that 5 year olds are not known for their knowledge of pursuit angles. But still, none of the kids on the team came close to catching him from behind. LilKat2 is a Fast Little Boy.

5) Road Trip! We leave tomorrow to go to my dad's house. Should be a fun trip. We actually enjoy the travel part of it, and I'm looking forward to the drive.

Baptism Day!

A couple weekends ago, we celebrated Mrs. BigKat, LilKat1, and PrincessKat's Baptism Day. Baptism Day is a special day when we celebrate the anniversaries of the baptisms in our family. Mrs. BigKat and LilKat1 were baptized on the same day when LilKat1 was 3 months old. PrincessKat was baptized last year when she was 9 months old. We actually planned out the Baptism Days to be close together on the calendar(mine and LilKat2's are right next to each other also, but in January), so that we could celebrate everyone's baptism at the same time.

For Baptism Day this year, I got Mrs. BigKat 2 Bible study guides as well as a new ESV (English Standard Version, it's the version used by her study guides and her current Bible is the NIV) Bible. LilKat1 received an activity Bible, a comic book style illustrated Bible (actually quite cool because it has the entire New Testament text in it, with chapter and verse numbers, but in comic book form). PrincessKat got a small prayer book and a stuffed lamb. We all had chocolate cupcakes with turquois frosting (LilKat1's choice) and sprinkles.

We've been celebrating Baptism Day ever since LilKat1's first Baptism anniversary. Mrs. BigKat and I are firm believers in infant baptism, so all of our children were baptised when they were tiny. I first heard about the idea of celebrating Baptism anniversaries in a book written by Tim Stafford, Knowing the Face of God. In a way, it's kind of like a birthday. Your birthday is the anniversary of when you were introduced into the world. Similarly, a Baptism Day is the anniversayr of the day you were introduced to the church. On birthdays, we celebrate the person and honor them. We let them know that they're a very special part of our lives. On Baptism Days, we celebrate the gift of faith that God has given us. It's very much a family celebration, and we use the time to recognize that our household is one that serves the Lord.

Mrs. BigKat and I were both baptized as adults. So we remember our baptisms and have very fond memories of them. Our kids, on the other hand have no memories of their own baptisms. This is one of the great things about Baptism Day. No one remembers their own birthday, but birthday celebrations are always very special. In the same way, even though our children don't actually remember their baptism, the day we celebrate it will always be special to them as well.

I don't think any of the other families that we know celebrate Baptism Day like we do. But I think it's a great idea. It highlights the importance of our baptism, and gives us a time to appreciate the gift of faith that God has given to our household.

And, we get to eat cupcakes!

Shining Eyes

My friend Tara linked to a couple of interesting videos today. One of them was a guy who did some very cool stuff with a Wii remote control. But the other video was the one that really got me thinking.

In this video, a guy, Benjamin Zander, talks about classical music. His thought is that, although not everyone is a fan of classical music, everyone can appreciate it. The trick is to get people to understand what it is that they're listening to. Appreciation comes when the listener can experience what it is that the composer is trying to do with his music. He illustrates this by walking the audience through a piece by Chopin, helping them to not concentrate on the individual notes, but on the journey as a whole from the first note to the last. And he does a great job of it. Check it out (kind of a longer video, roughly 20 minutes or so, so grab some popcorn...)

Now here's the part that got me thinking...While watching the video, I kept thinking about how this presentation could easily be applied to the Bible. As a Sunday School teacher, I have been frustrated by the various curriculums that are out there. I have found that they just take tiny pieces and parts of Scripture and form them into a lesson about some sort of moral issue. Maybe it's helping others or obeying your parents or remembering to pray.

Here's an example from last week. I'm not teaching my normal class over the summer (I'll resume in the Fall). Instead, they're doing a video based curriculum that focuses on missions. The lesson last week was about helping your friends. It told the story from Luke 5 about when Jesus heals the paralytic. The point of the story (according to the lesson) was that the paralytic's friends helped him to see Jesus. They brought him to the house and lowered him down the roof. So we should be like the paralytic's friends and help people who are sick.

This lesson bothered me for a few reasons. First of all, there was very little Bible related material in the lesson. I felt that, with a little modification (or perhaps none), this same lesson could have been taught at some non-Christian churches and would have still fit in. Second, helping out sick people is fine, but I don't see how watching this video is going to make any of these kids more likely to help out sick people than if they had not seen the video. But most importantly, at the end of the lesson, the kids have really not learned anything about the Bible.

My goals as a Sunday School teacher is to help kids learn about the Bible, to share God's love with them, and to help them develop their relationship with Christ. When I teach a Bible story, I want the kids to really learn the Bible story! I want them to know why this story was SO important, that God felt it was necessary to put it in His Word. It seems like many Sunday School lessons teach the Bible as a collection of stories or as a rulebook for life. The emphasis is put on the various characters in the Bible. Be like Joseph because he forgave his brothers! Be like Noah because he listened to God! Be like the paralytic's friends because they helped their sick buddy!

But the Bible is not a story about these people. It's a book about God! It's a story of God's love for us and His plan of salvation! And focusing on the details that may or may not be that important makes us miss the big picture of what the Bible is all about. Just as Mr. Zander helps his audience to understand Chopin from the first note to the last, I want to be able to help kids understand the Bible as a whole from beginning to end. Just as Mr. Zander explains the context of the various notes in relationship to the whole composition, I want to be able to help kids understand the place of the various Bible stories in relation to Christ's redeeming work on the Cross.

But this is all stuff that I've thought of before. The interesting part came near the end of the video when he talks about how he knows if he's doing his job or not. He says that his job is to 'awaken possibility in other people'. And the way that he tells if he's doing this or not is to look into their eyes. If their eyes are shining, then he's doing his job. If they're not shining, then he needs to figure out why.

I realized that this is what my focus in Sunday School needs to be. It's important to help the kids learn about Scripture. But I want to be help kids develop an appreciation for Scripture. I want to be able to help kids develop an appreciation for God's great love for them. I want to be able to help kids to understand that the Bible is more than a storybook or a rulebook. And most importantly, I want to help them develop a desire to learn more about God and His Word.

And do you know how I'm going to go about doing this? No? Me neither!

Well, I have a little idea. I need to think of ways that make the Bible really accessible to kids. To be able to take their experiences with family and friends and school and sports and whatever and use them to somehow relate to the things that God is sharing with us in His Word. To take things from their lives that will bring about that 'Ah-a!' moment where their eyes will start shining.

Now I'm not saying that I'm expecting to have a class full of joyful, Spirit-filled, shining-eyed kids just because of what I'm teaching. I'm just saying that I think that my kids will have a better chance to appreciate the Bible if I'm able to present its true meaning in a simple, yet complete way that's meaningful to them. I'm hoping that by helping them to really understand what the Bible is all about and by helping them find ways that they can experience God's love, they'll have a nice foundation for exploring their faith as they grow up and develop.

I'm not sure what that's going to look like or how much work it's going to take, but I've got most of the summer left to think, study, and pray about it.