Ideas for Mission projects w/Kids

Do you have children in your world?  Are they hearing about missions?  Do they know what a missionary is?  They are not someone who helps a church do a program!  A missionary is someone who tells others about God!  A Missionary gives their life to tell others about Christ.  Churches today don’t seem to be teaching our children and preschoolers about missions.  The mission education is gone.  I want to encourage you to add mission education into what you do!  Do you teach Sunday School? Choir? Wednesday night? Weekday? Special events? Are you a parent? Grandparent? Aunt? Uncle? Neighbor? Here are some simple ideas you can use to do a mission project with the kids in your life.  I pray that churches will get back to doing mission education with their children and preschoolers! We are seeing evidence of the lack of missions education in with the problems in the IMB. Cooperative Program giving is down, people serving as missionaries is down.  We need to get back to what worked for many years. 

Here are some links to more ideas and curriculum you can use with your children!

Kids on Mission

Mission Friends (Preschoolers)

GA’s (1-6th grade Girls)

RA’s (1st-6th grade boys)

Mission Project ideas:

1. Create a prayer book of community and national leaders
2. Provide beds and/or mosquito nets to orphan and abandoned children.  (see Sweet Sleep)
3. Prayer cards to social workers, police, Judges, Lawyers, doctors, in your city that deal with children being placed into foster care.
4. Plant flowers or deliver paper snowflakes at the nursing home (Residents love to hear kids sing too.)
5. Create a bulletin board display in the church showing soldiers on active duty connected to members in the church
6. Prayer Drive (instead of Prayer Walking)– leave a note attached with a ribbon tied to the homes of kids’ friends
7. Clean rural mailboxes – leave a note of prayer
8. Have a litter pick-up day
9. Clean glass storm doors for a service project
10. Serve or clean up a community holiday food distribution dinner
11. Make invitations for kids in your neighborhood for VBS
12. Rake leaves for neighbors
13. Clear ice and snow from the sidewalks of neighbors’ houses
14. Volunteer to wash tables and collect trash at church dinners
15. Become a pen pal for a missionary kid (www.imb.org)
16. Make a large appreciation card and deliver it to local police department or other community leaders
17. Create placemats for nursing home
18. Visit someone who is lonely-  Pray together
19. Donate dolls, board games, ball gloves and sports equipment to local shelter
20. Wash car windows of elderly and single mothers after church
21. Create a class directory – call, text or email everyone on Saturday to invite to Sunday School
22. Interview pastor to discover ways to pray for him and the church – create a Bible bookmark as a reminder to pray
23. Collect winter coats for distribution
24. Email community leaders – encouragement and thanks
25. Collect cans to redeem for annual mission offering
26. Purchase a box fan and deliver it to someone without air conditioning
27. Paint a fence for a service project
28. Adopt a local fire station to tour and pray for firefighters
29. Create a valentine for nursing home residents and deliver
30. Collect toothbrushes and toothpaste for homeless
31. Create a nativity scene from craft materials and deliver it to a homebound member or neighbor
32. Ask a senior adult to be your prayer partner for one month
33. Send a drawing and prayer to a local soldier serving away from home
34. Provide a coffee and cake fellowship after church or before Sunday School for a senior adult class
35. Ask for chores at home to earn money for annual missions offering
36. Plant flowers for homebound neighbors and friends to enjoy
37. Collect new toys for holiday charity
38. Assemble manila envelopes of drawing paper, coloring book pages & crayons for use by DHS office or police dept.
39. Collect used and new Bibles for a local shelter
40. Collect and donate grocery bags for local food distribution
41. Create puppets and perform a puppet show for preschoolers or nursing home
42. Do yard work for homebound, senior adults or single moms of the church.
43. Conduct “Lottie Moon Post Office” by delivering Christmas Cards addressed to church members in their Sunday School classes.
44. Help clean-out church flower beds and plant flowers.
45. Become a “secret” prayer partner to a senior adult for one month – send or secretly deliver a weekly note of encouragement.
46. Send notes of appreciation to your church staff: pastor and other ministers, instrumentalists, secretaries, custodians, etc.
47. Create and deliver invitations to church activities to neighbors.
48. Conduct a FREE Family Movie Night at church for the neighborhood, complete with FREE popcorn or other snacks.
49. Do at least SIX random acts of kindness for various neighbors throughout the year.
50. Host a Summer Splash Party at church for the neighborhood kids – play water games.
51. Serve as greeters and ushers at church
52. Prayer walk in your neighborhood – leave notes of encouragement at the homes of people you know.
53. Make a Christmas Ornament for neighbors and invite them to church Christmas events.
54. Host a New Year’s Eve Fellowship for the neighborhood kids – provide games & snacks.
55. Create and deliver valentines to the local Baptist Collegiate Ministries for International Students along with a basket of goodies.
56. Create and deliver goody bags with notes of encouragement to teachers at the local school.
57. Assemble and deliver personal health care bags with notes of encouragement to be given out at local shelters.
58. Create and distribute to church members a prayer book of community and national leaders.
    Send notes of encouragement to one or more of these leaders.
59. Participate in National Children’s Ministry Day Activity (Usually the 2^nd or 3^rd Saturday of February)
60. Participate in International Mission Study- Lottie Moon (November/December)
61. Participate in North American Mission Study- Annie Armstrong (March/ April)

Trying this again…

I am going to try and start this again and see what happens. It has been over a year since the last post. (June 7 2014) It was a repost of someone talking about Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer. click here to read it Sadly people are still following them and quoting them on FB and twitter. Anyway on to something else…

So what has happened in a year…tons but mostly the same things…As of today I have been at the BGCO for one year and 9 months 10 Oct. 1. Someone asked me the other day so how are you liking the change from church staff to state convention? I will say that the change is very different but I am really enjoying it. I am traveling a lot more now which is fine (except that my house needed some cleaning). I enjoy meeting new people. This summer I visited 22 different VBS’ around the state which was great. I visited from small to large churches. I have been asked what was my take away from those visits. Well first…GREAT Job Oklahoma!!! We have been collecting reports from churches and this is what we have so far…

Total Enrollment: 35,316
Decisions for Christ: 911
Unchurched Prospects: 2,974
VBS Total Offering: $102,628.33

If you have not turned in your VBS reports (whether you live in OK or not) turn them in! This is a great way to celebrate what God did this summer in VBS around our state and all states!

When it comes to VBS offerings those churches that had a goal and the offering when to something the children really could understand those offerings were blowing the goals set out of the water! They were talked about each day and the focus was on how the children were helping and could make a change. If there was no goal and not much talk about it the offerings were very low. Children can make a great difference and can learn how to give to others. They just need to be told and taught over and over. Children learn with repetition. Yes Preschoolers can do this as well! I am praying for our churches now that VBS is over that they will continue to follow up with those 2,974 unchurched prospects! When we say VBS is the biggest evangelical event your church can do…it is! See those numbers up there?! Don’t let this opportunity pass you by! Pastors if you are not actively involved in your VBS plan on being involved in 2016!

Another thing, are your people getting trained? Lifeway did a study and found that for every 1 person trained there were 1.1 salvations! So get your people trained and have training every year. Just because they have “done this before” doesn’t mean they can’t hear something new and get motivated each year.

Now more than ever we need to make sure we are teaching our children age appropriately and not doing children’s ministry to entertain the children. Yes we can have fun while learning but we must do it the right way! Too many children that were a part of an entertainment ministry move on to youth and adults and stop coming to church because they were not taught what church and worship is really about! It is NOT about what WE get and/or what we like it’s 100% about God and what He wants from us!!!

SO 2016 what will you do differently, same, not at all in your ministry, family life, personal life?

VBS theme for 2016 is Submerged; Finding Truth Below the Surface. Psalm 139:23-24 Let’s dive in together!
click here for website

Why I Called Out Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer

I pray that people will see the lies and that they will seek the Truth!

Church Is Messy (and that's a good thing)

I have been preaching for 20 years.  Yesterday I did something that I have never done before in a sermon.  I publicly called out false teachers and named them by name.  I said,

If you listen to Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer, if you take what they teach seriously, it will not be good for you.  It will be detrimental to your long-term growth as a follower of Jesus.

(You can watch the sermon by clicking here)

I used to think that their error was so blatantly obvious that they could just be ignored.  I was wrong.  They are massively growing in popularity in the evangelical world and are seen as credible and helpful.  Before I’m inundated with questioning emails I want to share why I distrust these two and think you should as well.  So, don’t shoot met–at least not yet.

This post will be long, very long.  And…

View original post 2,170 more words

Making Missions Come Alive

This article is from the Children’s Newsletter from WMU. (At the end of the second paragraph is a link to that newsletter and the full article.)

“In my own GA classroom, I look for ways to make what we are learning about in a large city or somewhere around the world relevant to the lives of the girls I teach each week. Sometimes, I’m able to do that through a craft or hands-on activity. Other times I help them apply a lesson to their own lives through role playing activities.

I recently heard from a Children in Action leader, Allison Young from FBC Morristown, Tennessee, who shared how children in her church are learning about missions work across North America. Read what Allison shared with me: Click this link to read the rest of the story…” http://www.wmu.com/index.php?q=blog/children/featured/making-missions-come-alive (Article by Heather Keller, Children’s Ministry Consultant, WMU)

I heard someone the other day say that GA’s and RA’s (Girls in Action and Royal Ambassadors) were cheesy. I really had a hard time hearing that. Those classes plus Mission Friends (for preschoolers) are wonderful and I feel they are needed. Our churches have gone away from Missions education and I feel that is part of why we have fewer missionaries. Those classes will only be as exciting as the leadership you put in place. If the leaders are not passionate about missions then they will not make the classes exciting. It’s all on the leaders. And you can’t have someone who doesn’t want to plan and prepare ahead of time. I was teaching Mission Friends when I went to Uganda for the first time with Sweet Sleep. We learned all about Uganda before I left. One thing they learned was that the children in Uganda make their own soccer balls out of plastic bags and paper. So we made our own soccer balls. Then while I was in Uganda, I took a picture of a child with a homemade soccer ball like we talked about. They were able to see it with a real Ugandan child.
They also made heart shaped pillows for the children who would be getting a bed. I took a picture of the Mission Friends working on the pillows and then made copies to give to the children who got beds. I then took a picture of the Ugandan children holding their pillows and the picture of the American children making those same pillows! It was so neat when I got back and showed the children the picture. They saw themselves in the pictures in Uganda! They were so excited about seeing themselves in the picture.
Several years later one of those preschoolers found a 20 dollar bill out in the parking lot of the church. She brought it right to me and said I want to give this to Sweet Sleep so they can give more beds to children with out beds. How wonderful was that! She had learned in Mission Friends when she was about 4 or 5 about Uganda and Sweet Sleep and when she was older she still remembered. That is what missions education is all about. So children will see the world a through God’s eyes not their own eyes or the world’s eyes.

How are you teaching your children about missions and to have a heart for missions?

What Do You Do for VBS Family Night?

This is one idea from Mr. Mark’s Classroom blog. Go to his website to read the rest. There are some good ideas.

“We have a free dinner at 5:30 p.m., Open House at 6:00 p.m. and then at 6:30 p.m. the kids perform the songs they have learned that week. We have found we have a more well attended Family Night on Thursday Night and then in their music time the next day they get to watch the video of them performing
– See more at: http://mrmarksclassroom.com/2014/06/03/what-do-you-do-for-vbs-family-night/#sthash.Ny47b9cG.dpuf” By Mark Jones

What do you do for VBS Family? Anything different than what is listed on his web page?
VBS is the biggest evanglistic event that churches do each year. So make sure you plan and do your best to make it the best add reach the most children/families you can. And enjoy it! It really is a lot of fun!

Homemade Sidewalk Chalk!

Have you made sidewalk chalk before? I have not made any yet but I do want to try it someday! Here is a link to Mr. Mark’s Classroom that has more info on homemade chalk! Here is the like to Mr. Mark’s Classroom – http://mrmarksclassroom.com/2014/06/04/sidewalk-chalk/

The children could also make signs to invite people to VBS or to Sunday School. Many ways to use this sidewalk chalk. Very fun!

What more can I do??

Today watched a documentary about Living Hope in South Africa. (You need to see this if you have not! Ask me and you can watch mine!) I went to Cape Town South Africa back in November of 2011.  I went with Sweet Sleep and we gave beds to caregivers that completed a course on parenting taught through Living Hope!  These ladies had no idea that they would be getting a bed at the end of the course.  They had to have 100% attendance to get the bed.

My time there in Cape Town was amazing as it always is when I’m in Africa!  

I remember being totally overwhelmed by the fact that there was such extreme poverty next to such beauty and wealth. Some of the homes that we were in had million dollar views! When I got back home I was getting ready to take a shower and head to bed. I walked into my closet and was stopped in my tracks! I realized that my closet and bathroom was bigger than some of the homes we were in! I don’t have a huge home by American standards but I do have a huge home compared to what we saw! Families of 7 living in what some might use as a shed in their backyard here in America. One place we were putting in a triple bunk bed. The home was as long as a twin bed and only double the width of a twin bed. The mom & caregiver was so excited that all 7 of them did not have to sleep on a love seat anymore. She said that she was able to sleep all night and without her legs hurting for the first time! WOW!!!

So why am I sharing all this? I just moved into my new home and was talking about what I was going to do about window coverings. (Which is important I don’t need the world to see into my home at night!) The comment was made I wish I had extra several thousand dollars around to take care of all the extra needs when you move into a new house. Yes I do wish that but at the same time I wish I had that extra money & time to do more in helping those in need. But I also know that I don’t need extra money…I need to use what I have. The Lord is our provider and He gives us just what we need. We are to use what he has given us to help others. So what do I do with what I have? I am still working all that out.

I do know that the FIRST thing we are to do is give 10% of our income to our church! Are you doing that? If you are a Southern Baptist that amount that you give goes to so many areas, you are helping so many more than if you gave whatever amount to one of the Southern Baptist Organizations.
Ok so I am tithing and I am giving some extra to another organization but I still want to do more. I sometimes feel I am not doing enough.

I read about a fire that broke out in the Wetlands area of Masiphumelele in Cape Town, South Africa. “According to Disaster Management they estimate between 200 – 450 homes could have been affected, the exact number will only be known a little later. According to on the ground reports there have been no fatalities. – See more at: http://www.livinghope.co.za/#sthash.K2DA76bw.dpuf” This area of Masiphumelele we visited while we were there in 2011. One of the homes got a bed. This place is a maze and they really didn’t have much of anything and now that is gone. Lord help these people.
This is the area that had the fire…

What do you do? What is your family doing? Your church? Is there more that I can do? Is there more that you can do? Is there more that our churches can do? I don’t have answers yet but I am still asking the questions and maybe one day the Lord will give me something else to do! I will continue to do what I have been doing and if I can add something to it I will.
What about you?

Invite a Friend

 

By: Joye Smith

Mission Friends Newsletter 

ShareThis

During the summer months, attendance at Mission Friends^® often decreases because of preschoolers’ participation in seasonal activities and because many families take vacations during this time. Remind your preschoolers’ families that Mission Friends is still going strong every week at your church.

One way to remind your preschoolers’ families about Mission Friends is to make a fun summertime invitation using child-size flip flops!

• ŸUse child-size flip flops from a discount store or craft store, or use a paper outline of flip flops. You can download and print an outline here.

• ŸWrite the invitation on a note to tie onto a strap, or write directly on the flip flops with a permanent fine-tip marker.

• ŸIf using a paper outline, write the invitation inside the outline of the flip flops.

• ŸWrite: Come for Summer Fun in Mission Friends!

• ŸInclude the church name, day, time, ages, and room number of your Mission Friends.

• ŸGive the invitation to preschoolers who are guests at VBS, or give to preschoolers at a neighborhood playground.

Back from Colorado…

I have just returned from a mission journey. These feelings caught me off guard because it was a journey to Colorado and it was only a couple of days long. I would expect this if I had just returned from Africa or China! Anyway, I just need to get this off my chest!

This past weekend I was in Colorado serving their church planters. 12 of us from Oklahoma went to take care of their children while they were attending a retreat/training. 3 of the team was a part of the food service team for the weekend. Besides the fact that it was a beautiful lodge and we got to see God’s creation while we were there, we also learned about the great need here in our own country! The need is not just in other countries! There are large numbers of people here in the US that are lost and have never heard the name of Jesus! 90% of Colorado is lost and majority have never heard the name of Jesus! That is just Colorado, I don’t know the percentage but I’m sure it’s about the same in other northern states. We except to hear about the lost in other countries but we just assume that everyone in America knows about Jesus. NOT so. We know by watching that news that our country is lost! The sad thing is that our missionary numbers are low. We don’t seem to have as many missionaries going out to share the Gospel to the lost here in the US and around the world! I truly feel that is because we have done away with mission education in our churches. We are not teaching our children about missions and what missionaries are. Every week not just once or twice a year. We must teach the children about the needs out there. God will call some of those children to the mission field! So why not get them prepared early!

We have a generation that thinks they are entitled to everything. They are not taught how to handle when someone is unfair, someone says no, things don’t work out right the first time, etc. This scares me for the future! Those children/young adults will be leading out soon and what kind of leaders will they be?

Mission education will open their eyes to how the rest of the world is living. They will see how much they have just because they live in America and how much they may have compared to others in America. More importantly they will learn that people have never heard the name of Jesus. They will learn how to share that Jesus loves them and how to share their faith with others. When children start learning to share their faith at a young age they will not be intimidated to share as an adult.

People say that the curriculum is cheesing or boring and use that as an excuse not to have mission education in their ministry. If you have the right leaders than it should not matter what the curriculum is like. They can make learning about missions fun and exciting. If they have a passion for what they are teaching it should come across to the children. Some curriculum talks about missionaries but who they are talking about are their salespeople. Teach about IMB and NAMB missionaries, Cooperative Program organizations, short-term missionaries from your church, etc.

Yes I am on a soap box because I see a sad trend that we need to change. We should get back to what we did as churches years ago! Now some of you are saying she doesn’t like change and we need to change and be with the times. NO we don’t! That is why we have the mess that we have in our world. Christians got weak and we let people tell us that we needed to be seeker friendly and we dropped education and discipleship. We started looking like the world and that is wrong! We are not to be like the world we are to be set a part from the world. Now I’m not saying shut the doors of the church to the lost. NO open them wide go out and invite them to come in. Go to them and share with them where they are and then bring them with you. Jesus didn’t say stay and invite. He said go and tell. (Matt. 28:19-20) But at the same time disciple them help them grow in their faith. Those Christians that have been in the church forever need to get outside the walls. Part of growing is serving.

Have posted this list before but I am going to add it again. Maybe this will spark ideas for you, your family and your church!

60 Service Ideas with Kids
1. Create a prayer-book of community and national leaders
2. Provide beds and/or mosquito nets to orphan and abandoned children. (see Sweet Sleep.org)
3. Plant flowers or deliver paper snowflakes at the nursing home (Residents love to hear kids sing
too.)
4. Create a bulletin board display in the church showing soldiers on active duty connected to
members in the church
5. Prayer Drive (instead of Prayer Walking)– leave a note attached with a ribbon tied to the homes
of kids’ friends
6. Clean rural mailboxes – leave a note of prayer
7. Have a litter pick-up day
8. Clean glass storm doors for a service project
9. Serve or clean up a community holiday food distribution dinner
10. Make invitations for kids in your neighborhood for VBS
11. Rake leaves for neighbors
12. Clear ice and snow from the sidewalks of neighbors’ houses
13. Volunteer to wash tables and collect trash at church dinners
14. Become a pen pal for a missionary kid (www.imb.org)
15. Make a large appreciation card and deliver it to local police department or other community
leaders
16. Create place mats for nursing home
17. Visit someone who is lonely- Pray together
18. Donate dolls, board games, ball gloves and sports equipment to local shelter
19. Wash car windows of elderly and single mothers after church
20. Create a class directory – call, text or email everyone on Saturday to invite to Sunday School
21. Interview pastor to discover ways to pray for him and the church – create a Bible bookmark as a
reminder to pray
22. Collect winter coats for distribution
23. Email community leaders – encouragement and thanks
24. Collect cans to redeem for annual mission offering
25. Purchase a box fan and deliver it to someone without air conditioning
26. Paint a fence for a service project
27. Adopt a local fire station to tour and pray for firefighters
28. Create a valentine for nursing home residents and deliver
29. Collect toothbrushes and toothpaste for homeless
30. Create a nativity scene from craft materials and deliver it to a homebound member or neighbor
31. Ask a senior adult to be your prayer partner for one month
32. Send a drawing and prayer to a local soldier serving away from home
33. Provide a coffee and cake fellowship after church or before Sunday School for a senior adult
class
34. Ask for chores at home to earn money for annual missions offering
35. Plant flowers for homebound neighbors and friends to enjoy
36. Collect new toys for holiday charity
37. Assemble manila envelopes of drawing paper, coloring book pages & crayons for use by DHS office
or police dept.
38. Collect used and new Bibles for a local shelter
39. Collect and donate grocery bags for local food distribution
40. Create puppets and perform a puppet show for preschoolers or nursing home
41. Do yard work for homebound, senior adults or single moms of the church.
42. Conduct “Lottie Moon Post Office” by delivering Christmas Cards addressed to church members in
their Sunday School classes.
43. Help clean-out church flower beds and plant flowers.
44. Become a “secret” prayer partner to a senior adult for one month – send or secretly deliver a
weekly note of encouragement.
45. Send notes of appreciation to your church staff: pastor and other ministers, instrumentalists,
secretaries, custodians, etc.
46. Create and deliver invitations to church activities to neighbors.
47. Conduct a FREE Family Movie Night at church for the neighborhood, complete with FREE popcorn or
other snacks.
48. Do at least SIX random acts of kindness for various neighbors throughout the year.
49. Host a Summer Splash Party at church for the neighborhood kids – play water games.
50. Serve as greeters and ushers at church
51. Prayer walk in your neighborhood – leave notes of encouragement at the homes of people you
know.
52. Make a Christmas Ornament for neighbors and invite them to church Christmas events.
53. Host a New Year’s Eve Fellowship for the neighborhood kids – provide games & snacks.
54. Create and deliver valentines to the local Baptist Collegiate Ministries for International
Students along with a basket of goodies.
55. Create and deliver goody bags with notes of encouragement to teachers at the local school.
56. Assemble and deliver personal health care bags with notes of encouragement to be given out at
local shelters.
57. Create and distribute to church members a prayer-book of community and national leaders.
Send notes of encouragement to one or more of these leaders.
58. Participate in National Children’s Ministry Day Activity (Usually the 2nd or 3rd Saturday of
February)
59. Participate in International Mission Study- Lottie Moon (November/December)
60. Participate in North American Mission Study- Annie Armstrong (March/ April)

What’s Wrong With Barney, Mickey Mouse, Veggie Tales, Blues Clues, and Mother Goose?

Alyson's Passions

What do I have against these characters? Fantasy is fun for preschoolers.

When a young child comes to church, however, everything in the room, and everything that is taught, should be REAL and should point him to God and the Biblical truths we want to convey.

It is extremely difficult (if not impossible) for preschoolers to distinguish between fact and fiction. Eventually children will realize that Mickey Mouse, and others, are not real. They will figure out that vegetables don’t really talk. (Besides the fact that Veggie Tales movies are not totally correct.) If these characters have been introduced at church, they may also wonder, “Is God real, or were those made-up stories, too, like the cartoons or videos I saw?”

As teachers, we need to be very careful not to confuse preschoolers, or to trivialize biblical message with cartoon characters.

Is is possible to be “too serious” on this…

View original post 100 more words