Training

Whenever I meet a second-grade student, I always joke, “I spent two of the happiest years of my life in the second grade.” Adults laugh but the child rarely gets it. The irony is, while most think it’s just a joke, I did repeat second grade, and I might add, they weren’t the happiest years of my life. I was a child with a special need that wasn’t discovered until second grade. Somehow, I had managed through preschool, at home, and at church, to hide the fact that I was almost completely deaf in my left ear. Fifty percent hearing...

I have a confession. I have a struggle, a struggle not so uncommon to many, but this struggle is mine, nonetheless. If there is a conflict of sorts between me and another person, I have trouble letting it go. I have trouble dropping the matter. You may identify and share in this common struggle. As a leader in ministry, I KNOW the danger that this struggle can be in my role of shepherding others. I also know that whether this is an area of great personal struggle or not, it IS a challenge that all ministry leaders will face. Children’s...

As the journey to launch a 1-and-2-year old class within our church continues, we have fine-tuned the classroom schedule. We ask the teachers and helpers to arrive 30 minutes before the service starts. This not only allows time to review that day’s teaching, but also to pray over the room and the children before the first child arrives. Since our church services last between 75 and 90 minutes, our classroom schedule looks like this: 20 minutes Free play 5 minutes Prayer / snacks 20 minutes Bible / lesson / singing / mirror 30 minutes Guided play 15 minutes Clean up...

For modern families, the concept of Sabbath can feel like just another thing we are supposed to do — or perhaps, a list of things we are not supposed to do. For some, it may feel like a mandatory call to be at church on Sundays, no matter what. For others, it may feel like a restriction on everything we do on the Sabbath, limiting our ability to have fun and enjoy ourselves. But neither of these reflects God’s intentions for the Sabbath. His purpose has always been to give us a gift — a gift of remembering Him through...

Do you have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia? If that word caused you any stress or discomfort, then you might, since that word means “a fear of big words.” Perhaps kids don’t have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, but when we use big words in our teaching, there is a momentary disconnect…because in that moment, their concentration is broken as they are forced to try and figure out what we mean from the context of what we are saying. We can find ourselves using unnecessarily big words when teaching our kids — and not only words like propitiation, transgression, sanctification, justification, or atonement. Even if we don’t actually...