John 4: 23-24 Jesus says, It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself – Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.
This week at Bridge Kids, we talked about how Worship is one of God’s Love Languages, which can take many forms, just like our own Love Languages. Our main focus this week was Worship through Writing Poetry. We discussed asking for help and giving thanks to God through writing poems. Writing, in worship to God, is like the Love Language, Words of Affirmation and Quality Time. We talked about how David, in the Bible wrote poems to God – some of thanksgiving and some a cry for help….David was not afraid to be his true self when communicating with God.
We started out reviewing the previous Sunday -- Core Values – what does that mean? It means it’s the center (core) of what we build everything we do on. We also briefly discussed Worship through Art – the Love Language of Gifts to God. We then took a minute to sit in our circle, quietly thinking about things we are thankful for – whether it is people in our lives, our homes, school, or our life. This gave us time to reflect and prepare ourselves for the act of worship.
Today, we broke the group into 4 groups, pairing each group with a BK Volunteer. We then began the process of Flash Poetry with each of the groups. At the top of each flipchart sheet we wrote a different word – Thankful, Help, Laugh, Cry and had the kids give us words they thought of when we said the word at the top of their page. The BK Volunteer then transcribed the words the BK group gave them onto the flipchart paper and helped their group create a poem, as an act of worship to God. We then shared our poems with the entire group. We challenged them to find time this week to write their thoughts to God – whether they are happy or sad, angry of joyful. If they are unable to write, just yet, we challenged them to have their parents help them write a poem of worship to God.
Listen to the kids Poems
THANKFUL!
I am Happy and feel Warm on Thanksgiving.
Parties and Food make me smell Fishy.
Doggies are cute & the Family of the Gnarwhale are my Friends.
The Panda enjoys the PandaExpress, before he eats Candy.
you don't want Clothes on Christmas or to Fart in God's presence.
I can be mySelf in Love with Decorations of Candles on Halloween.
Bill Cosby eats jello Lions and is an Artist.
HELP
Dear God,
We love you,
Please help Kelli breathe
I feel like I'm going to Scream and I feel Sick.
God, we are a Team, we want to stop people from dying & Running away.
Help us Now.
I'm sitting in this Tired Car and I need to Call 9-1-1.
My Hair is on fire.
The Family of BridgeKids is Thankful but we're Scared & Distressed.
The Adults have turned into Apples.
Firefighters, Ambulance, & Hospitals are good for the environment.
AMEN!
Dine and Dish:
Talk – Talk to your kids about worship. What does it mean to you? How do you like to worship God? Ask them how they think they might like to worship.
Ask your kids what they are thankful for in their lives.
Discuss the things you are thankful for in your life.
Do an activity together: If you are a parent who is timid about writing – that’s ok. Before you begin, be sure to take time to reflect – even if it’s 2 minutes – on God, things to be thankful for and make sure it’s a quiet time, or a brief discussion.
Flash Poetry – Todd & Angie Fadel taught us, as a church, last year, that we can ALL be poets! This is a great way to worship God through writing. Have your child pick one word (it can be anything, even if they say, “Spiderman” – that is TOTALLY OK!) then, together, brain dump words that come to your mind, while thinking of the initial word chosen. Only do this for about a minute or two. Once you are finished, use connecting words or fragments to create a poem from your brain dump. Once you are finished, read the poem together as a prayer of help or thanksgiving to God.
Share – If you are someone who writes on a regular basis, share some of your work with your kids (make sure it’s age appropriate) and talk about why you wrote what you did – how you were feeling, how you felt after writing it, how, or if, it affected your relationship with God and with others.
Read Psalms or Proverbs – Pick a Psalm or Proverb to read to your child(ren) before bedtime each night. Talk with your kids about what they think of the writing, what you think about the writing and what you think the author was feeling when writing.
Re-Write a Psalm or Proverb – Choosing a favorite Psalm or Proverb, read it, line by line, with your kids and with their help, re-write it, in your own words.
Journal – Encourage your kids to write or draw in their journals, how they are feeling. If your kids aren’t at a stage of writing, help them write in their journal. Go somewhere private, where you won’t be disturbed by outside sources and write with your kids.
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2 comments:
OK cute story -
We had a new arrival on Sunday named Adora who was... Adorable.
She came in a little late, and got checked in. 3 years old and just super precious.
Needless to say today the BridgeKids were out of Focus. And during "Thankful time" Dave hit the nail on the head by being thankful for "Crystal's Patience."
To try to get the kids in the mood we all sat in our circle, and were sapposed to close our eyes to think about what we are thankful for. Because of the buzz in the room this was probably the most difficult task ever to accomplish.
30 seconds of quiet is nearly impossible when you have so many fun people around talking about armpit farts.
Well we quickly put an end to that because we couldn't see any point in enforcing something that just wasn't going to happen. So we moved on.
About 3 minutes later crystal looked down and saw little Adora still with her eyes shut. Highly concentrated making sure she didn't peek. Quickly we said it was OK for her to open her eyes.
The same thing occured later on in the lesson when we asked everyone to shut their eyes one more time. With hardly any avail. 3 minutes later I spotted that as chaos was happening around her little adora had her eyes shut.
I could only imagine her dad asking: "Adora... what did you do today in BridgeKids?"
And a tiny voice saying "We discussed poetry in worship but I couldn't read the words because my eyes were shut the entire time."
Oh man!! SO cute! She was a DOLL and seriously, I could not believe how hard she was concentrating when everyone else -- literally EVERYONE else, was so chaotic....armpit farts, real farts, burps and "POOP!" Apparently, bodily functions were at the top of their binds and the bottom of their bowels this week....And, unfortunately, I was at my wit's end...It was seriously all I could do not to just scream, or cry or melt into the fetal position! UGH! I felt horrible and out of control....and...we have a bully in our class! She (yes a girl) is 4 years old and likes to ostracize the younger girls. We've seen her doing this since she started coming, but this week, she started physically bullying and when asked to sit on her bottom, keeping hands and feet to herself, she laughed and said, "NO!" then laughed again and began shouting "Fart!" "Poop!" Which, if you have worked with kids, those are the two words you use to get them to go out of control...which happened. After we finished, I got in the car and said a few explicatives (don't judge me) and started to melt down....Lesson for me: I was not prepared for utter chaos. This was literally the first time I have felt like 90% of the kids were plotting to kill me...emotionally...heck, maybe even physically. You never know. Kids are tricky. I should have handed over the reigns to Dave or Geoff and left the room for 10 minutes to collect myself.
On a positive note, we created a really cool photo book on Shutterfly.com of Bridge Kids Sunday -- let me just tell you, it was a huge hit!! People were sharing the book and talking about their memories of that day....very cool!! And really encouraging.
I did feel very encouraged by parents yesterday, which was really cool.
Something that is becoming more and more apparent is we need a bigger space for the kids -- we are beginning to outgrow that room. Amazing problem to have. We also need to find a Jr. High/High School leader, because let's just face it, an 11 or 13 year old boy doesn't really enjoy hanging out with 10 3-7 year olds....I am so thankful for Jeremy, one of our older kids...he's so patient and has a great sense of humor. Which, by the way, he did a stand up routine at church yesterday and KILLED IT! He was so relevant and funny--everyone was literally in stitches! SO GOOD.
Next week, we are going to talk about dancing as worship....I am really excited and really nervous...to be quite honest. :)
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