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SSTN # 82 - September 17, 2005


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IN THIS ISSUE OF THE SSTN e-NEWSLETTER:


I Know It's Early, but...

1) Hurricane Relief
2) Fund Raiser Idea 
3) Christmas Program Ideas?
4) Christmas Program Ideas
5) Grandparent's Day
6) Building A Bible

It's All About Jesus!

7) Christmas Program Ideas
8) Pre-K Ideas?
9) Looking for song?
10) Pastor Appreciation Day?
11) Fear Factor
12) Worldly Games


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I Know It's Early, but...

I know it's early, but if you're planning on having a Christ-tree this
Christmas in your church or home, now's the time to get your planning
underway! To learn more about Christ-trees, go to the following webpage:

http://www.christiancrafters.com/chrismon.html 



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1) Hurricane Relief

What about Mercy Corps, http://www.mercycorps.org/?
Here's a little bit about their organization, from their website:
        Mercy Corps helps more than seven million people each year recover
from disasters, build stronger communities and find their own solutions to
poverty. We have been an international leader in responding to the massive
tragedy of the Indian Ocean tsunami, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, massive
food shortages...

Also, if folks go to http://www.thehungersite.com/ , they can click to
give food for free, and then connect to the Mercy Corps site to give more.
Blessings,
Kit


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2) Fund Raiser Idea 

Our Sunday school put on a skit for the church.  We sold theater popcorn
and snacks.  We created an atmosphere like a movie theater, in the social
hall, with an isle between the rows of chairs.  The cost was donations
only.  People gave donations who didn't even stay to watch the skit. It
was a lot of fun for the kids and the adults!
-Jennifer Sweet


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3) Christmas Program Ideas?

Hello,
My husband and I are just starting out at our first pastorate.
We have been here four months.  It is a small church, but has a good
number of kids.  This will be my first year to conduct a Christmas
program with kids from the age of  2 to 15.  I want to do something
meaningful that gets the message of salvation across to the relatives
that will come for that Sunday only.  I prefer not to do a skit, as some
of the kids live a distance and could not make it here for many
practices. 
I'm looking for something simple, spiritual, and yet interesting too. 
Any ideas???
In Christ,
Esther


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4) Christmas Program Ideas

>I am the children's director at our small country church and I am trying
>to figure out a skit or something I can do with the children for Christmas. 

Tari,
Below is a play I have written that may be used if you would like. Take a
look and see if this is something you can use before I send all of it.
Jeanne

Cast
Choir 1: Wear Yankee Doodle hats
Choir 2: Dress in Christmas colors
First Carolers: Wear scarves and gloves
Choir 3: Dress in Christmas colors
Second Carolers: Wear scarves, gloves and carry treats for Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson

Scene: Christmas tree, presents, scene of a living room, desk, bed, table
and two chairs.

Yankee Doodle: (In his pajamas, - under clothes - stretches and gets out
of bed, yawns) OH, my it Is late and tomorrow is Christmas. I have a lot
of things to do. (Throws bedclothes and stuffed animal on the bed. He
hurries to get dressed. Pulls his shirt over his head and slips on his
sweat pants and shoes) ...


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5) Grandparent's Day

>I need sme ideas for skits & crafts for grandparent's day asap so the kids
>- ages 6-10 - can begin to prepare for that special day...thanks

One idea that is cute is to make a large (cut-out) round circle using
postor board. Cut out petals for the flower sections individually  using
different colors of postor board. On the petals cut out a smaller petal
using white paper and type large words such: reasons why they are thankful
for grandparents or why they are so special. These can be their own words.
You can also make really large ones that have a circle in the middle that
their heads can be seen as they look through. After the parts or words
they say have been completed then they velcro the section to make one
large flower on an easel board. It is very simple.
 
A cute song is My Grandfather's Clock. You can change some of the wording
to fit for your service. This is a familiar song that I have used for kids
at school in music class.
 
You can also have all the kids bring in pictures of them with their
grandparents and post these on a bulliten board or on a projector at
church during offering or prelude.
 
Have two kids dress like a grandma and grandpa and read a special part.
Best wishes in your endeavors.
 
Jeanne


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6) Building A Bible

I am teaching Kindergarten through second grade about what the Bible is
and how it is organized.  We will do it by building our own Bible so we
can talk about how the Bible how it is small library of small books
written by many people all with a single message.  I created 66 small
books and scattered them around the room.  Each "book" is a folded sheet
of construction paper with the following on the outside:  Name of book
(Genesis, Exodus, etc.) A picture of the category of the book (law
books/ten commandments, history book/picture of ancient king,
gospels/Jesus, Letters/stamped envelope, Acts/church etc.) The kids have
to gather all of the books and then sort them out by which picture they
are so they can be put into the Bible we are making in order.  Then each
book has a special coded message inside - a letter or word written on the
inside of the construction paper book.  As we open each book we will fill
the letters they find on a special chart created before class. You have
to break your message into words and letter that will make a total of 66
parts  that when read together will teach the children a simple message of
the Bible.  When they pick one letter off of each book and put them into
order by picture, the special message will read "Jesus loves me this I
know for the Bible tells me so, Little ones to Him belong.  They are weak
when He is strong."  This shows them that although each book has a
message, they have to look at the whole Bible to understand everything God
is trying to tell us.  As we decode the message we will talk about the
difference between the Old Testament and New Testament by having the kids
raise a picture of either the 10 Commandments or Jesus when we talk about
a story.  Hope this is fun for your kids!


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It's All About Jesus!

"Tell Me The Story of Jesus" is a two-semester hands-on Bible lesson
series which contains coordinating crafts, games, skits and enrichment
ideas to tell the story of Jesus, from childhood to Pentecost. One book is
all you need for an entire classroom and it's value priced! To download
two complimentary activities, go to the Curriculum page and click the
book's cover at:

http://www.christiancrafters.com/curriculum.html 


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7) Christmas Program Ideas

Tari (from Michigan)

First of all, God bless you for leading a children's Christmas program. It
is the ONE thing that I was asked to do that I didn't feel the Lord wanted
me to do and I let folks push me into it and IT WAS NOT BLESSED. Yuck.
That being said. I took over the children's program the year after the
lady who had done it forever stepped down. They did major productions with
huge sets. I could not even try to compare so I went the total opposite. I
did a program called "The Candles of Christmas" I don't remember if it was
Brentwood or which company. It was a simple advent type program. Very
small scale, very sweet, using mostly known Christmas carols, easy for me,
lol. I took it one step further asking one person to do a narrative of the
nativity (with the children dressed up, of course) another read about the
true story of Silent Night while my teen son and a gentleman from our
church played on guitar. We had the whole congregation join with us
singing. Another lady sang O Holy Night.
It was an old fashioned type Christmas program with children memorizing
verses and the nativity. It was easy to do, easy on the budget (we had an
advent wreath and lots of electric candles lit and the church was already
decorated nicely)I stressed doing it because that is not my area but this
one went ok. (it was the next year that was nasty)Hope this helps.

Diane, also from Michigan


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8) Pre-K Ideas?

We're about to start Children's Church for Pre-K ages 2-5
I'm kinda of new working with this age. Any Ideas?
Thanks! Blessings!  

--from SSTN: the Pray & Play Bible is an exceptional resource! You can
find it in the Bibles section of our bookstore at:
http://www.christiancrafters.com/bookstore.html 


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9) Looking for song?

I am looking for the words to the song "Books of the Old Testament" which
is sung to the tune of "Did You Ever See a Lassie." It starts like "Let us
sing the Books of Moses..."  Can't find it on the internet so far.
 
Thanks,
Glenda Edge
wedge112181@hotmail.com


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10) Pastor Appreciation Day?

I would like some ideas on what my class (ages 5-10) could do for Pastor
Appreciation day. 

Thank you! 
YSIC 
Sherry in Missouri

--from SSTN: make sure you check the archives too at:
http://christiancrafters.com/archives.html 


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11) Fear Factor

Although I do not teach youth, I felt compelled to remark to the varied
replies coming in on the network.  I have more a personal experience with
this situation.

Our family recently moved to another state, and consequently entered a new
church, taking our teenage with us.  The former church did a lot of what
parents would probably consider "wordly" things--Fear Factor, Ultimate
Make Over, etc.  It was presented in a Christ-centered atmosphere, with
leaders that my child grew to love and trust, because she felt comfotable
with the people leading her because they didn't shun what she saw
everyday, but helped her make sense of it.  Using cultural things to help
the kids understand our culture from a Biblical perspective, and to help
them be culturally relavent with their peers at school is a good thing!

Through training in that youth group, which had maybe 85 kids on average,
including a lot of kids who NEVER went to church, my daughter now has a
strong foundation because they followed through on everything they
taught.  She takes her Bible to each church service (including the adult
service), and feels ill-prepared when she doesn't have a pen and paper
handy to take notes, and has used up more Bible highlighters than I can
count.  She feels the Bible is real, and living, because it was brought to
her, and she wasn't dragged to it.  And she was NORMAL for that group, all
the kids did it, and it was a positive-reinforcing atmosphere where the
kids learned to encourage each other in love.

I understand the parents and adults who are leery of world-centered
activities, but I have seen the fruit of that type of atmosphere, and it
is sweet. 

Anne


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12) Worldly Games

To Everyone who feels that using worldly games in church is an
abomination:
Im  sure a lot of  you play "Bingo", "Simon Says", and other games such as
this. Are these worldly?  some may say yes. but these games as well as
others have been used in a many of Sunday schools. its not the games it is
the life application principles behind the game that we are trying to get
across to the children. Fear Factor itself may not be a good game but
think about how great it would be to use the Word with it to reach a
child. People think rap music is worldly. But look at how many lives are
being touched and converted. There are many examples in the Bible where
things were bad but God turned it around for good and He got the glory.  
We are not out to be like the world or be sick and disgusting. We  are out
to make a change on peoples lives. In the book of Mark it says to "Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel"-we have to remember that
everyone does not speak the same language as you.
 
Mrs. T from TN


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