Adoption Epidemic

In the past two years Crossroads has been hit with an epidemic. Several families within our church have turned their hearts towards orphans both within the US and overseas. I personally am so proud to be a part of a church that cares so much about the orphans, widows, and homeless. I can’t think of a better way to spend our time, money, and prayers! It’s rare to find a church like ours! I’m so grateful to be a part of Crossroads for many reasons, but that is the biggest one!

Several of the families adopting at our church have blogs, which I love to read. I think they’re intended to encourage other families going through an adoption but they encourage me to adopt myself one day. I wanted to share them with you for the same reason. There are SO MANY fatherless children and there are SO MANY of us who have room in our houses, families, lives and hearts for these children if we would just let ourselves catch the epidemic. I pretty much think that everyone should adopt 🙂 

 

Check out some of their blogs for yourself!

The O’Shields, The Higgins, The Dotsons, and the McCarts

Read more about the hosting program that started the epidemic!

 

God-Time & Refrigerator Door Cards

We were in North Carolina for a wedding this past weekend and weren’t at church. But because we have EXCELLENT volunteers everything went great! Make sure to thank your child’s small group leader every now and again for making time to lead your child! Here are the GT & RD Cards for the week. Remind your kids that they will get a surprise at church on Sunday for being patient and waiting for it!

5.23.10GTCards

5.23.10RDCard

God-Time & Refrigerator Door Cards

Well here they are! Your weekly GT & RD Cards. So print em’ out!!

The GT Cards can be signed and returned to your child’s small group leader for points towards Game Day!

For each completed and signed GT Card they get a point.

There will be a game day soon so remind your kids of this for a little extra incentive 🙂

May 16, 2010GTCard

May 16, 2010RDCard

Oh, and they also get points for memorizing the monthly verse. That is the very same verse found on the RD Card, so help your kids to memorize their verses for even more points!

Resources for your Family

I was not in the adult worship service on Sunday but I heard from fellow community groupers that Mike mentioned our GT & RD Cards to everyone. This makes me so happy because sometimes I feel like we have all of these awesome resources available and that the parents are forgetting about them. Well write it down on a sticky note and put it on your fridge, or mirror or forehead because these God-Time and Refrigerator Door cards will most definitely help you to grow your child’s faith and relationship with Jesus! Now they’re specifically for our Kindergarten-4th graders BUT Nicole is starting a new curriculum soon that will have similar resources for pre-school parents.

Okay, well since we got such an awesome mention from the stage I thought I would explain the GT & RD Cards to you JUST IN CASE you still have no idea how to use them. The GT Cards are meant to be a quiet time guide for your child to do during the week. There are 4 of them because realistically to get kids spending time with Jesus 4 times a week is a big deal! Kids are busy these days 🙂 but in the midst of everyone’s busyness I hope you’re teaching your children that NOTHING is more important than Jesus, and He wants to be their best friend. Here are example GT Cards with short explanations of each part. There’s one for Kindergarten and 1st graders, one for 2nd and 3rd graders and one for 4th and 5th graders. Just click on the one that represents your child’s grade level and see an example of a God-Time Card.

GTExp.K1, GTExp.23, GTExp.45

And for the Refrigerator Door Cards. They’re a little bit more complex but a very good resource for your family. Once again, these are for our K-4th graders known as our Club 252 kids. They go along with what the kids are learning about in Club 252. Click on the link below for an explanation of how to use the RD Cards during the week.

RDExplanation

Take the time to check out these sample resources and I will post the real thing tomorrow for you to print off and use this week!

A few changes…

::ATTENTION PARENTS::

We need more volunteers!! ALWAYS! Consider it an open invitation to serve! Not babysit, but SERVE!

Our children’s ministry is built around our small groups but there are several other spots you can serve in as well that are equally important. And because I’m not volunteer stingy I will put a plug in for the pre-school ministry as well. The younger the kids are, the more low key they are (for the most part).  So if you can’t commit to the energy the older kids have and just want to hold a baby for an hour or two, talk to Nicole!! She needs you guys too!

Okay, back to my 252 kids, they are great, and not all of them are high-energy. We have quite a few mellow kids too 🙂 Currently we have four small  groups; K/1, 2/3, 4th, and 5th. Beginning this Sunday we will be moving everyone around a little bit. The Kindergarteners will have their own group, 1st and 2nd will combine, 3rd and 4th will combine, and the 5th graders have their own group. We will have our leaders in the small group area early to help you find where your child should be from now on.

Bad news though, our groups are still too large! My idea of a perfectly sized small group would be about 6 kids per group. Currently we have about 15 kids per group!! The leaders are working too hard keeping the kids’ attention and don’t have enough time to connect with them one-on-one. We need to be able to have a different small group for every grade level, and some of the small groups need to be divided even further into a boys group and a girls group.

Pray about serving with our kids! I’m not even going to beg because I know that you will be blessed by serving with them, especially once we get the groups divided adequatly!! You don’t have to be a teacher, you don’t have to be super organized, and you only have get to serve for two weeks on and then you have four weeks off!

You will be given a chance to “kick the tires” and find where you fit in at when serving in CCWC’s family ministry this summer with a BIG CAMPAIGN we’re doing! So pray hard and get ready!! Our kids need YOU as their leader!

God-Time & Refrigerator Door Cards

This week we studied the story in Exodus of Moses going up the mountain to talk with God and getting the 10 commandments while the Isrealites were losing their faith below. They should have been more patient, but they didn’t trust that God was faithful and that Moses, their leader, would return.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the recap video linked in this post.

Patience is hard! I feel it first hand right now! Ryan has a temp position and the supervisors have sent out a few emails recently letting the staff know that he will most likely be made permanent very soon. This is great news because we’re trying to buy a house. However, we don’t want to take out a mortgage until the job thing is more of a sure thing. So here we are, sitting, waiting, wishing 🙂 I will say that it’s easier being patient when you really believe that God is faithful, but some days I believe that more than others. I just continually pray the verse in Mark 9:24 over my life, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Bottom Line last Sunday: “Don’t get tired of doing the right thing.”

5.9.10GTCards

5.9.10RDCard

Silly Bandz

Does your child’s wrist look like this?

Have you seen kids everywhere walking around with what look like colorful rubber bands around their wrists?

Apparently Zhu-Zhu Pets are out and Silly Bandz are in! Well I’m not  sure that zhu-zhu pets are really “out” but I know I have seen WAY MORE kids wearing silly bandz than carrying around zhu-zhu pets. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that silly bandz are the latest thing.

That being said I wanted to pass on a cool idea I heard from Gina Holcomb to all of you! Her son and neice are VERY into these silly bandz so she got wise and began taking their silly bandz and wearing them on her wrists when they whined or talked back. I thought this was such a cool idea because earning those silly bandz back is a big deal to them! Props to Gina for being a creative Mom!!

We’re studying patience in Club 252 and in order to practice our patience I told the kids that we have a surprise for them at the end of the series but they have to be “patient” in order to receive it. The surprise is going to be that we will have lots of silly bandz and they can each grab a few. I would have shown up to Club 252 wearing these silly bandz just to push their patience a little bit but haven’t been able to find them yet. Remember, I said they were the newest thing and therefore hard to find in stores. So they don’t know what the surprise is yet, don’t ruin it for us 🙂 But once they are patient and get their small gift you can use that gift to help them remember to behave and follow the rules of your home, just like Mrs. Gina Holcomb 🙂

::Sunday Morning Re-Cap::

Hey Parents!!

Want a recap of what we learned about in Club 252 this morning?

First, have you ever seen those crazy cards that Halmark puts out?

If they get on your nerves then you will certainly NOT want to watch this video recap!

BUT…if you think you can handle it for a minute or two, check out the link below.

It will give you specifics to talk about with your kids!

I can’t embed the video 😦 so you’ll have to click on this link.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I hope you all know how  important you are to your families and I hope they love on you all day long!!

Have a REALLY great day!

::Operation Family Blueprint::

Alright families, April is over. It’s time for a new Operation Family Blueprint Family Night!! I’m a little disappointed at the lack of ‘Fort Night’ stories I received. To my knowledge the Longs were the only ones to have a ‘Fort Night’ but for your knowledge they said it was “Awesome!”

For those of you who were just really busy in April but still really want a fun way to connect with your family it is not too late! At the check in table I have blueprints for ‘Fort Night’ and for ‘Family Holiday’ which is our Family Night Theme for May. ‘Family Holiday’ is focused around the idea of celebrating with your families. You can find the blueprints for it here or you can take one from our Blueprint Board on Sunday morning.

Don’t miss out on this creative and fun resource to help you connect with your family!