11-12-20 This Week in Faith
/Children’s Church and Nursery- SUNDAYS [during the 8:30 service]
We have begun to offer Children’s church and baby nursery during the 8:30 service! Kids will leave after the children’s sermon.
This is a link to sign up to help.
November Memory for Kids
We have been choosing our memory verses from different CD’s produced by Seeds Family Worship. The music is a great way for kids [and parents] to get Scripture stuck in their heads. Getting God’s Word into the heads and hearts of our kids is one of the most valuable things we can do for them. This year, we are using their CD I Believe. They are also producing an online family devotional for these verses that you can find HERE. If you don’t already do family devotions, this might be a great place to start.
CD’s are in! If you would like an I Believe CD, or a code to download the album for FREE, find me or Stephanie Atkinson this Sunday at church. We’d love to give your family one!
Scripture Memory- Jeremiah 33:7-8
New City Catechism- Question 27 and Question 28
STUDENT MINISTRY SCHEDULE
Student Ministry Small Groups
Right now we are studying the book of Exodus in small groups.
Middle School- Wednesdays from 6:00-7:30PM at Faith [in the Plaza]
High School- Sundays from 6:00-7:30 at Faith [in the Plaza]
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Love is Inconvenient
This title says it all. And it has been one of the most challenging lessons to teach my kids. Almost as much as anything, I hope my kids grow into people who willingly go out of their way to love people around them. Whether it is their sibling, an unpopular kid at school, or the new student at youth group. My prayer is that they would be less insular, focused on themselves and their group, and more welcoming and hospitable to anybody God puts in their path. There are ways in which my kids do this that I am thankful for, and ways in which they have a long way to go. But as I read this article and thought about this for my kids, it caused my to think about my own unwillingness to love inconveniently. How often do I go out of my way to include someone unlike me? How willing am I to jump in with what my kids are doing late at night when I’m just ready to sit and relax? Would my family say my love for them is more often self-motivated or in the interests of “counting others more significant than myself out of humility”. Philippians 2, which is looked at in this article and one of the passages for this coming Sunday’s sermon, gives us the blueprint for seeing change in this area. It starts with considering Jesus and the inconvenience of his love for us. It’s a good reminder that my hope for my kids being the kind of people who love others in this way, is to experience the sacrificial love of Jesus for them, and to a lesser extent, the self-giving love of an earthly dad that has been changed by the love of Jesus as well.
Click here to read the article by Mike Emlet.
The Loneliness of Parenting Alone
Being a single parent is one of the most difficult things God can call a person to do. While I don’t know this from first-hand experience, I have seen and heard it in the lives of many single parents I’ve known over the years. Because this article is so good, I’d rather you be encouraged by it than anything I have to say. But, like the article says, it can be really hard to ask for help. So if you are parenting alone right now, please let us and those around you know how we can best love and support you. And if you are not parenting alone, I hope this article can help you know how to pray for your friends who are and how to take the initiative to love and support them well.
Click here to read the article by Anna Meade Harris.
The Hardest Fight to Have with Your Teen
Sometimes we can know that it is a challenging time for our kids and we need to be on the lookout for how they might be struggling, but it is hard when we don’t know what to specifically look for. This article gives a good description of some of the more common things kids are struggling with during the pandemic, including body image. I thought these were some good things to look for. And the article closes with a helpful idea for how to work through differences you may have with your teenagers about how to approach the pandemic. I think it’s an approach that could help us have better conversations with our teens on any number of topics we disagree on.
Click here to read the article by Jessica Grose.
Just for Fun: Jim Gaffigan on Fall
If you need a good laugh, here’s Jim Gaffigan on the seasons. The part at the end about fall is one of my kids’ favorite videos. [There is one off color word near the beginning]
