cue:  : to give a cue to : prompt (verb)

the above is the definition that the meriam webster dictionary provides for the word “cue”. cues are all around us each day…the alarm clock cues us when to get up.  the little gas tank symbol cues us with a ding when we need to get gas (i hear this one a lot!) our spouses cue us with gentle elbow jabs when we need reining in about something.  our babies cue us with cries when they are wet or hungry and our kids cue us with their behavior for when they need some extra (throat clearing) attention (otherwise known as discipline).  and the Bible cues us on how to live our lives.

so look for the word

it’s a word that we are going to use a lot in kids ministry because we see cueing as one of our main responsibilities to you as parents. we want to give you cues, ideas, sparks and jumpstarts for you to spiritually lead and influence your child to experience Jesus.  each month, parents and kids are given cues as you pick up your child from kids’ ministry in the form of a take home paper that explains where we are going with our teaching for the month and how you can join in.  we’ll use the word in things we send home, emails and facebook posts.  we also encourage you to download the parent cue app at this link.  it is filled with ideas for while you drive, when you are at home, and fun games and videos your child can do all to help them experience Jesus.

is there something that you need to cue your child on this week?  share your story.

remembering

this memorial day got me a little reflective about what the holiday was about.  i did a quick google and the research told me that it was about remembering and honoring our countries fallen soldiers in the line of duty.  it’s about remembering.  and as so often happens with the way i think, it made me relate it to this life of being a mom and the job i have with my husband to lead my daughter spiritually. what came to my mind are two passages that i read recently that talk about remembering, or the way numbers describes it, as “marking the journey”.  in numbers 33:2, the Lord commands moses to record the stages in their journey. do you wonder why God commands certain things like that?  i’m not a Biblical scholar by any means, but i think that psalm 78: 3-6 may give one answer to why we need to record the stages.  so that the next generation will know of Him.

marking the journey

what does marking the journey look like for us as parents?  i think it’s partly about telling our kids about our own journey.  letting them know how we came to experience Jesus and letting them know some of the struggles we’ve had along the way and where we are today.  all to guide our kids to be fully-devoted Christ-followers.

how are you marking the journey for your children?

slumber party small talk

yesterday i was talking with a friend that has a daughter in 5th grade. she was sharing with me something that had caused my friend concern after her daughter had attended a slumber party. the girls were curious about something they’d heard about at school, so they talked about it. a typical slumber party night, where girls ask other girls about life, boys, and all that stuff. it was a situation of girls being curious about things they hear about at school, but it ended up exposing my friend’s daughter to some worldly ways, a twisting of God’s plan for married couples.

impress it upon their hearts

you see, my friend had already shared the beautiful plan God has for a married man and woman, but the slumber party talk revealed how the beautiful things God intended can be turned ugly. the great part about the whole situation is that my friend had really done her homework. she had impressed upon her daughter’s heart God’s plan for love. she had in a sense, scotchguarded her daughter’s heart against the ugly. she had given her a Biblical foundation and that will serve to scotchguard her heart against the things of this world that she will eventually encounter.  deuteronomy 6:6-9

paranoia mommy and a great big God

as a mom, wait, as a sometimes paranoid mom about the worldly influences that could touch my daughter, i needed to hear her story. that the careful preparation and open conversations between parent and child can provide the guarding of our children’s hearts so that when chloe, my daughter, encounters and is exposed to things that do not fit with God’s plan, she will still stand strong. she’ll still know the way to go and the choices that she needs to make and will be able to navigate this sinful world.

what are you doing to scotchguard your child’s heart?  start the conversation here.

gratitude

yesterday and each sunday i get to team with some awesome one life kids volunteers!  but yesterday new levels of gratitude came as we practiced for BIG Deal Theatre.  around 20 volunteers gathered to run sound and CG, set the stage, run their lines, run the rehearsal, get the audience engaged, lead in worship and more.  it was incredible to watch it in action and be part of it.  i went home yesterday evening “teaming” with gratitude about the team.  thanks, team, for working to help the kids and families of one life to experience Jesus.

teams are a value

teams are a big value at one life and within kids ministry.  each person that volunteers is assigned to a team.  so you volunteer together for the kids!  you get to laugh, love on kids, and serve together.  the teams have fun and become close much like a life group. if you want to join one of the teams (there are lots of different opportunities to serve with a range of options and serving commitment), contact jessicabarnard@onelifenetwork.in

oh, and to see the BIG Deal team in action …

be sure to come to the BIG Deal Theatre preview this Friday, May 20th.  Doors open at 6:00 p.m. with pizza and popcorn being served.  the production starts at 6:30.

blankness

well today my mind for blogging is blank. so i am going with that and let’s see where it takes us today! usually, i head into my monday with a blogging plan. i keep a list of things that spark my posts, but today none of those feel like the right thing to write about. so my mind is blank.

where to go

as i pondered my blank mind, and where do i go with this, i remembered a phrase that we say to the elementary kids on sundays. “where do you go when you need to find out how to make the wise choice?” and the answer is the Bible. this phrase is designed to be that “spark” to remind kids where they go for help when they have choices to make. to remind kids to make choices with the Bible as the filter or the lens through which they can make wise choices. what would your kids life look like if they looked through the lens of the Bible each time they encounter a choice they have to make?  (see deuteronomy 11:18-21)

so parents, where are you pointing your kids when they need to make wise choices?

Kitten is the better half of Discovery Church Pastor Trey McClain.

Hey everyone, I wanted to take a moment to share my excitement with you! I just returned from Orange Conference, which I attended with a few people from One Life Henderson and the One Life Network.

I was able to see why they use Orange in their ministry and look at their curriculum a little more in depth. It is a curriculum that takes the children through various virtues. Each month, we will look at a different virtue or character of God with the kids through large and small group time.

Orange is a whole strategy that brings the home and church together to excite kids for Christ. We as the church only have an average of 40 hours a year with the kids we see on Sundays. (Taking for account weeks that kids are gone.) The parents/family has 3000 hours a year with their children. We need to go into partnership with the parents/families to raise these kids in Christ love. I am so excited to see how the Orange strategy and the 252 curriculum will help us do this!

Continue Reading…

i’ve just returned from the orange conference and i am pumped and excited! our team heard lots of great teaching, were led in some great worship, and had lots of fun together. we’ve returned with full hearts for the kids to experience Jesus more! over the next few posts, i will share some of what we learned as a team.  hopefully with a post from one of the team members too!

dry cleaners

one of the speakers, kara powell, from the fuller youth institue, shared this thought: “parents view the church as a dry cleaner: they bring their kids in dirty and then take them home 75 minutes later.” this really stuck with me because this is not really what we want our kids ministry to be. now that may surprise you, and don’t think that we are saying we don’t want kids to change or “get cleaned up” while they are in kids ministry.  we totally want change, but we  it’s also that we want to partner with you as parents, that we want to play a part together in your child experiencing Jesus.  because we know that we (the church) are not the primary or end all in leading a child spiritually.  (check out who is to take the lead for a child’s spiritual growth in deuteronomy 6).

may i propose to you that we want our kids ministry to be like starbucks.

starbucks

for many of you, i probably have your attention now that i’ve mentioned starbucks. starbucks is how many people start their day. their favorite drink is a consistent part of their day and it jumpstarts all they do each day. can we be that for you as a parent? can we partner with you to be the jumpstart as you spiritually lead your child? we have several ways that we try to do that:

~take home papers to further and spark what has happened in one life kids.  in one life nursery and preschool they go home at the beginning of the month with ideas for you as a parent.  with one life elementary, kids have the “God Time” cards that point kids to have their own one on one time with God.  for you as a parent, there is a “parent cue–fridge door cards” designed to spark and remind you of what to keep before your kids that week.
~consistent leaders that are connecting with your kids spiritually, emotionally, and with lots of fun!
~BIG Deal Theatre–this is something new that we are introducing on May 20th. it’s a shared experience between kids and their parents that gives you a starting point with your kids as you lead them spiritually. (and it’s LOTS of fun!)

who’s with me?  who’s orange for the kids?

you might have noticed that i have what might be called an obsession with the color orange. ironically, growing up it was never a color i liked at all. as a child i was frequently called carrot top because of my red hair and so i did not like the color orange.

but in recent years, a purpose was attached to the color orange for me and i now am drawn to the color orange for all things.  and yes, probably obsessed!  last week i painted my toes orange, bought a new orange shirt, and waited for my new orange flip flops to arrive in the mail. you see, the color orange reminds me of my passion to see the church and parents partner together to increase their influence for their child spiritually.

here’s how it works. the color red represents the home, the heart. the color yellow represents the church, the light. separately they have influence for kids to experience Jesus, but when they combine their influence you get a bolder and brighter impact. you get orange! think of what that would look like?

i am heading to the orange conference (yes there’s a conference for it!) this wednesday with a team of seven from one life kids. we’re excited. be watching for tweets from me and posts on the one life kids facebook page.

one life kids team, how can we better partner with parents?

one life parents, how do you spiritually lead your child?

let’s do this together, parents and one life kids team!

i LOVE to garden,

but i don’t get a lot of time to do it. but when i do, i enjoy the dirt under my nails, the smell of the soil, the process of preparing the garden area, deciding what to plant, then planting and waiting for the time to harvest. it’s the grown-up way to still make mud pies!

since i also love to learn,

i almost continuously see lessons or parallels to life and ministry in most everything i do. which is probably because i still have SO many lessons i need to learn too! so as i was working in my garden spot yesterday, and planting some seeds in little peat pots, some lessons or parallels with volunteering began to “grow” in my mind.  if you are already a one life kids volunteer, you know that we are currently challenging all of our kids team (frontline, security, nursery, preschool, elementary, production, curriculum support) to apprentice new volunteers.  at the end of this post, i’m going to parallel this to our kids.

planting the seed

so a new volunteer gets “planted”.  they spend time being covered and protected by the soil of a seasoned leader.  that seasoned leader surrounds them and gives them nutrients, let’s them get warmed by the sun and they water them with all the little training tidbits.  and after some time passes, they begin to sprout and grow.  each different type of seed (or volunteer role) will spend different amounts of time underground, but they all need to spend some underground time.  that time underground helps the seed become what it was created to be.  the same is true for volunteers.  the time spent in apprenticing helps them become the volunteer they are created to be.

now to our kids

there’s a parallel to parenting our kids that can be learned from planting seeds.  the early years of our kids lives need to be spent “underground” and close to us as parents.  we surround them with love, direction, training, and support.  we give them the nutrients that are needed to start their life.  and moment by moment we see them begin to sprout. gaining a leaf here and there and eventually ready to move to the garden.  but that’s part of the continuing story for another day.

so my question to one life volunteers is this, who do you see as a potential “seed” that you can plant?

and my question to parents is this, what underground time and nutrients do you need to give to your “seeds” this week?

i’m reflecting on both seeds this week and praying for the right conditions for both to grow and thrive.

it’s been a back burner kind of week where i have had to push posting a blog back each day until today.  i usually post a new blog on mondays, but this week my monday had some extra things and it just snowballed from there.  now, i am sitting down to write and have decided to not post on my original idea, but write about it being a back burner kind of week.  i’m sure that at times you have had one of those kind of days, weeks, or maybe months!  sometimes it even seems that all of my burners are in back burner mode and i have no burners to cook and prepare the current meal.  whew!

unfortunately, i come from a family of back burners.  yes, my genetics lean towards procrastination for some things.  somehow the crunch of a deadline brings my motivation to new levels.  there’s a sense of urgency that causes action.  i’ve fought against it most of my life.

but as i think of all the things that have gotten put on the back burner this week (blogging, laundry, gardening, exercising, organizing that closet) i also think to the things in my life that i cannot put to the back burner:  my relationship with God, my husband and daughter, friends and family relationships.  i’m pausing to reflect and evaluate if i’ve put them on the back burner this week?  because you see, the time with my daughter especially is critical.  my influence on her life decreases the older she gets. she will begin to form her own thoughts, decisions and independence.  it’s critical that i leverage my influence with her now.  that i don’t back burner the many questions she has about life.  that i don’t back burner leading her spiritually or off-load that to someone or something else (see deuteronomy chapter 6).

thankfully i have my God who has it all in control.  “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”  Colossians 1:17 NIV i am SO grateful for God’s control in my life that keeps me cooking what i need to cook and has a back burner available when i need to rest.

what’s on your back burner today?  does it need to move to the front?