Some Great, low prep service opportunities...

In his last three sermons Pastor Duke challenged us with the questions "what must the church do?

Evangelize the Lost,
Trust, treasure and teach God's Word

Care for others.

In our weekly EKIDZ ministry, we do each of these.

There are children and parents who don't know Jesus Christ as their personal savior.  

There are opportunities to help kids learn the truth of God's word.

There are opportunities to care for kids and families that God brings to EBC.

Here are two ways you can help with our ministry to these kids and families.

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1. Once every 4 to 6 week during the 10:30 am service time.  Security at the check-in desk.  
2. One month every third month during the 10:30 am service.  Nursery workers are needed.
3. One month every third month during the 10:30 am service.  Assistant disciple-makers are needed.  Responsibilities included helping with classroom management and Bible memory, helping the classroom teacher provide an  learning environment.

Thank you very much for your prayers for and service in the children's ministry.

Trust in Jesus and Live by faith (Matt. 8:5 - 13)

Yesterday in the 1st through 3rd grade we connected this week's EKIDZ lesson with our What is the church to do series of messages.

Watch this 5 minute video from Faith in Lafayette and then read the notes after. 

What is required to be saved, to be part of the body of Christ, to be part of the church?

Faith in Jesus, which is what the centurion had.
  It is not being born into a Christian family.
  It is not doing good things.

What must those who are part of the body of Christ do?

• share the Gospel with the lost
• trust, treasure and teach God's word
• care for others
• follow Godly leaders

Believers need to live by faith.
  Living by faith involves sharing the great gift of the Gospel with others.
  Living by faith involves trusting, treasuring and teaching God's word.
  Living by faith involves caring for others
  Living by faith involves following Godly leaders

Why we talk about and do family ministry...

Here are some of the theological assumption, when we talk about family ministry,

1. God has called parents as the PRIMARY disciple makers in their children's lives.  Primary not exclusive.
2. The church is responsible to look after spiritual orphans while passionately seeking to disciple their parents.
3. Where God's kingdom is gathered together generations will be drawn together rather than torn apart.
4. What you do for God beyond your home typically will never be greater than what you are practicing for God within your home.

Timothy Paul Jones expands these four assumptions in the 34 minute seminar below.
In the second part of this message he goes on to explain the purpose of age related ministries (children, youth, senior saints and so on) is not to cater to groups needs but rather to help each individual fulfill the mission of the church.

When dads don't disciple their kids...

http://jenwilkin.blogspot.ca/2014/10/when-dad-doesnt-disciple-kids.html

Three kinds of “single moms” exist in the church: the literal single mom who is raising children on her own, the mom whose husband is an unbeliever, and the mom whose husband professes belief but does not partner in the spiritual nurture of the family. 
For the true single mom and the mom married to an unbeliever, the task is clear: train your children in the Lord because no one else will. For the wife of the believing father guilty of spiritual absenteeism, the lines are blurry. 

The posts today and tomorrow are meant to help people think about spiritual leadership in their families.  
This post focuses on single moms
Tomorrow's post focuses on theological assumptions of family ministry

Five BAD Substitutes for Discipline

"There is nothing easy about parenting, and nothing easy about the responsibility of training our children in obedience through discipline. Because discipline is unpopular and unpleasant, parents often find themselves looking for substitutes. In her book Parenting Against the Tide, Ann Benton lists five poor substitutes for disciplining our children—five poor substitutes that fail to address the heart." challies.com

Here are the five substitues

1. Excuse Them
2. Ignore Them
3. Organise Them
4. Consult Them
5. Bribe Them

To read more about each of these click HERE

What's the church to do? with the 1st - 3rd graders

Today the 1st - 3rd graders reviewed the first couple of chapters of Matthew during the 9:00 am class.

For our 10:30 class time we participated in the singing and first 15 minutes of the sermon in the children's chapels.

Here are pictures of some of the kids and Everett Ferradino in the children's chapel singing with the worship team.

After listening to the first 15 minutes of sermon, 

we asked the kids some questions like

• What are some words you didn't understand?
• What should the church do?  We talked about evangelize the lost & teach the counsel of God.
• What does the word evangelize mean?
• What does the phrase counsel of God mean?
• What did Paul value and what should we value?

Then we broke into two groups

Everett Ferradino's group learned this week's memory verse, 1 Corinthians 16:13 with Matt Parmelee.

Emily Blackford's group talked with Pastor Dave about the sermon and what to do when sitting in the service with their family during the sermon.

Some of the things we talked about were

• when it was o.k. to use your voice in the auditorium (before/after the service to greet people, to sing praises to the Lord, to very quietly and quickly ask your parents questions about the passage or verse)
• how to help yourself listen.  We talked about taking notes using the sermon note link on the right side of this page.
• what to do before the service starts.  I asked the kids what they needed to do before the service.  None of them gave an answer but after I said "go to the bathroom" several kids said they thought that but didn't think that was the answer.   I think they wanted to give the Sunday school answers of Jesus or the Bible.

Last week during the 10:30 hour we talked about the mission of our church.

Glorify God by Making Disciples who 

Love God (the kid explanation of Submitted to His Lordship)

Live out the Word of God  (the kid explanation of Grounded in His Word)

Love Other (the kid explanation of Sincere in His Love)

We have a Kid's in Church day scheduled for November 16th.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

Here is a great opportunity to help kids around the world know the love of Jesus this Christmas.

SHOE BOX DROP OFF:  All shoe boxes need to be dropped off to the church by the morning of November 11th.

INSTRUCTIONS:  Instructions & Labels can be picked up at the welcome desk.

QUESTIONS:  Talk to Mandy Cummerow

HOW TO PACK A BOX:   

http://www.samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child/pack-a-shoe-box/

Halloween: What should you do?

It is October!  

The leaves are changing and falling.

It is getting colder.   

Football season is in full swing.

And it is Halloween. 

Among Christians there are different thoughts and convictions regarding this holiday. 

Even among staff at EBC there are differing opinions.

What you do at Halloween is an issue of conscience.  “Each person, and in particular, I believe, each father, must examine the Bible and his conscience to see where that leads him.”  (quote from Tim Challies article)

Here are three things every Christian needs to remember at Halloween and throughout the year:

1.  Establish guidelines for your family and be prepared to teach the reasons to your family.  "Because I said so" is not a reason.  I specifically used the word "guideline" because these may change and you can explain why your thoughts have changed.

2.  Celebrate the victory we have over sin and death in Jesus Christ not the fear of death, zombies and witches.

3.  Build relationships with your neighbors.  This will look different for each family.

Here are three balanced resources on the topic of Halloween. 

If you have any questions or other helpful resources please email children@emmanuelbaptist.com

Grace To You post:  http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A123/Christians-and-Halloween

Challies.com post:  http://www.challies.com/articles/halloween-trick-or-retreat

John Piper video:  http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-are-your-thoughts-on-halloween 

Remember, at EBC and in our EKIDZ ministry, we want to help parents understand how to be the main disciple maker in their children’s lives

Pressing on,

David Rodgers

Acts 20:24

Amy Carmichael video & last night's IMPACT service

We are going to be using our once a month Sunday night service to promote missions with the Kindergarten through 5th graders.

Here is the trailer for the Amy Carmichael Story video we watched last night.



HERE are some resources to talk with your kids about the Amy Carmichael story.
Below is one of the coloring pages on this page.

After the video, we talked about Romans 8:37,
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
and here is the "conclusion" of this verse (Romans 8:38, 39)..

Books of the Bible Songs

We have been learning the books of the Bible these past 6 weeks.

 

How Are We Assisting Families?

I want to let you know about a couple of things we have been doing with the EKIDZ ministry that have been set up to help parents disciple their children.  I have posted about most of these over the last couple of months but thought it would be a good idea to put them in one post to help clarify.

BABIES:
With our Teaching Babies ministry we want to shift the Bible teaching emphasis to 9:00 am.  We have been calling Sunday morning from  9:00 to 10:00 am our Bible Teaching Hour and we want that same emphasis to happen in the nursery.  You can read more about this HERE.

2 YRS - KINDERGARTEN:
Recently we have changed the Bible memory verse schedule for these kids.  They have the same verse for the month.  This provides teachers with the opportunity to teach the verse and some applications of it.

1ST - 3RD GRADERS:
We have been dividing these students into 4 groups and doing the stories, Bible memory and Books of the Bible activities in small group settings.  The adults have enjoyed talking with the kids in the smaller groups.  During the 10:30 am service time, we have really been working on helping the kids know the memory verses and the books of the Bible.  You can read more about how we are using the take home papers to help parents and kids.  Click HERE
At least once a quarter we have the kids attend the service with their parents.  When these weeks are coming up, there are Kids In Church resources posted on this blog.  Click HERE.

Why do we take the 1st through 3rd kids into the beginning of the service?  Click HERE

4TH - 5TH GRADERS:
Over the last year we have had the 4th and 5th graders attending the service with their families.  Once again we have Kids in Church resources that we post.  Click HERE.  There are blank sermon notes specific designed for kids on a larger paper.
When we have had specific sermons that dealt with sensitive topics, like this Sunday, we have offered a class for the 4th and 5th graders.  HERE is what we did last time they were out of the service
As it relates to sermons about sex and talking to our kids about it.  We have been providing resources for parents.  Click HERE for some of these resources.

If you have questions, please email children @ emmanuelbaptist.com.
Thanks!

Family Guide for October 5th.