Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Christmas, the Gospel and Kids! There is nothing sadder than...

This post was originally made at www.emmanuelbaptist.com on December 9, 2014

This post gives more information about the different ministries mentioned in this week's church email.  If you are not getting the church emails, click HERE.

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."  - Erma Bombeck.
The reality is there is nothing sadder than to awake any morning and not be a child of God.

This post is not only for kids and parents.  It is for anyone who wants to see kids and families grow closer to God.  And there is only one way this can happen - through Jesus Christ.

Often people talk about Christmas being a time for children.  The reality is God sent his only Son into the world, so that children and adults might live through Him (see 1 John 4:9, this week's EKIDZ memory verse).

As the pastor of children and family ministry, I want you to know that I consider it a great privilege and a huge responsibility to help parents and grandparents grow in their relationship with God share the joy of Christ with their children and grandchildren.
At this time of the year we have so many opportunities to help children grow closer and closer to Jesus. The BIGGEST way we can do this is by speaking the truth of the Gospel and living a life that shows our satisfaction is in Christ.
As a church we have ministries and programs that are designed to help children and families at Emmanuel Baptist Church.
  • Our Single & Parenting Class, which we offered for the first time this past quarter, uses Biblical Counseling principles in a small class setting to encourage and challenge single parents.  The experiences and stories of single parents and the Godly, Bibical counsel of people like David Powlison, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Paul Tripp and Steve Viars remind the class they are facing REAL PROBLEMS and theire is REAL HOPE in Christ.
  • Our Sunday morning EKIDZ classes continues to grow as more and more young families come.  We would love to have more and more disciple-makers partner with our teachers, assistants and families to teach the life changing truth of God's Word.  There are great opportunities to serve as teachers, assistants, security and other areas.  Check out the article entitled Volunteers vs. Disciple-makers (http://blog.emmanuelbaptist.com/volunteers-vs-disciple-makers/).
  • Our UPWARD basketball ministry combines the fun of sports with the truth of God’s word.  Evaluations are this week.  If you haven't heard, evaluations have been changed because of a water leak at the school.  They will now be this Saturday (Dec. 13) and next Wednesday (12/17).  Thank you for your cooperation and prayers for this ministry.  You can find out more about this ministry at www.ekidzministry.blogspot.com/p/upward.html  Updated on 12/10/14
  • Our ekidzministry.blogspot.com website provides families with resources to help parents disciple their children.  There are weekly family worship guides based on the Sunday lesson, seasonal resources like daily advent posts, helps to prepare your children to be part of the worship service in general.
  • Our Emmanuel Student Ministry, emmanuelstudentministries.com, which is designed to help middle schoolers, high schoolers and their parents grow closer to one another and closer to God.  We call our Wednesday night middle school service and our Sunday night high school service D|Groups because everything we do at ESM whether hanging out with friends, playing games, worship with music or listening to messages is for the purpose of pushing each other to be a better follower/disciple of Jesus.
Please be in prayer for these and other ministries.

This post was originally made at www.emmanuelbaptist.com on December 9, 2014

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