December 2008

Welcome to Connect, the monthly e-newsletter for those who minister to children in small Sunday schools, midweek programs, and new church plants. Click here to invite your ministry staff members and volunteers to receive Connect!

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Coming in January! More than Storytelling: What Makes a Lesson Reformed?
How much does theology really matter in children's ministry? What difference does the Reformed perspective make to the first-graders in my class? Aren't we all teaching the same Bible stories? Explore these questions and ask your own in this webinar that compares a variety of approaches to Bible interpretation and teaching. You'll walk away with rules of thumb for teaching your kids in a way that's faithful to Scripture's big story – God's redemption and restoration of the world through Jesus Christ!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 2 pm EST / 1 pm CST

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One Scene Wonders

Each year during the Christmas holidays our family spends a snowy day hunkered down with hot chocolate, popcorn, and a collection of our favorite Christmas movies. My husband Ron’s perennial pick is a low-budget, sleeper hit called The Christmas Story. Set in small-town Indiana in 1940, it’s the story of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker’s determination to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. (A gun with which his mother, his teacher, and Santa Claus all assure him, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”) The dad in the film has what my second-grade teacher would refer to as a “potty mouth,” but the most memorable part for Ron is the playground scene in which Ralphie’s friend Fink is “triple dog dared” to lick a frozen pole.

I prefer something on the sappy side and always make everyone watch Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. In this classic Christmas story the most famous scene occurs at the end when the people of Bedford Falls flow into George Bailey’s house, pour out their savings, and show George the value of friends and family. It’s a Wonderful Life, like The Christmas Story, wasn’t a huge box office hit when it was first released, but now it regularly tops Most Popular Christmas Movie lists.

Sounds kinda like another famous Christmas story. Jesus’ premiere at a Bethlehem stable didn’t get much attention at first either, aside from a sky full of angels and some disheveled shepherds. Yet 2000 years later most folks around the world recognize it as the Christmas story—whether they believe it or not—and it’s often considered the most memorable scene in the Bible.

As children’s ministry leaders we probably devote more lessons to the Christmas story that to any other story. We teach kids carols, conduct choirs, practice plays, and make props. We create crafts, frost cookies, and pass out candy canes. And sometimes we get so busy teaching the meaning of Christmas that our own sense of joy and wonder gets lost under the sheet music, the scripts, the crafts, and the candy. As a result, although our mouths are singing “Joy, Joy, Joy!” sometimes our hearts are singing “January, January, January!”

Here’s the good news. The story of Jesus’ birth is one scene in God’s story of redemption and restoration. All the stories you’ve been telling your kids each week at church till now and all the stories you’ll be learning together after Christmas are part of that big story about what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do.

It’s our prayer here at Faith Alive that you will experience God’s richest blessings as you live into that story in the coming year.  

Merry Christmas!
Karen DeBoer

P.S. Need a quick Christmas craft? Check the dollar store for die-cut stars (or cut your own from cardstock), glitter, and candy canes. Have your older kids help your younger kids apply glue and glitter to their stars and then tape the stem of a candy cane to the back of each star so that its crook becomes the tree hook for an ornament. Tip: Do glitter work over cookies sheets so you can easily pour the excess back into the containers or into the garbage—your custodian will thank you!

And, if you’re looking for a few extra Christmas-themed games and activities check pages 58-59 and 71-72 of the KC Leader’s Guide from Year 2 Quarter 1 and try the ones you didn’t get to in the fall.

Recommended Resource

Bless families this Christmas with the Nurture newsletter! For only $3.00 a year per household (50 cents an issue) your church education department could offer parents and caregivers a tool to help them walk in faith with their kids ALL YEAR LONG! Click here to view a sample.

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