Snow Blast

 

Camp is one of those strange times where no one ever quite knows what we're walking into - even if we think that we might have a pretty good idea. Middle school winter retreat was no exception to the rule. 

"What do you mean by that?" one of the high school leaders questions me. We're tagging bags to go under the bus, and I've just mentioned that he has "my boys" in his cabin and he had better be good to them. 

"I was their Sunday school teacher." We weave our way through bodies as he clarifies exactly which kids I am talking about, and we both know that, largely, the warning ought to be unnecessary. 

These were my boys, yes. But, it has been months since they needed to sit next to me at Ignite or have more interaction than what it takes to play gaga ball or tag. They have other leaders now. But, their other leaders aren't here, and so I warn him, just in case. 

Because, yes, I am just a wee bit protective. 

And, because I don't want him think it odd when we get on the bus and they start trying to find a seat for me next to where they are. Because, they will, and they do, as if we only got off the bus from summer camp yesterday and they're ready to simply pick back up where we left off. 

My bag ends up in a seat halfway between them and my girls, and the four hour ride ends up split, split between making bracelets in the back and making bracelets in the front, split between snacks in the back and snacks in the front, split between admiring rubber chickens and finger lights in the back and fart putty in the front. 

Eventually, I settle into the front, and the boys give up on traversing the length of the bus, back and forth, in and out of arm's reach, just to make sure that they are not forgotten. We talk about camp and Sunday school and asking girls to dances. They dump the fart putty on my head and then apologize and pick it out carefully when they realize that it's stuck to my hair. 

They talk about girls from school and who likes who - all with a kaleidoscope stuck to their eye, still more distracted by the colors and shapes than by the thought of girls. 

Someone steals a notebook from someone else, and the only response is a, "Jessica!" as if it is somehow my job to get it back. I do, just like I wrap their wrists in bracelets that I've made and bracelets they've made themselves, and, by the time that we pull into camp, they check in one last time and run off to find their cabin. 

And, I don't know what their cabin is like, but mine is full of girls and full of memories. Because, we were in this same cabin last summer, with almost this exact same group of girls. They laugh and talk and giggle and half way fill in the new ones on old jokes. We unpack and scarf some spaghetti and head to chapel. 

Three leaders and eight girls means that they have no chance. One of us will be in their face during music, encouraging them to spin and jump and sing and scream, even when they don't think that they can. 

Because, they can. Once they work through the watching and the sizing up and the analyzing, they are loud and silly and prone to throwing things at each other (candy and rubber chickens and anything else they can get their hands on, including - apparently - wads of deodorant). 

Yep, the waking up process one morning, while we were in a leaders' meeting, included throwing scoops of gel deodorant. Don't be fooled by the chapel faces. They aren't as calm as they may appear.

But, it's also okay. It's okay to analyze everything the speaker says. It's okay to not understand all of the questions on the cabin time sheet. And, it's okay for our discussion to only last ten minutes and then devolve into coloring and decorating bandanas.

They're eleven and twelve and right at that age where words are starting to give way to emotions that they don't quite know what to do with. Right at that age where there is so much more going on inside than what we see on the outside. 

So, when they jump in to fend off serious questions with ridiculous answers, we largely just roll our eyes and make an attempt at redirection. And, then, in the morning, we use our cabin time to hike through the snow in search of a "Noah stick" for the talent show, to play Catch Phrase in the dining hall, and to make more bracelets. 

Always more bracelets. 

And, then it's lunch, and it's free time, and they speak this language. 

Because, this is climbing piles of snow and tubing and spending hours sitting in the snow trying to catch video of the most spectacular crashes. This is Jessica pushing one of the boys down the hill on his knees and talking about crashes over and over and over again until they feel like they have personally had the coolest wipe out in the history of all of camp. 

This is snowball fights with the youth pastor and laughter and teasing and time spent simply together.

By the end of free time, the hill has been abandoned by most everyone else, and we have free reign, my girls and my boys and few extras that we picked up from other churches along the way. And, they would stay here forever if they could. They've been missing this. 

They've missed being able to fall into old rhythms without having to be cool in a room full of a hundred other watching eyes, missed feeling like what we did revolved around them specifically. They've missed being "Jessica's kids" or "Rich's kids" or "Deanne's kids," missed belonging somewhere in specific, missed having the freedom to choose their own small group. 

And, they're eating this up. 

To these kids, raised on a diet of donut fights and tree climbing and hiding out in bushes and behind chairs, hours of half frozen tubing is just as much church as anything that might happen in chapel or cabin time. Church is wherever they talk about Jesus and feel loved. 

After hours of smacking their heads around on a tubing run, dodgeball in a blacked out gym, with strobe lights and glow sticks and projectiles that connect with your face before they show up in the dark...not so much how they feel loved. 

We end up being that church, the one that pulls a quarter of their kids out of the game and lets them wait outside rather than continue to participate. (Cardinal camp rule being that everyone participates, always.)

But, we're okay with breaking the rule this time. Because, these are our kids with trauma backgrounds and migraines, anxiety and general I-flew-off-my-tube-and-landed-on-my-head-in-the-snow/ice headaches, and they need the chance to practice saying 'no' to things that aren't good for them. Why not practice now, when there are leaders here to back them up?

They can practice saying 'no,' and we can practice saying 'yes.'

Yes, we can go back up to the tubing hill until it's time for dinner. Yes, you can use the camera to record. Yes, I saw you. Yes, you can use my phone to take a picture of the river. Yes, you can give me beard for the talent show. Yes, I will watch you and tell you that you were awesome. Yes, I will teach you how to make a bracelet. Yes, you can borrow some gloves. Yes, I am right here. Yes, I am staying. 

Yes, you can use my markers. Yes, you can sit by me during chapel. Yes, you can have my brownie. Yes, I will watch and make sure you start feeling better. Yes, you can borrow my pillow for the weekend. Yes, you can read off of my notes. Yes, I will work on your bracelet. Yes, I did see your awesome crash. Yes, you can watch the video again. Yes, you can decorate my journal. Yes, I will put it on Facebook. 

Yes, you can. 

Yes, I will.

 And, eventually, they say 'yes' too. They say 'yes' to whatever they hear God asking from them this weekend, and they say 'yes' to trying to make it real, even after we get home. 

Because, after a very long bus ride, we do make it home. 

Sunday morning, we pack and vacate the cabin, eat breakfast, and sit down for one final chapel. The girls are packed in tightly on my left, listening and watching and analyzing as always. They're tired and sore. They've decorated a pair of jeans and eaten more sugar and carbs than they ought to have needed in a month. 

When we ask them for a number, they rate the weekend as a 5 on a scale from one to ten. 

The boys are packed in on my right, as tightly as they can fit. They're tired and they're sore and they tell me they 'don't feel so good.' They're drinking Orange Crush on top of the pancakes and syrup that I hope their counselors made them eat for breakfast, and their pockets are packed full of candy. 

When I ask for a better or worse than summer camp, they give me a hesitant 'better.' 

"Shorter at least?" I qualify, and they nod. 

Chapel passes. We sing one last song, wait in the cabin a few minutes, and load the girls onto the bus. The boys are riding home in a separate van, and they edge closer to me, declaring that they are going to sneak in and hide behind a seat. I laugh and sass back at them, and they remember to smile a little, to pretend like they are joking.

And, eventually, we make it home. 

We're barely breaking even between the good and the bad, the fun and the painful, the moments when they want to be at camp forever and the moments when decisions are being made for them that they hate. 

Even is a whole lot better than where we stood at the end of the week this summer, but I'm not the only overprotective leader here, and even isn't good enough for any of us. Not when we're talking about our kids. I'm not sure how, but we're going to figure out how to make this better. 

If we're asking the kids to come, we owe them that much. 

Helper: God's Story

Last week, when we finished our story, Jesus had just given eleven of His followers a very important job. They were supposed to tell the whole world about how big and how good God is.

It seemed like too big of a job for such a small group of people, and, right after He gave the instructions, Jesus went back up to heaven. He wasn't living on earth anymore to show and tell people how big and how good God is. Now, the disciples had to do it. But, do you know what they did instead?

They waited.

Instead of going out and telling the world, they got together with about 150 of Jesus' followers, and waited, just like Jesus had told them to do. They didn't know quite what they were waiting for, but they knew that Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem. If they are going to tell the world, or even their neighbors, anything, they are going to need some help. So, God does something really cool. Listen to this.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them...Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say...Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 1:1-4,14,41)

God does just what He promised. He sends them the Holy Spirit to help them do their job, just like He gave His breath to Adam and Eve to help them do their job. And, it works. In one day, one hundred fifty people become three thousand one hundred fifty people. It starts to look like, maybe, with the Holy Spirit, things are starting to get easy.

And, the Holy Spirit does help them. But, that doesn't make things easy...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download. 

Habits

(Third grader teaching me how to make a trick paper airplane)

Every few weeks, the kids at the elementary school I work at manage to come up with new habits. It might be that every other kid on the primary playground wants to show me their cartwheel or bridge for days on end. It might be that they want to play tag, that they want to see how loudly they can yell, that they want to hang on the monkey bars the longest or have me watch while they play chicken. 

I've gone through weeks of playing tetherball - which I am terrible at - listening to songs, watching dances, or having the same children on each arm day in and day out. 

Two weeks ago, the boys (Kinder all the way through 5th) seemed to be testing a theory that, if you ran up to give Ms. Jessica a hug directly before/after doing something forbidden, you wouldn't get in trouble. 

Sorry; doesn't work. 

They gave that one up after about three days. 

The newest trick seems to involve presenting me with anyone who has had a chance to move back to school. And, yes, I do mean presenting, the way that you would present someone with a trophy or an award or perhaps a new puppy. 

Today, I was pounced/hugged by a third grade boy who had drug over two girls purely to make sure that I knew that one of them was back from Mexico. After he had made the announcement, he sent them away with that regal tone that only a nine-year-old could be sassy enough and bold enough to quite pull off. 

Mainly it made me smile because of how much it echoed a situation with the older kids. 

I am only on the 4th/5th playground every other Wednesday and Thursday, but the kids almost always seem to know when to look for me. (That they keep track of it when I can barely do so, is more than a little impressive.)

Two Wednesdays ago, I walked around the corner at the beginning of recess to find a tight knot of fourth graders up against the wall. Typically, not a good sign. No crush of bodies running over to give me a hug or tell me a story all at the same time, which is also very not normal for this class of kids who always seem to be trying to fit two weeks worth of everything into a single recess. 

"Ms. Jessica!" One of the girls waved me over with that tone of voice that is reserved for situations in which she thinks that I need to intervene right now. 

Oh, joy. Thirty seconds into recess is not a promising start to the day.

And, then, goofy grins all around, they part the circle to reveal a kid who moved out of town early this fall. They had been hiding him until I got close enough that it would have been impossible to miss his presence. 

"Are you happy," one of the girls asks me, eyes as bright as if they had just offered me a perfect Christmas gift, "that _____ is back?"

Yes. Always. And, the fact that you all worked together to make it a surprise is pretty stinking adorable. My kids are sweet. Sometimes. 

Three minutes later, they were pulling him to the ground and getting themselves in trouble for being generally cruel - in the way that only children can be when they are trying to establish a new/old pecking order. 

Sometimes, not so sweet. 

They're working on it. Some habits, like self control and kindness and responsibility are harder to build than others, and better at it doesn't always mean good at it. (If I got paid for every time one of those three virtues came out of my mouth when talking to kids, I could be quite well off.)

"Can you choose to be responsible?"

"Self control with your body."

"Kind words with your mouth."

"Thank you for doing that. That was very kind/responsible."

"Can you keep control of your mouth?"

"Thank you. Making responsible choices is how you grow up to be a good man/woman." 

One of the second graders recently asked me, while bent over to help a friend clean up a mess (the responsible choice), "I'm growing up, aren't I?"

Yes, kiddo. Yes, you are. There's a long ways to go still, but plenty of time to get there. And, so far, I'm pretty stinking proud of you, 

When Playing Counts

"You're getting in!" One of my sixth graders looks around the room just long enough to realize that I don't have to be in a leaders' meeting. Not yet anyways. 

It's habit by now, this trying to get me into the octagon first thing, before the pit is swarming with bodies ready to play gaga ball, when there's just a few of them starting things off. Most weeks, it doesn't work. Most weeks I send him to play with a few friends instead, while I go to a meeting. 

This week, it works. 

My shoes come off, and he grins one of those little boy smiles that have half of the youth leaders in love with him. He's growing up, just a little bit, and, at twelve I no longer get every last story of his week the way that I did when he was ten. Instead, this kid who I have taught since kindergarten revels in the ability to beat me at a game. 

I'm getting better at it, still not good, but better than the hopeless mess of the first few weeks months, and his face furrows in concentration. He's growing, and it's a hard balance, trying to keep enough control of his body to get me out without striking too hard and sending the ball flying over the edge of the octagon (automatic out to the last person to touch it). 

When he succeeds - because, oh are they ever working together to aim directly for me - it's the first time in weeks that he's been the one to hit me, and his eyes nearly explode with it. 

"I love this game!!"

***

"We want to go with you." My three shadows follow me and my microphone through the fellowship hall. I'm explaining the game, and everyone else is joining a team, but they won't, not yet. Not until I put the microphone down and come with them. 

Most weeks we split games by grade and gender. Most weeks they don't get to choose their leader. This week, they aren't about to let the opportunity slip. (Which, partially, is why I chose this game in the first place.)

We join a group, and sixth grade eyes turn my direction without thinking twice. It's an old habit that is harder than I ever thought it would be to break. Not that I mind. They have other leaders now. The boys have men who are willing and ready to pour into them every week, to put the squirrelly ones into holds during music and teach them to whistle with two fingers. 

But, in moments like this, when we're running and when they're poking their fingers out the front of their shirt to be a cow (charades), their eyes light up with the thrill of doing something well, and I catch it in their faces. They like this part of growing up. 

Because, right now, during this ridiculous game, when things are just enough new and just enough the way that they have always been, they feel in control. 

They don't lose, but they don't win either. And, it doesn't matter, because they have 7,000,010 points, with the ten points being perhaps the most important of all. Those ten points mean that they were listening when I gave the instructions. Those ten points mean that they are old enough to laugh about the rules, rather than just break them without understanding. Those ten points are another layer to years worth of memories that mean church and joy and safety and adults who love them and who love Jesus. 

They could care less about the seven million, so long as I remember the ten. 

***

"None of these fit."One of my calmest, sweetest cluster girls laughs quietly about her Apples to Apples cards while we wait for the power to come back on for the Super Bowl. There's a longstanding tradition that the cards you win describe who you are. Her first card is "Loud," followed by "Cold" and "Animated." 

We text a picture to the leader who isn't there and let her join in on the moment. 

It isn't anything massive, but it is rather rare. Slowing down like this, just playing games, only happens a couple of times a year. Maybe because of that, few people really seem to care about the football game when it come back on, or even about playing this game the way that it is supposed to go. We just chose cards for an hour and a half, people coming in and out whenever they please. This game is only an excuse, like every other game today. 

It's a way to connect, a type of communication that doesn't require stories or even many words. It's a way to prove, at least a little, that we're all on the same page, that we understand each other. 

The game lasts until nearly 8:00pm, and this ends up being youth group, this sitting on the floor, crammed together to play with words and cards and careful irony. 

For this week, just playing counts. 

***

"The body heals with play; the mind heals with laughter, and the spirit heals with joy."

Job: God's Story

Last week, we read a really long story about all sorts of God things. We read about how Jesus lived, and we read about some of the things that Jesus taught, like the story that He told His disciples about the wheat and the weeds.

 This week, our story is going to be a lot shorter. 

 Actually, I only want to read a couple of verses to you today. I'll bet that you've heard them before, and I'll bet that you already know a lot about them. They come from the book of Matthew, in the New Testament, the very end of the book of Matthew. Jesus has already lived and died and risen from the dead, and now He has one last thing to tell His followers before He goes back to heaven. 

  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 

 Have you heard those verses before? Do you know any of them by heart? Let's hear it. 

 Nice work. Those are some pretty important verses to know. Jesus tells His followers some things that He's told them lots of times before. But, this last time, He smooshes it all together, like He wants to make sure that they don't have any excuse for forgetting it... 

 Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.

Prayer: God's Story

Last week we read about how Jesus was God's plan to bless the entire world. We read that God was going to use Jesus to show every single person on earth how big and how good God is. And, God did use Jesus. Jesus came as the Christ that all of those people had been waiting for. He died on the cross and He rose again and then He left His followers on earth to finish what He had started.

But, before He left, before He rose again, before He even died, Jesus did something else. Jesus lived.

Jesus ran around here, on our messy earth, with a group of guys who were probably only teenagers. Those guys are called the twelve disciples. Disciple is a big word that just means “follower.” These were the guys who followed Jesus around and tried to live like He lived. Now, being a teenager might sound pretty old to you right now, but teenagers, just like all grown ups, are still learning an awful lot about life. These teenagers had a lot of questions for Jesus, and Jesus spent a lot of time answering their questions and letting them listen in while he talked with other people. If you were a teenager and you could ask Jesus any question in the world, what do you think you would ask Him?

Those are some good questions. We don't know all of the questions that the disciples asked Jesus, but we do have stories in the Bible that tell us some of the answers He gave them.

One of the things that He talked about a lot was called the 'kingdom of heaven.' Jesus told them that the kingdom of heaven was like a little tiny seed that had been buried in the ground. Even though you can't see the seed yet, it is still there, and, someday, it will fold up out of the ground and grow into a giant tree.

Jesus knew that there were bad things in the world. In fact, He told His disciples (and lots of other people!) this story in Matthew chapter 13: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

God was the one who made the earth good. Satan came and tried to trick God. He convinced Adam and Eve to break God's image, even through they still had God's breath in them, and, now, the good is all mixed up with the bad. Good things, like food, are all mixed up with bad things, like weeds...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the coloring pages below to download.

Sunday, Sunday

Sunday, Sunday. Biting cold outside, but warm enough inside to sweat as I run after children. Goofy songs and fourth graders who extract payment for last week's absence by leaning against me and borrowing ponytails to play with each other's hair during story. High schoolers who weren't on retreat but want to talk about what they've heard, even as children shush us when the clock rolls over and it's time to sing. 

Fifth grade smiles as we talk about the story and fourth graders bright with star stickers as they puzzle through a verse on their own, studying about this Jesus. 

Brief greetings with high schoolers who will forever carry Haiti in their eyes. Leaders' meeting, gaga ball, and a sixth grader's scolding when I step out to watch instead. Kids from school who are suddenly at church and twelve year olds who can not comprehend that I would willingly be anywhere second hour besides here, with them. 

Link tag, gold stars to sixth graders to finish a longstanding joke, and gaga ball again, until everyone's gone home, even the one who wanted me to be able to watch kids at his care group and is trying not to care that I can't. 

Perspectives' childcare. Tag and Danish Rounders. Coloring pages and fruit snacks and listening in on music practice for Sunday PM. 

Dinner in the car and iNTERSECT. High schoolers with plans to do anything in the morning besides go to school. Talking about #change and a senior girl who curls into my side, because our breakout room is cold. Red hands, tempera paint, laughter, and willing hearts. The smell of cookies and bonfire. Sinks splattered with the pink of a dozen hands and a drive to deliver a freshman home. 

It's January, and we've finally fallen into a pattern, a rhythm. There's a dance to the way that we split off the fourth graders and the timing that we use to switch them back. There's a place under the stairs and a piece of hallway that they have run back and forth since September. 

There's a schedule to Perspectives and certain things that always are in Ignite. 

It's January, and we need that rhythm, because they're still just off of holidays and just back to school, just through finals, and just walking into another long weekend. And, their lives are all kinds of sideways and upside down. 

So, we do Sundays. 

Big: God's Story

Last week, we read some more of one of my very favorite stories. It was a story about God and how He wants to be known by every single person on the planet. We read about Sarah and Abraham and how God had a plan to bless the whole earth through just two people. We also read about how Abraham and Sarah were sometimes scared and tried to do things their own way.

God was bigger than their fear, though, and He still had a plan, a plan to bless everyone. Do you remember what that word, 'bless,' means? Yes. It means that God has a plan to show everyone how good and how big He is. Let's read some more of that plan.

Matthew starts talking about the plan this way: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. 

Hold up! This doesn't sound very much like a plan yet, does it? It just sounds like a long list of crazy names. Did you recognize any of those names? I did too. I've read stories about some of those people. Sometimes they were super brave and made the choice to listen to God. Rahab hid some of God's friends to keep them safe. Ruth moved to a whole new country, and David stood up to a giant even though nobody thought he could do it...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the coloring pages below to download.

#change

Often, I come back from youth group trips spilling over with words - words about the kids, words about Jesus - so many words that they all get tangled up in my head and my heart and the only way to sort them out is to write it all down. 

Other times, like coming back from Haiti this summer, much of it already seems to make sense, seems to fit, and it seems silly to try to write it all down, because, well, inside of my head, it's all been sorted out. And, really, I only write to know what it is that I am thinking. 

Winter retreat was a little like that this year. 

It makes sense in my head. Too much sense. So much sense that there are no words for it. 

 But, someday, I am going to want a record of what I was thinking, so, here goes the best attempt. 

I could give you physical sensations. 

I could give you the red a of an Ecuadorian poncho borrowed from a leader, as one of the freshman guys jumped off the stage flying squirrel style to crowd surf before a chapel session. 

I could give you the soft orange of Sunday morning reflected across the snow, or the way that the bitter cold didn't stop the boys from waiting outside of the girls' cabins, ready and eager to haul away luggage as it was packed. 

I could give you the sounds of hockey on a frozen pond or the cup song in the cafeteria.  

I could try to give you the feel of melting ice as powder covered gloves press up against my bare hands, a fifteen year old spilling over with a story that means nothing more than that we are both here, both now, both waiting for the same God. 

I could give you hikes through the snow and breathless runs uphill in the dark just to get a pack of gum. 

I could give you the charcoal and gray and navy of dozens of #change sweatshirts piling off of a bus and out of vans on Friday night and then back in again on Sunday morning. 

I could tell you about hands raised high in worship and try to explain these kids, the words that they sing and the words that they don't. 

Or, I could give you the sound of this song echoing through a gym that somehow didn't seem too big or too empty, because it was full of everything inside of them. 

I could give you the achey feeling of standing in one spot for 2.5 hours as the each of the leaders prayed for every student in turn, the rustle of fabric as they all stood and lined up, the hugs and the tears and the quiet hope each time that a hand was laid on a shoulder. 

I could tell you about how they joined on to the end of the line when they were finished and about how some of them waited for two hours just to get to the first leader. I could tell you that this was important enough that they waited. 

I could give you the gut feeling that every minute of those hundred and fifty was worth it. 

I could give you the echoing sound of dozens of prayers layered over one another in a stream so much longer than we could have ever anticipated. 

 I could give you laughter through frozen air, snowflakes big enough and cold enough to hold their shape after they hit the ground, and high school boys teaching each other how to braid, "in case they have girls someday."

I could give you knitting needles and fires and homework on the bus home. 

I could give you a glove used as a talking stick and quiet questions with quiet answers. 

But, I am not sure how to really explain it all, how to pull it all together into a convenient whole that makes sense outside of my own head. 

It was neither an adventure nor a party. I suppose that it was simply a chance to get together and to #change, because, where God is, things grow. 

Go: God's Story

Last week we started a reading a story. It was one of my favorite stories, about God and how He wants to be known by every single person on the planet. We read about how God created the earth, and how he put two very special people here, two very special people who were created in His image. Do you remember what that word, 'image,' means?

That's right. An image is like a picture or a movie, something that tells a story about someone. Eve and Adam got to be the image of God. They got to tell His story to the whole world. Or, they were supposed to. But, you told me that something else happened next. You told me that they messed up. They tried to tell their own story, and it broke the image of God in them.

When we left them, people didn't live in the Garden anymore. They had just started to try to figure out this new way of living, and it wasn't always going very well. It didn't go very well. God's plan looked like it was broken. The whole earth wasn't hearing His story. Even when there were people who tried to tell His story, tried to tell the parts that they remembered, something always went wrong.

God tried to help them. He gave them new languages so that they would spread out farther with His story. He even started over, with just one family, Noah's family. It didn't really look like any of those things were working. The whole earth still didn't know His story. But, just like at Creation, God had a plan. Let's read about some more of that plan from the book of Genesis...

Download the PDF of the entire story here and click on the coloring pages below download.

In The Beginning: God's Story

Today I want to read you a story, one of my very favorite stories, about how God wants to be known by every single person on the planet, every single one. Just imagine all of those people.

Today, we're just getting started with class, even though we already kind of know each other, and, so, I think we're going to just get started with our story too, even though I bet you already know how the story ends. Because, our story starts in the Bible. It starts in the very first verse of the very first book of the Bible, Genesis 1:1. I'll bet you've heard that verse before. Can you say it with me?

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

“In the beginning.” In the beginning, God was there, and, in the beginning, God had a plan. He had a plan that made the whole earth, every type of animal and plant and rock that you have ever seen, every snowflake you've ever eaten, and every puddle you've ever jumped in. And, God didn't stop at the beginning. Let's keep reading the story and find out what happens next.

2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light "; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3 NASB)

26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

[7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living being. 8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden ; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. ](Genesis 2:7-8 NASB)

Did you notice that I skipped some verses there? You can go back and read the rest of the verses later, but, right now, I want to read about one special part of the story. Can you guess what that special part of the story is? Let's find out...

Download the PDF of the entire story here, and click on the coloring pages below to download.