Trusting Christ as Savior is a life-changing experience for children or adults. Many times a person makes this decision with little guidance. This can cause discouragement, lack of faith, and hardship.
As believers, we need to make every effort to help children and adults understand their decision, the way of salvation, and God’s promises of salvation. When I first surrendered to Christ, I couldn’t understand why Jesus had to die for my sins. I still thought good deeds was the way of salvation, if someone properly counseled me I could have understood.
We appreciate Child Evangelism Fellowship and the excellent training they provide to help children know Christ. Here is a demonstration of a counseling situation using CEF’s recommended method of thought-provoking questions.
Has the pandemic stretched your patience with your children or spouse? Have you experienced more than one frustrating family break-down? In our ministry and life we’ve learned three family-savers (besides prayer) that can benefit your family too.
Respectful communication. Everyone appreciates respect and can respond positively. Just changing the way you ask for help or communicate your feelings can go a long way. Just express your need by prefacing your desire with, “I need your help, can you please help me by… ” My mother never failed to get my help wrapping packages by saying, “Debbie, you wrap packages so well, can you please help me by wrapping these packages?” How could I resist saying no; plus, I wrapped with pride. (Looking back, I do not think I wrapped any better than anyone else, lol.)
Play a game and laugh together. Having teenagers, I realized I wasn’t smiling and laughing enough. Just playing a game of Jinga would help break the ice and make a family memory. Reading jokes from a clean or silly joke book for kids also helped engage our teenagers.
Sing a song. Have a favorite song sharing time. I love to search a song on YouTube. As a parent, I can share an “oldie but a goodie” and your child can share one of their favorites too. Speaking of songs, CEF has a YouTube channel, UniteKids, with several great Christian music videos created with kids in mind. This is one of the easiest ways to install Christian principles into your child in an enjoyable and memorable format. They will sing the songs and watch the videos over and over!
Phil always quotes, “When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.” This pandemic is a lemon and sometimes we may feel like our spouse or our child is a lemon and they may feel like you are a lemon too!!!! With God’s help, and a change in communication, you can start making lemonade and sweet music together.
Finger-plays are fun little poems to share with children. An example of a finger-play is the “This little piggy went to the market” finger-play parents teach children while pointing to a child’s toes. A favorite finger-play I use at our preschool Bible classes is the “The Bible Treasure” poem. CEF Press included this meaningful poem in their 2002 “Surfin’ God’s Word” VBS kit (another favorite of mine).
Here’s a pdf with “The Bible Treasure” take-home tokens for the children. I laminated these and put a magnet on the back for a small gift for the children.
Otto is a puppet from Marietta, Texas. He is a puppet of Pastor Chas Carlisle of Oak Ridge Baptist Church. He brought Otto with his youth group last year to volunteer at Delacroix Hope Baptist Church Vacation Bible School (we coordinated). They loved us and we loved them. They planned another mission trip to help us this year. The pandemic changed everything, so we went to plan B. Chas, Otto, and sons, Charlie, and Caleb came. We are visiting several sites and bringing Vacation Bible School in a Bag!
Join us each day for a brief overview of the Vacation Bible Fun for Days 1-4 with Otto and Mrs. Debbie. Thank you for joining us! Let us know your comments. Post pictures on our Facebook Page @ Facebook.com/WeeCanKnow. Be sure to subscribe to our website for new updates.
Phil and I wrote this little poem for the graduating class of Gethsemane Lutheran Preschool and we discovered we could put it to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me.”
Gospel Fuzzie Greeting Card: Download the lyrics and Gospel Fuzzie greeting card. (Special thanks to SpellOutLoud.com for the creative artwork we used to create the magnets.)
Gospel Fuzzie Magnet: Download a pdf with several Gospel Fuzzies you can use to created magnets or mini-cards for the children. (Special thanks to SpellOutLoud.com for the creative artwork we used to create the magnets.) Download some great Gospel Fuzzie Resources by Spell Out Loud by clicking here.
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