Have fun with faith using 180 Faith-Charged Games for Children’s Ministry for grades K–6! This 192-page book features 100 Bible stories and 80 situational games that add a jolt to any classroom or church setting. Children have a blast with the icebreakers, team-builders, outdoor games, silent games, and TV-themed and holiday games. Major Bible stories and themes are explored in a fun way that has kids looking forward to more!
This JAM-PACKED, CHOCK-FULL book of more than 200 GIANT-SIZED games will fill your ministry with TONS of fun and laughter! With a variety of games for preschoolers through preteens, you'll find the perfect game for every occasion! Each of these fun-filled games is tied to a different topic, with a Scripture connection and discussion to help kids understand the Bible point. You'll bring more depth and learning to topics including The Body of Christ, Salvation, Faith, Creation, Fear, Following Jesus, Trust, Forgiveness, Friendship, God's Love, Jesus' Birth and Resurrection, Grace, Prayer, Thankfulness, and so many more! Every game includes an overview that includes the game's energy level, supply level, age level, and preparation needed, so you'll be able to find the best fit for your lesson and time slot. Plus, these relational, cooperative games can be used anytime...wherever they fit into your schedule or to fill an on-the-spot need! Reinforce your lessons with these 200+ must-have games that'll help kids actually remember what they learned!
Always have a great big-fun game at your fingertips for any area of children's ministry, daycare or after-school programming! From creative children's workers comes this tried-and-true colossal collection! Why just tell kids about David and Goliath and have them color a handout when you could play...Human Slingshot (p. 110) where kids link arms to make "slings" and launch paper "rocks" at a nine-foot high target (and then have a great discussion about the story)? Have big-time fun making Key Bible points! In this whopping collection, you'll find just the right game for every lesson or ministry need. Every time. Book jacket.
The "tween" years can be a scary and complicated time in a child's life. Dealing with rising expectations, peer pressure and discovering one's self can be overwhelming. These 46 games will engage and reinforce important Christian values and lessons in a fun and playful way. Each game corresponds with a Bible story or situation so that the children are not only listening to the stories, but engaging in an activity that utilizes other senses to create a fun and multi-faceted learning experience! Studies have shown that game play is one of the most effective teaching tools for keeping children's attention. These games are perfect for 8-12 year olds, but can easily be adapted for other ages. The activities are designed to be played after reading the related Bible story. For example, after the story of Samson and Delilah is read, play 'The Good Apple/Bad Apple Game' to illustrate how easily negative influences can affect us and how to resist peer pressure. Recite the bolded teaching script to make connections between the Bible story, the game and real-life situations. Use the discussion questions to encourage deeper personal connections and understanding of the lesson. Finally, the related bible verses found at the end of each game have been carefully chosen to reinforce the learning concept from another section of the Bible and encourage further reading. Thankfulness, patience, teamwork, persistence, obedience, honor, respect and truthfulness are just a few of the topics addressed throughout these lessons. Overall the emphasis is on the vastness of God's love for us so dig into His word and have fun!
"The Marshmallow Game Book: Fun, Faith-Filled Games Using Only Marshmallows for Kids" is an inventive and engaging resource designed specifically for children's ministries. The book provides a plethora of playful and imaginative games that utilize marshmallows, encouraging children to learn and participate in activities that foster teamwork, creativity, and understanding of faith-based principles in a fun-filled way. Each game in the book includes a short Bible lesson and thoughtful discussion questions to help children connect the activity with faith concepts. It's not only a tool for entertainment but also for imparting valuable life lessons and spiritual truths, making it an ideal addition to any children's ministry curriculum or family game night.
What if the way we worship isn't just an expression of our faith, but is what shapes our faith? The Church has believed this about the way we worship and pray together for centuries: The way we worship becomes the way we believe. But if this is true, it’s time to take a closer look at what we say and sing and do each week. Drawing from his own discovery of ancient worship practices, Glenn Packiam helps us understand why the Church made creedal proclamations and Psalm-praying a regular part of their worship. He shares about why the Eucharist was the climactic point of their corporate “re-telling of the salvation story.” When our worship becomes a rich feast, our faith is nourished and no longer anemic. The more our worship speaks of Christ, the more we enter into the mystery of faith.
Based on the National Study of Youth and Religion--the same invaluable data as its predecessor, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers--Kenda Creasy Dean's compelling new book, Almost Christian, investigates why American teenagers are at once so positive about Christianity and at the same time so apathetic about genuine religious practice. In Soul Searching, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton found that American teenagers have embraced a "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism"--a hodgepodge of banal, self-serving, feel-good beliefs that bears little resemblance to traditional Christianity. But far from faulting teens, Dean places the blame for this theological watering down squarely on the churches themselves. Instead of proclaiming a God who calls believers to lives of love, service and sacrifice, churches offer instead a bargain religion, easy to use, easy to forget, offering little and demanding less. But what is to be done? In order to produce ardent young Christians, Dean argues, churches must rediscover their sense of mission and model an understanding of being Christian as not something you do for yourself, but something that calls you to share God's love, in word and deed, with others. Dean found that the most committed young Christians shared four important traits: they could tell a personal and powerful story about God; they belonged to a significant faith community; they exhibited a sense of vocation; and they possessed a profound sense of hope. Based on these findings, Dean proposes an approach to Christian education that places the idea of mission at its core and offers a wealth of concrete suggestions for inspiring teens to live more authentically engaged Christian lives. Persuasively and accessibly written, Almost Christian is a wake up call no one concerned about the future of Christianity in America can afford to ignore.
Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.
A young boy emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven. Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear. Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us. Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.
