May is just around the corner and we are going to test drive a new, easier system for signing up for volunteer roles - it's a free online service called VolunteerSpot. You can still choose your dates, times and age groups but now you'll experience automatic reminders, easier tracking of your chosen "spots", easy-to-use Android/iPhone apps, and automated trading when you can't make a date. Check out the intro video below, then follow the link to sign up for your chosen "spots" by May 1st. May through September 2014 are open for sign ups.
Volunteer Commitment Challenge: We are asking each of our volunteers to take the "challenge" and sign up for at leastone consistent week each month. For example, Suzy might make the commitment to serve every 1st Sunday at 9:15am in the K-2nd room, while Joe might choose to serve every 3rd Sunday at 10:45am in the PreK room. They would both put their names in the appropriate roles on these weeks of the month for the next 5 months. If the occasion arose that they couldn't make their chosen, consistent week, then they'd use the automated trading feature in VolunteerSpot.
NEW Curriculum:
We've got some exciting things going on in Adventure Camp & we've scheduled a Curriculum Meeting on Tuesday, April 29th from 6:30-8:30 pm designed to explain it all. If you need childcare, please RSVP by Sunday, April 27th.
May - We're going to take the K-5th grade kids through "World of Chazown". The Adults have experienced it, now the kids get a chance & God’s got big dreams for their life—their Chazown! This May in Adventure Camp, Kids in K-5th will learn all about finding and living God’s plan for their lives!
Beginning in June - "Tru's Big God Story" is coming to Adventure Camp...and we are inviting you to join in the journey! We'll take the kids from Genesis to Revelation each year and give kids the chance to experience God in their own unique way!
NEW Adventure Camp Name Tag Routine for ALL Children:
When you check in your child and print out their name tag, please insert the name tag (with backing NOT peeled off) inside a plastic name tag holder and pin it to your child’s BACK on their collar or clothing. Holders will be available at each CC Connect station in the Atrium and at the Children's Registration Desk. Helpers will carefully remove the tag when you pick up your child.
NEW Adventure Camp Pick Up Routine for Kindergarten Through 2nd Grade: When you pick up your child after worship, Helpers will need to see your pickup ticket and match the code to the one on your child’s name tag. NO students will be released without a matching pickup ticket. (In the event that the pickup person cannot provide their child’s matching ticket, we will make a photo copy of their driver’s license.) Your child’s safety is a top priority with us at Christ Church and we sincerely appreciate your help with this policy.
NEW Preschool Room Pick Up Routine: Parents of PreK children, picking up your child from our Preschool class is now as easy as…Do Re Mi, A B C, and 1, 2, 3! Starting this week, in the Preschool area of Adventure Camp, you’ll find three doors labeled #1, #2, and #3. Start at door #1, where you typically drop off.
Door #1: Give your pickup ticket to the helper. Move to door #2.
Door #2: Meet your child and receive their take-home activity. Move to door #3.
Door #3: Exit through the 3rd/5th grade room and enjoy your week ahead!
With all this talk about "multiplication" I thought it'd be a great time to give our volunteers some options for multiplying their precious gift of time to ministry. What can God do with two of your hours on a Sunday morning? (Multiplication Message Series - Feb 16 - March 2, 2014)
Work One Worship One- consider giving your Sunday morning to God by worshiping one hour and serving the other! It's a win-win.
Double Duty - Instead of serving for just one hour on the week you choose, consider serving both! Your experience during the 9:15 am hour easily transfers to the 10:45 am hour making serving a breeze!This Sunday, make sure you attend worship at 8 am OR listen to the sermon online at home.http://christchurchmequon.org/sunday/archive
Kids Can- If you have children consider the following options:Kids canattend one hour of worship with you & spend the other in Adventure Camp while you serve or study. ORKids canattend two back-to-back hours of Adventure Camp. The first hour should be spent with their appropriate age group and the second hour can be spent in the older or younger room of their choice. This way they get the benefit of reviewing the topic but with different activities! FINALLY OlderKids canserve a younger age group with their parents. For more details on these Kids Can options, see Melissa or Anne'.
Point your kids in the right direction - when they're old they won't be lost. - Proverbs 22:6
Thank you to our classroom leaders for attending this meeting! I'm so excited about the future of our Sunday morning program and grateful for your support and enthusiasm. Following are links to the meeting agenda several of the resources that we discussed and used during the meeting.
4 1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.
4-6 You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness. 7-13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is,
He climbed the high mountain, He captured the enemy and seized the booty, He handed it all out in gifts to the people.
Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.
14-16 No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.
The Old Way Has to Go
17-19 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. 25 What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. 26-27 Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life. 28 Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work. 29 Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift. 30 Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted. 31-32 Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.3 Make every effort to keep the unityof the Spirit through the bond of peace.4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.8 This is why it[a] says:
“When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”[b]
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions[c]?10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christmay be built up13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Instructions for Christian Living
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of Godbecause of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.19 Having lost all sensitivity,they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. 20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put offyour old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.26 “In your anger do not sin”[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,27 and do not give the devil a foothold.28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others upaccording to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
