I love it when babies get baptized at our church. We have had both our babies baptized and it was a special event each time. Even though I was watching the Welcome Station today I just had to slip in the back and be a part of the baptisms. The third vow always gets me a bit choked up. Mostly because while I have made the vow myself, I have a hard time being willing to “unreservedly”  give up of my child to anyone, including God. Even though I can read through the scriptures and understand this, and even though I trust God with my whole heart, I find that I must have a glitch in there somewhere when I am supposed to give my child “unreservedly” to someone other than myself. I am selfish, and want Marin and Owen to be just mine. But in my mind and heart I know that giving them to God is a better choice than keeping them to myself. I am then reminded of how God gave us his child, Jesus, “unreservedly”. That always makes it easier for me to say that vow and really mean it. I mean, God gave us His son so that we might have life, and of course I want my children to have that life too, so when I think about it like that, the choice is easy. And I am reminded to say, “Not only am I giving you my children, but also all of me too.”

After the third Parent Vow is the Community Vow, where we as a church, as Christ Community Church, vow together to be a part of supporting the baby’s parents in raising him or her. This is my favorite part of baby baptisms. That we as a community look at those parents holding their beautiful little baby, and make a commitment to walk alongside them, to support them, to love them and encourage them when times are tough and rejoice with them in accomplishments. I love it that we as a church make a commitment to love and support each other in caring for our children. A friend of mine sent me this prayer for baby baptisms and dedications and I wanted to share it with you, and we pray this for our two little babies who got baptized today, and for all our kids.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Together, we pray that
our children’s minds
will know Your wisdom.

Their eyes will see Your glory.
Their ears will hear Your words.
Their mouths will speak Your truth.
Their hearts will be Jesus’ home.
Their hands will do Your work.
That their knees would bow
only before You, the Lord Our God.
And that their feet would follow You
in the way of Jesus all the days
of their life.

Amen

Calling all volunteers for Children’s Ministry. Tonight is our first volunteer training class. 6-8pm in the Multipurpose room. Please come and join us. If you can’t make it this week next week on Tuesday we are having our second one. This is a vital time to learn about using your classroom materials, policies, safety, and getting fired up for this year. Please come if you are volunteering this year.

Look what has shown up in the last week…

Two swing sets were donated to our playground…

This is the first set getting put together. This has been a very long process and so that you appreciate our play systems even more I’m going to share their little story with you.

Once upon a time… all good stories start there right? Once upon a time I was asked to do a little research on finding what might be a good swing set to add to our playground. I got online and started ordering all sorts of catalogs. As they began to arrive it became very clear that these wooden structures were not really in our budget. Well some were but for the sort of traffic we would put on a church swing set the kind that fit our budget would only last us a few years at the most. Not just that but because we would have children over the age of 8-10 years on them most companies would not honor the warranty. I started praying and doing a lot of research and discovered a company in Ocala called Rainbow Play Systems. I was already excited because that means we are dealing with a “local” company, so that if there were any problems they could always send some one over to fix it. Another reason I started liking this brand was that they use 100 percent untreated redwood. Untreated was really important because that means no chemicals, and that’s always something I like when kids are involved. Another plus is that there is no weigh limit, that means… adults can use the swings too! I called the Ocala location and got connected with their sales representative. It became clear very early in our conversation that he wanted me to buy a swing set that was way out of the budget I was given. I told him I would hopefully be in touch soon, but in my head I was thinking I had hit a dead-end.

I started praying and obsessing and worrying and then praying again, and a month went by and I did nothing. Honestly I didn’t know what to do. It was clear in my mind that the safest and best play system was Rainbow but the reality was that we just didn’t have the budget for it yet. One Sunday as I was looking through the Rainbow Play System’s catalog at the Welcome Station a parent came up to me and I started telling her about how we were looking for a swing set. Then what happened next was… well, it was God answering our prayers, and meeting me with an even better option that I had been trying to figure out. The mother said, “Oh is that a Rainbow catalog? We have a Rainbow that I think we are done with and would love to give it to the church.” Not just any swing set but the brand that I had felt was the best option for our situation (i.e. lots of kids of all ages).

Just wait, God gets an even better idea.

I called to check on the donation and make sure every member of the family was really ready to get rid of the swing set and yes we were ready, and oh “I have a friend who also has a Rainbow and wants to give it to you too.”

See I told you it gets better! Through two families who were generous with their loved swing sets God was bringing us two play systems, one for the little kids and one for the big kids. Now we could have two different class rooms outside at the same time. I had never even had that as a dream, I had never even had that as a thought. I was only asking for one, and He provided two!

Now the actual work began. We had to line up Safety Inspections of each set and then order some new parts. Once those were finished we had to wait on the new lumber to get delivered and then finally after that the Ocala location send up someone to take apart the two sets and bring them to our property and then set them up. I imagined a whole team of men arriving to put them together, but no one guy did the both of them alone. Mike the Ocala Rainbow guy we give you a huge pat on the back, its amazing you did all that work by yourself. We are also thankful to the Ocala store because they were helpful in arranging a complex system of two system owners, a soon to be owner (CCC), their sales rep., the set up guy, the business manager, our business manager, and a really hot two days of tearing down and setting up.

We are so thankful to the two families who gave without asking for anything, and were so helpful in the the ordering of new parts and the transition of the systems. Thank you thank you thank you. And thank you for letting God use you.

And finally thank you to everyone who knew what was going on and had to have a lot of patience with me. This was my first time to pull of such a huge job, and everyone was so patient with me and let me fumble my way through and gave me grace when I made mistakes.

And finally thanks to God for bringing us two beautiful swing sets that the children of CCC can use for years and years to come.

Our next phase is to create shade, but that’s another story yet to be born.

As many of you know from our newsletter our youngest rooms are starting new curriculum this Fall. While we are waiting for that to begin, we are reading the Psalms to the kids during story time. This past week we read Psalm 100

¹ Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
² Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
³ Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
⁵ For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

The Psalms are a great place to start when reading scripture to children. There are many reasons, children love poetry (it sounds like songs), it has simple language, and it has a lot of word-pictures. I find the last reason most important; because children can listen and see images of the words in their heads, “sheep of his pasture”, “all the earth”. They use their imaginations when listening and this is how kids remember things, how they learn, through their imaginations.

I encourage you to read Psalms with your kids, let the words speak for themselves, don’t feel like you have to explain every detail of them. Let them think about it and imagine what might be going on. You can explain what Psalms are and for older children encourage them to write their own Psalms of thanksgiving to God. This is a great exercise in learning to give thanks to our creator.

Today concludes our wonderful, exciting, creative and crazy week of VBS. For those of you who volunteered we know you are tired and ready for a weekend of rest. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for giving the kids a wonderful week. Thank you for making it what it was, fun and meaningful. Thank you for putting your energy into every hug, every snack, every service project, every lesson taught, every song, every craft, every baby held, every bubble blown out on the playground, every game. We know it was fun, and we know it was a sacrifice of your time. Thank you.

Today we wrapped up with our Big Question “What does Jesus want me to do?” and our Big Answer “Jesus wants me to know and love him and get fired up about sharing Him with others.” Our verse was: Matthew 28:19-20 Go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always.”

Take It Home!

We shared a lot of good verses this week that can be a foundation for learning more about Jesus. Even though we packed a lot of scripture into one week, please take note of these verses and help your children learn them way beyond this week of VBS.

Enjoy the rest of your Summer!