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For the month of November, we are focusing on thanksgiving (no, not the turkey dinner…our attitude).
We want to learn how to adopt an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE for all God has done for us!
What we learned:
Our new series on “Attitude of Gratitude” starts off with the story of our memory verse – Psalm 136. We don’t know for sure, but we think David wrote this psalm because he says the same words in 1 Chronicles 16. David brings the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem celebrating and praising the Lord! Then he blesses the people and says, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures FOREVER!”
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For 9-weeks (!!!) we embarked on a journey through our own Maryville Vineyard church prayer. Each week we highlighted a phrase from the prayer and learned what that meant through scripture and how it applied to our life. Our goal at the end of 9-weeks: to be able to say our prayer together in front of the church! (SPOILER ALERT – We did it!!!)
We start off our church prayer series at the beginning – “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You alone are King.” I think it’s so appropriate that the beginning our church is about something so foundational to our faith – the Trinity, that God is 3 in 1. And that’s what we focused on today! We read a story about how an apple is like God. It has 3 unique elements, but is still an apple; just as God is 3 persons, but still 1 God. (2 Corinthians 13:14, John 14:16-17, 16:13, Matthew 28:19, Deuteronomy 6:4)
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This week, we learned that we need to ask God for “WISDOM, COURAGE, and KINDNESS”. Why? So that we can bear His image well. Wisdom helps us know what’s right. Courage is having the bravery to do it! And kindness is doing this in love. ALL of this is from God! We read a story about an amazing woman who did all 3 of these – Abigail! You can read more about her story in 1 Samuel 25.
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It’s our 3rd week in our Church Prayer series, and today we learned about UNITY. We pray for God to “unify us in heart, soul, and purpose that the world might know your love.” The early church learned from Jesus about the importance of unity and loving one another. We studied how they did it in Acts 2 and Acts 4. Our BIG idea was that when we love each other, people will see God in us!
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This week, we focused on being Jesus’ feet – valiant and steady. We read the story of Gideon and learned that even when we are afraid, if we’ll let God lead, he can do amazing things through us!
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We’re into our second month now of our church prayer, and this week we moved into one of my personal favorite section – give us LOVE>FEAR. There are so many things we might be worried or afraid of in the world. But if we let fear lead, we will miss on the opportunities Jesus has for us and opportunities to help others. We learned about the story of Jesus healing the leper (Mark 1:40-45). He touched the man when no one else would even get close! He loved him more than he was afraid. And he loved us so much he endured the cross. We can love like Jesus when we let God’s love replace our fear (1 John 4:18).
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Today, we are leaning about how Jesus asked his disciples to spread the Good News throughout thew world! First the disciples shared it locally, then it was spread to the Gentiles, then Paul took it throughout the world. And the REALLY amazing news is – we get to be part of this!!! Jesus wants US to share His Good News too, whether it’s at our school, on the playground, or across the world!
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This month we’re headed Back-to-School! And we’ll be looking at people in the Bible who had to go back and learn (and sometimes relearn!) how best to follow God. How can you follow God best? Stay tuned to find out!
For our first Back-to-School lesson, we learned about Josiah – the boy king of Judah. Josiah became king when he was only 8 years old! But he did what was RIGHT in the eyes of the Lord and followed God with his whole heart. How can we be like Josiah and follow God, even when no one else does? It starts with paying attention to God, learning more about Him, and getting serious about serving Him! (You can read more about it in 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35)
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Today we learned about a grown up who had to go “back to school” and relearn what he thought he knew. Our story was about Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night. And Jesus told him he had to be born again of water and Spirit! We learned about a caterpillars transformation into a butterfly. The caterpillar is like us before we receive Christ. When we trust in Him, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and transforms us on the inside (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is our spiritual rebirth. Then we are baptized in water as an outward sign of our inward transformation, like when the butterfly emerges from the cocoon to show their transformation! You can read all about this is John 3:1-21.
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Today we learned about people who found someone worth copying, followed them around, and did what they did. We call them – DISCIPLES! We told the stories of Elijah and Elisha and Jesus and His disciples. We are all called to be disciples of Jesus too! We can follow Him, walk with Him, learn from Him, and do the things He did!
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In our final lesson in the Back-to-School series, we learned about a man who was transformed by Christ into a new creation – Paul! We learned how Paul how to relearn what it meant to follow Jesus and went from being an enemy of Christians to one who lied Jesus with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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In this summer series, we are exploring the fun and exciting things we love to do in summertime – camping, hiking, fishing, boating, going to the beach and festivals, and more! And then we’re connecting each activity to a Bible story where they did the same thing.
In today’s kick-off lesson, we are looking at a very common summer activity – visiting family! We learned about how Mary (the mother of Jesus) visited Elizabeth, how far she had to travel (like walking from here to Nashville!!!), and how the Holy Spirit helped Elizabeth’s baby, John, recognize Jesus even in the womb! The Holy Spirit helps us recognize Jesus too. And just like John leaped for joy, we should get excited about being near Jesus too! He’s always near, but we can draw near to him in worship, prayer, and reading our Bible.
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Today, in our Summer Adventure series we’re going camping with one of the most hardcore campers there is – John the Baptist. We learned about how an angel visited John’s father and how John recognized Jesus even in the womb! After he grew up, he lived in the wilderness, wore outfits made from camel hair, and even ate locust with honey!!! John was called to point people to Jesus. He told them and showed them who he was. WE can point people to Jesus too!
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Today, on our Summer Adventure, we went hiking with Jesus and the disciples. We read how Jesus asked them a tough question that we also need to be able to answer: “Who do YOU say that I am?” (Mark 8:27-29) We also learned a BIG word – TRANSFIGURATION. The children learned that Jesus revealed his true glory to the disciples. So, what about you? Who do you say Jesus is?
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This week, we went back to the OT (Old Testament) to visit the BIG CITY of Persia and to learn about an amazing woman named Esther. Esther was just an ordinary girl that God chose for an incredible mission to save His people. We can be sure that no matter where we are or what has happened, God is ALWAYS in control.
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Since it’s the week before the 4th of July, we decided for this week’s Summer Adventure to talk about FESTIVALS in the Bible: Purim, the Feast of Booths (aka tabernacles), and Passover. We learned that Jesus for sure celebrated the last 2 of these. You can read about them in John 7 and Luke 22. We also learned that because of what Jesus did on the cross, we celebrate a new festival – Easter!
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It’s a new month, but we’re continuing our Summer Adventure series with Jesus. We’ve gone camping and hiking, visited family, seen the big city, and been to a number of festivals. This week, we’re going boating with Jesus as we dive (pun intended!) into the stories of Jesus calming the storm (Mark 4) and Jesus walking on water (Matthew 14). Our bottom line for today is that you can ALWAYS count on Jesus. He will ALWAYS be with you. Trust Him…follow Him…let Him take you on a wonderful adventure!
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Today, we learned all about Noah ‘s Ark. God was going to send a flood to restart the world because of all the bad things people were doing. But God would save Noah and his family because Noah loved God. God gave Noah the plans to build an Ark. Noah obeyed God even though it didn’t make sense. Noah trusted that God would keep them safe. God sent 2 of every kind of animal and then the rains came. Sure enough, God kept them safe in the Ark! God protected His people. We can trust God too, and we should obey Him even when it down’s make sense.
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Today, our story was about Jonah and the big fish. Jonah didn’t like the people in Nineveh, and so when God old him to go and give them a message – Jonah said, “NO!” And he hatched a terrible plan to run away from God. But you can’t run from God. Psalm 139 (v. 6-10) tells us that He’s always with us…no matter where we go! Because of God’s love and mercy, God gave Jonah a second chance. And he gave Nineveh a second chance. When we make mistakes, God gives us a second chance too! And b/c God gave us a second chance, we should give others a second chance too! (Romans 5:8 and Ephesians 5:32)
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This is it, our final week of Summer Adventure, and it has been AMAZING! For our last lesson, we learned about how Jesus forgave and redeemed Peter even though Peter made a mistake. Jesus loved Peter, and He loves us too! How much? the Bible says in Psalm 139 that He thinks about us more than there are grains of sand on the seashore!!! (Cool fact – there are more than 2,000,000 grains of sand just in 1 cup!)
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In this series, we’re learning about how the whole Bible tells one AMAZING story – a story of a loving God who would stop at nothing to save His lost children. Each week we’ll be covering a new book of the Bible, from Genesis thru Nehemiah.
This week, we covered the entire book of Genesis! Kids learned how God created everything, the world was perfect, but then sin entered and infected the whole world. We read the stories of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and learned how God was with them no matter what.
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This week, we went through the book of Exodus! We learned that Exodus means EXIT because God’s people, the Israelites, had to escape from Egypt. But God was with them. He sent Moses, 10 plagues, and even parted the Red Sea to have his people. We also learned about the institution of Passover (Exodus 12) and how Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
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Today was a BIG day – we covered the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (in about 20 minutes)!!! We learned about the Israelites getting God’s law, but not trusting Him and worshipping a golden calf, how they had to wander in desert for 40 years, and how they finally learned to trust and obey Him and finally made it back to the Promised Land. Sometimes we may find it hard to trust God also, but God is faithful, He loves us, He wants the best for us, and He wants us to know we can always count on Him.
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Today we covered the book of Joshua. We learned how Joshua took over for Moses leading God’s people, how Joshua was faithful, and how, with God’s help, they finally made it into the Promised Land. Our BIG story was about the battle of Jericho. We sang the song, played a trumpet and even made them for our craft! (You can link to that below!)
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Well we’re starting the second month now of our Rescue series – the story of a loving God who would stop at nothing to save His lost children. The whole Bible tells this story and we’re following it through every book. Our goal: to cover the first 16 books of the Bible in 8 weeks!!! This week, we looked at the books of Judges and Ruth. We learned that God is ALWAYS working, even when we don’t understand. And that if we will turn to Him, He is faithful to always be with us.
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Today, we worked our way through the books of 1-2 Samuel. (No small feat!) We focused on how God called Samuel, and the God used him to anoint David as the next king. God speaks to us too! And He wants to use us the way He used Samuel. All we have to do is listen and learn to hear His voice!
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Today, Learned about the books of 1st and 2nd Kings. We learned about how Solomon started out so good…but ended so disappointing. We also learned that sin has consequences. And the consequence for Solomon’s sin was that Israel was ripped in 2 and then went through a cycle of one bad king after another – 39 kings! Our BIG idea is that we have a choice to follow God and do what He says.
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Lesson Video (Naaman)
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This is it…we did it! We have made it through 16 books of the Bible in 8 weeks. I’m so proud of all the kids have been doing. Today, we finished the last 2 books of our series: Ezra and Nehemiah. We learned about the exile BUT that God always has a plan. First, he sent Ezra and the temple was completed. Then he sent Nehemiah, and they rebuilt the wall. Then Ezra read them the law, they promised to return to loving God, and then they had a week long party! Our kids learned that God ALWAYS keeps his promises and ALWAYS has a plan to rescue his people.
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It’s our church’s Vision statement – “Walk with Jesus. Love Your Neighbor.” But what if we ACTUALLY got to walk with Him?! What if we had lived back then and got to walk alongside Him? What would we see, hear, learn, experience? In this series, we’ll be walking step-by-step through His life to learn how He lived and how He loved.
TODAY! We learned about Jesus’ early life. What happened between birth – grownup? It was quite the adventure! (We read Luke 2:21-40; Matthew 2:1-23; Luke 2:41-52; Matthew 3:13-17)
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TODAY our journey with Jesus led us first to his baptism and then to his temptation in the wilderness. It’s often life that in our walk with Jesus – we go from a time of blessing to a time of challenge. We have an enemy who does not want us to follow God, and so he tempts us to do wrong. But God understands temptation and always gives us a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). (You can read more about these events in Matthew 3:13-17; Luke 4:1-13)
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THIS WEEK we looked at how Jesus prepared and battled the enemy in the wilderness…aaaannd how we have to battle these same things in our lives too! We call it Spiritual Warfare, and the way we fight back is by preparing ourselves with SPIRITUAL PRACTICES and by putting on the full Armor of God. You can read more about it in Ephesians 6:10-18.
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THIS WEEK, in Part 2 of our Spiritual Practices, we talked about temptations we ALL face in our everyday walk with Jesus AND what Spiritual Practices we can use to fight against these temptations – Worship, Prayer, Fasting, Giving, Scripture. (We read A LOT of scriptures today 😮 Matthew 5:22, 39, 43-44; Matthew 6:2 & 19, 5-7, 16, 25 & 31; Matthew 7:1-4)
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TODAY, we learned how Jesus invited the lst disciples to “Follow Him!” and become Fishers of People (Matthew 4). The disciples dropped everything to follow Jesus, but a young ruler, who got the same invitation (Matt. 19:16-22), chose NOT to follow Jesus because he couldn’t give up what was important to him. We want to choose to follow Jesus. He is the MOST IMPORTANT!
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Today, we learned how Jesus sent out the disciples to “do the stuff” themselves (and become apostles in the process)! But following Jesus isn’t easy…the disciples had to TRUST that God would provide. Jesus wants us to follow him too! How do we do it in our everyday lives? It starts by trusting that he will always be with us even when things are tough. (You can read more about it in Matthew 10, Luke 9:1-6, 9:23, 57-60)
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This week, we are celebrating Valentine’s Day by learning how WE can love like JESUS! In Jesus’ day, tax collectors, like Matthew and Zacchaeus, were hated and outcasts of society, but jesus invited them to follow him and even ate with them! God showed His great love for us by sending his Son (John 3:16). Jesus showed God’s love by loving the outcasts and the hurting. We can show God’s love too by being a friend to someone when no one else is. (We read Matthew 9:9-13, Luke 19:1-10, and 1 John 4:7-21.)
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Well, so far we’ve seen Jesus start his ministry, overcome temptations, call the disciples, and now he’s inviting everyone to be part of God’s family! Last week he invited tax collectors and sinners…today he invites a Samaritan woman and her whole village! It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve done. All that matters is that you love God with your whole heart, listen to Him, and do what He says! (You can read more about these stories in Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:31-35, Luke 8:19-21.)
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Today, we learned how Jesus healed people! But He didn’t just come to heal our bodies; He came to heal our hearts! And when Jesus heals your heart, he breaks the power of sin and death in your life so that you can live with him forever in heaven. We read the story of blind Bartimaeus, the man at the pool in Bethesda, the raising of Lazarus, and many others! (You can read more about these in John 4:46-53, 5:1-15, 11:1-45; Mark 3:1-5, 7:31-37, 10:46-52)
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Today, we learned about the amazing miracles Jesus did in the nature – calming a storm, feeding 5,000+ people, and even walking on water!! All creation recognizes Jesus’ voice. When Jesus called Peter to walk on the water, Peter recognized Jesus’ voice but lost focus because of the storm. Sometimes we lose focus too, but if we focus on Jesus and listen to His voice, he will never let us down! (You can read more about it in Matthew 14:13-21, 14:22-33; Mark 4:35-41)
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THIS WEEK, we learned that Jesus used parables to teach “earthly stories with a heavenly meaning”! We read through many of these, including the Good Samaritan, the Wise and Foolish Builders, Judging Others, The Pearl of Great Price, the Lost Sheep, and the Prodigal Son. The parables teach us that we NEED Jesus, that we are LOST without Him, and that we should FOLLOW Him. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (Read more about it in Matthew 7:5, 24-27, 13:45-46, 18:12-14; Luke 10:29-37, 15:11-32.)
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Palm Sunday – Jesus taught it, then He lived it out. That was how he did ministry and discipleship. He didn’t just say great things, he demonstrated them himself. THIS WEEK we learned about his journey into Jerusalem and his teaching about who was the greatest. (Hint: it was the servant of all.) Then Jesus, to show the disciples what He meant, He washed their feet! As we journey toward Easter, let us remember that we are following Jesus when we serve others and love others well. (You can read more in Matthew 21:1-11; John 13:1-16)
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Every Sunday, we celebrate that Jesus is ALIVE…but especially on Easter Sunday!!! Today is the last day in our “Walk with Jesus” series. It has been quite the journey with an incredible ending! In class we told the story of the events that lead to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. We learned how he loved us so much that died for us. But he defeated death and the grave so that we could have life with him forever! And THAT is Good News!!! (Some additional scriptures we studied were John 15:12-13, 1 John 4:9-10)
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