daddy4ms

For the rest of 2018, I will be sharing books I recommend because they are some of my favorites.  New Book Friday will resume in January. Enjoy!

Today's Favorite Book Friday is one that has shaped how I view children's ministry.  It is a great reminder that the hero of the Bible is Jesus.  Klumpenhower gives practical ways to do this in the church as well as the home.  Check it out!

This is a new feature on the blog.  Usually on Mondays, I get caught up on my favorite podcasts.  This usually results in a lot of tweeting on that day.  However, if you are at work and not checking Twitter during that time, you might miss some of the great truth being shared by others.  So, I am sharing some of best tweets from the previous week which include great wisdom and truth.                       Our kids don’t just need to see how that movie or this video is bad; they need to see how Jesus is better. @ JKlumpenhower When the message is about what you need to do, you miss what Jesus does for you. @rjgrune Maturity in the Christian life is movement away from dependence on principles to the point of inherent desire. @byronyawn                   ...

Tonight was our first Gospel Party. We had a great turnout & great weather. Thanks to all the parents who helped run an activity. Here are a few pictures I took. Watch for more at Facebook.com/hesston my

Today's new book is a curriculum we are using for fuzion (our mid-week ministry for 5th/6th graders).

If you have been reading the blog lately, you have seen several posts including great quotes from Jack Klumpenhower's book, Show Them Jesus . If you are new to the blog, go back and check out posts over the last few weeks. I decided I would write a review of the book.  Let me start with this: go and buy the book!  Whether you are a parent or grandparent, Sunday School teacher, youth leader or pastor, this will change the way you minister to children and teens. Klumpenhower was unknown to me prior to this book.  Since starting the book, I have become acquainted with his curriculum for pre-teens and teens as well as his website which includes great tools and resources that he talks about in the book. The book is broken into two parts: why teach the good news and how to teach the good news.  Both parts are extremely rich in theology as well as practical ways to share the good news with kids/teens. In the first part, he shares his journey as a teacher from teachin...

Last week, I finished reading Jack Klumpenhower's book, Show Them Jesus. I will be writing a review of the book in the next few days.  Here are some quotes from the final chapters: Jesus calls his people to love-based life together. Moral reform is not the same as Christian growth...But performing for God and ignoring God are both ways of bypassing Jesus. Alex needed to fight sin but to do it with God, instead of performing for God. He needed to hate sin but not keep a scorecard. He needed the good news. Being close to your Father brings true sorrow for sin and helps you fight sin better next time. . .So don't think you have to fight sin first so you can come to God. Instead, come to God so you can fight sin.  If we want believing kids to change how they act, we must teach them--perhaps counterintuitively--to focus less on how they act. We must first remind them who they are. They're joined to Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit who changes kids. He brings rebirth a...

One of the thoughts I am considering for next school year is to get rid of "Bible Bucks" on Wednesday nights.  I asked my Wednesday night workers about it and half were against the idea.  It is so rooted in most children's ministry that we cannot imagine the absence of it.  I was encouraged when I read an entire chapter in Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower.  He shares many of the reasons why I would like to stop.  Here are some thoughts from Klumpenhower on rewards in ministry: It wouldn't do to teach that God's rewards in salvation come freely, by grace, but that rewards in the church come by being good and memorizing verses. God's greatest rewards are based on his generosity, not what we've earned. Our class would work the same way...In my class the bucks were a gift, not a reward. Creating a Good-News Environment A good-news environment is sin-aware A good-news environment is grace-aware A good-news environment focuses on the heart A ...

I am still reading Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower. The second section of the book talks about how to teach the good news.  Here are some quotes: Don't: Look for a moral lesson about a human character. Instead: Look for the worth and work of the main character, God. The only way to avoid either the softie God or the monster God is with the God of the cross. The full good news regarding any of God's rules is that believers are (1) eternally forgiven for breaking that command and counted righteous in Jesus, no matter how badly they mess up; (2) made eager to follow that command in gratitude and hope as children of the Father; and (3) made able to follow it by relying on the Holy Spirit's transforming power. The difference between the Old and New Testaments isn't the attributes of God they reveal, but the point we're at in the great story. 7 Methods for getting to Jesus from an Old Testament passage: (1) what God does; (2) who God is; (3) Jesus solves t...

I picked up Jack Klumpenhower's book, Show Them Jesus last Wednesday.  Here are some great quotes from the chapters I read: That is the way everyone's hearts naturally works. Our kids (and us) are programmed to try to earn points with God. At such a moment the issue is not what those kids should do--it's how to reach their hearts. They need to rest in Jesus until they have such joy over his beauty and what he's done for them that it spills out into the way they live.   The good-news teacher skillfully steers a kid's heart by showing the breathtaking beauty of Jesus. We often imagine the Christian life is like a game of king-of-the-hill played between our heart and our head...Only a stronger love for Jesus can overpower and displace our love of sin. If we cut individual stories off from the Bible's central story arc about Jesus, we miss the main thing the Bible wants to say... The good news is the Bible's drumbeat. To ignore it at any point is to ...

As I mentioned in a previous post, last week I started reading Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower. You can visit his website here  Below, I have included a section from Chapter 3 on growth for kids.  It was so helpful to me and will impact how I teach in the future. Church kids come in one of two types--unsaved and saved. Both types desperately need to see Jesus. . .We make a mistake if we think kids are saved by hearing the good news and trusting Jesus, but then grow as Christians some other way. . .We grow in the same way we became Christians--rooted in Jesus, with our hope in the good news. As kids learn about God's goodness and holiness, they ought to increase in aw of him. That's growth. And as they examine themselves and see the ugliness inside, they ought to increase in conviction of sin. That's growth too. But the combination of these will drive them to despair--unless their understanding of the forgiveness and righteousness they have in Jesus also grows. ...

So often as parents and/or teachers, we want kids in our homes or classes to be good and behave.  We know this is selfish in many ways, but we still do it. I do it.  I started a new book a few weeks ago called Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower.  This book might change the way I parent and train and equip teachers in children's ministry.  Here is a quote from Chapter 1: The message of Jesus' death and resurrection is a tool of the Spirit to change hearts. Nagging is not. Rather than coax kids into temporarily acting better, Joe told about Jesus and trusted God to use that message to make the kids become better. What is your motivation in your home? Your church? Can it really be as simple as preaching and teaching Jesus?  Check back for more quotes from this great book.