Finishing March & beginning April

As I reflect on all the activities that have happened since my last post and look forward on my calendar to what the summer will bring, I thank The Lord for the talented, creative & dedicated volunteers who serve each week with me. Their hearts are sold out to The Lord and his love radiates through them. So very blessed to serve with them!!!!!!

We have really been focused on service in the children's ministry this spring with "spring into service". We painted the fence at Holston Home for children & finished up our last month of service for the spring at Salvation Army. The children have loved serving dinner at the Salvation Army!

Our school assemblies have been a blast! The chick-fil-a cow has joined us to wrap up the end of our school assemblies. We have one assembly left in April and two chapels in May at a couple local Christian schools. Our school assemblies will come to a close for the 2012-13 school year after these. I love hanging out with the kids, teachers, staff and principals at these schools. They get it... Core Values are important and vital for a child's success in life. This months value = friendship

I had the honor of being apart of several baptisms on the weekend of April 13-14. I am always excited to see young people chose to obey God and tell the world they love Jesus through baptism. God is so good and I thank Him for each one of the decisions that were made to follow him and commit their lives to him.

We took a fun caving trip to Appalachian caverns after church on Sunday April 21. Relationships were built, new friendships were made and our spelunking skills were put to the test. It was great to know I could fit through a hole the size of a piece of notebook paper 😀 lol!

The spirit of The Lord is really moving at Celebration Church right now. We had a wonderful time of worship last weekend led by our youth band. It was so great because many of the teens playing and singing on stage actually volunteer in children's Ministry. The children loved seeing them serve The Lord through music and worship. They did a fabulous job!

March Whirlwind

It has been a very busy month!  So Busy I could hardly find time to post anything, please forgive me.

We have had several school assemblies this month.  Our good friend Sandy Kneffel and her monkey Kumba joined us as we talked about Honesty using Core essentials.  We have one more school assembly left this month.

Learned way more than I wanted to know about Child Abuse at our teacher training given by the Children's Advocacy Center. I am so thankful for those who serve, protect and advocate on behalf of the children in our communities.
 
Helped remove lice from a sweet family associated with one of our local schools.  

Attended the Food Show in Gatlinburg to pick out food for camp.  I sampled so much food I thought I was going to bust.  I had a great time hanging out with a few ladies that I love to work with, Debbie, Carol & Sandy.  We also made so new friends that work for Reinhart foods and were recruited to help greet and hand out goodie bags with them.  It was a fun time.

Helped Celebrate my Sweet friend Angie Bundy's Birthday. 

The Fuse 56 Retreat: Sleep with the Sharks was lots of fun.  We studied the book of Daniel and learned how to resolve to be like Daniel and live for God!  It was pretty cool watching all the sharks swim above our heads as we drifted off to sleep.

 Enjoyed some girl time and laughs with facials & fondue with a few friends.

Did some major Bible studying in Chattanooga at the Precepts Ministries campus.  I took classes on the Old Testament, The New Testament, Spiritual Gifts & Bible timeline: How the Bible fits together.
My favorite class was Bible timeline, however, my hands may never recover from all the notes I took.  While I was there, Jack Authur, co-founder of Precepts celebrated his birthday and it was a privilege to be there and celebrate with him.

Planned, practiced and costumed with all those acting out the Easter Story for Children's Worship.  We are so very blessed to have such dedicated teens to help teach our children.  I am forever thankful for all those who serve in Children's Ministry and help impart God's word each week.

Met my new friend, Kevin, while serving dinner at the Salvation Army.  Kevin is a sweet soul.  The children had the opportunity to lay hands on him and pray for him as he is trying to figure out God's will for his life.  With the help of a few friends, we found him a place to sleep for the night equipped with a shower and laundry facilities.  He is going to help work at The Branch House, an outreach and recovery center under construction by Celebrating Freedom, tomorrow.  Asking you to lift him up in prayer even as you are reading this.

Whew, I am tired just thinking about all that has happened this month.  I am also so blessed to be apart of all of it.   This week is full of preparation for Easter.  The children at Celebration Church will experience the sights, sounds and smells as the experience "The Jerusalem Marketplace", complete with carpentry, jewelry making, weaving, a scribe shop, bakery and Live animals.  So excited for our children to be able to experience 33 AD as we reenact the Easter Story!

Salvation Army Dinner

Thanks to all those who helped serve dinner at the salvation army last night.  It was great to see some of the same faces we saw last month.  Praying for several of them this morning.  I personally had a super time getting to know a few more people who came last night to eat dinner. 

This song came to mind as I was praying for several of my new friends.  Praying for jobs, housing, healed relationships and clear direction for several of my new friends.

Numbers 13-14

It was a great weekend learning about the 12 spies from Numbers 13-14.  Here is the weekend video in case you were unable to make it.

This is the lesson for 1st-4th grades.  Preschool and 5th & 6th Grade have a different lesson each week.  Just fyi.

Numbers 1-11

Today we began our study of Numbers.  If you missed church or just want to see the lesson again, since we had a bit of technical difficulty with the second video, here they are.

Click here to see the wrap up video

Teen Leader Retreat Part 2 :)

We had lunch in our rooms ... Sandwiches :)  then we headed back down to the conference room to dig into the Word.

We spent a lot of time in Matthew & 1 John examining the foundation for Mercy and Justice, which is Love.  We talked about agape love which in like love in action.  We discussed how the Holy Spirit dwells within us and can lead us to love even the most unlovable people.

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Wow!  Ya think God wants us to LOVE?? The Foundation of mercy and justice is built on Love for God and for others.  We should let love be the motivation for all we do.

After that great teaching, we took a break and hit the water:)

 

After swim time we had a Pizza Dinner followed by more worship and our last teaching, "The Time is Now".   We discusses How to get started living a life of mercy and justice. 1. Begin to identify your spiritual gifts, talents and abilities.

2. Look for those who have needs among those you interact with everyday. 

3. Examine you discretionary money.  You can sponsor a child for $1 a day.

4. Look into serving in church outreach programs and other ministries that fit your gifting.

Our Main mission: to demonstrate mercy and do justice so people will know the goodness and love of Jesus.  It may not be pretty, in fact it is often a dirty job, but you are called to do it.  Let's get dirty :)

 

Teen Leader Retreat

We headed to the wilderness lodge to enjoy some great teaching by Mickey Hummel and Ms. Carletta...lotta :)  We also have had time to enjoy hanging out and swimming with friends this weekend.

When we arrived we ate BBQ, checked in our rooms and hit the swimming pool.  We had late night teaching & worship from 10-12pm.  Jonathan Russell blessed us by leading worship and then we dove into out teaching time.  We had chosen a teen study called " Dirty Jobs".  The study is based on our children's ministry verse Micah 6:8 " And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  Last night we talked about living a life pleasing to God and what that would look like.We determined that WE are the plan to relieve the poor, the needy, and the sick. We're to reach out to those with no friends, those who feel like they don't belong, those who are made fun of and ridiculed, those who are desperate or hungry.  

This morning we explored what Jesus teaches us about doing justice and loving mercy.   " Jesus gets dirty".    He heals the sick, raises the dead, Cleansed the lepers and cast out demons!  
Matthew 9:37 "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Mathew 10:1 "Jesus summoned His disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of sickness"