TruBlessings -- New Nursery Curriculum!

Tru Blessings

We are extremely committed to teaching ALL our kids about the love of Jesus as soon as we can. We are always looking for the best way to teach them as well.  With Tru Blessings, we think we have found the perfect curriculum for our precious Nursery kids here at Wentzville Christian Church.  Let me tell you more about Tru Blessings.

Foundational Truths

• God Made Me
• God Loves Me
• God Is With Me

Key Features

• As with curriculum in our other children's ministry areas, we are committed to teaching what we call "The Big God Story." The Big God Story is a method of teaching that Bible that walks our kids through the Bible in chronological order on a yearly basis. Tru Blessings is no different.  However, we are jumping in midstream, so we will start with Genesis in September. 
  
• Repetition
• Each part of The Big God Story will be repeated two weeks in a row, but will utilize different large group storytelling techniques and small group activities each week.
  
• Interactive
• Children will use their senses to explore God’s Word through a variety of touch, see, listen, and move activities and visuals.
  
• Remember and Celebrate
• Remember and Celebrate Sundays happen on the 13th week of every quarter (once per quarter) and will be a weekend to remember the three foundational truths and celebrate who God is. These weekends will align with KidQuest and FirstLook Remember & Celebrate’s.
  
• Worship
•  Kids will worship through music provided with Tru Blessings and encouraged in the home as well.
  
• Environments
• Lessons are not written in any one of the 10 environments, but the parent components will land heavily on the environments and how to create them in the home. These environments will also align with what is being taught in FirstLook and KidQuest (See parenting components.)

Parenting Components

• HomeFront Weekly
• We email out the "take home" sheets to parents we have an email address for every Monday morning. If you would like to sign up to receive this great resource, click here.
  
• Inspire, Equip, Support
• Every week in our email, we hope to Inspire you to be the best parent you can be, Equip you with great Biblical resources for your home and Support you however we can.
  
• Child development tips for parents that align with spiritual formation included in our weekly email.

Here is the basic timeline of what your kids will be experiencing while in the nursery.

• Explore: 15-20 minutes
• Kids explore materials that will help teachers introduce the day's Bible story.
• Discover: 10-15 minutes
•  Bible Story Telling
• Respond: 5 minutes
• Worship
• Prayer
• Bless: 5 minutes
• Snack
• Leaders pray over your children while they are eating
• Connect: 15-30 minutes
• Create a craft that connects to the Big God Story
• Free play

If you have any questions about this transition, please email me.

Upcoming Changes and Needs

I am excited to tell you about the latest happenings in FirstLook, our preschool through kindergarten worship environment. 

We have experience tremendous growth over the past 6 weeks.  We were averaging 8-12 at each service and now we are averaging 15-20 at each service! That is exciting news!

With growth comes growing pains.  We need to bulk up our team and we want you! Right now we have 2 adults with our preschoolers in FirstLook, with the recent growth we feel it is in the best interest of your kids to make that 3 or 4 adults in the room at each service.  We would love to keep about a 4 or 5 kids to 1 adult ratio.

Now I know what you are saying, "I don't want to teach." The best news of this email is YOU WON'T HAVE TO TEACH.  We already have our main teachers in place (even me teaching some on video).
We would love to add you to our great team.  If you are interested, please let me know so we can bulk up our team starting January 1! (email Matt)

 

On January 8, we will move into the brand new KidQuest room! We are excited to have our own space and be able to worship there on Sundays in KidQuest and Wednesday evenings in The Challenge.

Other than dropping your child off in a different place, here are some MAJOR points that you need to know about this room switch.

• The New KidQuest room is room 205.
• We will open a new check-in counter upstairs in front of room 205 to be used by KidQuest and FirstLook families.
• We would ask you to start using the back stairway, next to the nursery, and checking in upstairs at the new counter. There will be a self-checkin station and a manned station. We would like to keep the downstairs foyer computer for our guests and visitors.
• With the growth rate we have had, we are also looking for some new small group leader to serve on the children's ministry team. Your job would simply be to ask a small group of kids pre-prepared questions about the Bible Story and lead and activity (game or craft)

God's Son Brings Peace (December 18 -- KidQuest)

Last week we heard how Zechariah who did not beleive the angel when he told Zechariah that his son would be John the Baptist and help get the people of Israel ready for the Messiah.

I hope you had an opportunity this weekend to come out and see our Living Nativity.  We had a great time and there were a lot of cars that drove through the hear and see the story of Jesus' birth. This week in KidQuest we are going to learn about the birth of Jesus as well.  We hope you use this blog to talk about the birth of Jesus in your home this week. The HomeFront Weekly has a great game/activity for you to play in the car as you travel. This game will make it very easy to start a conversation about the birth of Jesus.

Old Testament prophecies describe the Messiah as a Ruler who will bring peace to Israel and the nations. The word for peace in the Greek is Eirene, which translates in Hebrew as Shalom. In the Bible, “peace” refers to more than the lack of conflict; it encompasses the actions one undergoes to bring about restoration and wholeness. This understanding of peace is completely different from the pax romana under Augustus at the time. To the Romans, “peace” meant the subjugation of their enemies and the establishing of order. In short, the pax romana was not real peace at all.

Without Christ, the world cannot find peace. Romans 3:16–17 tells us, “Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” In Jesus’ kingdom, peace reigns for everyone who believes. God’s Son brought peace through humility. His peace restores the relationship between God and humans, broken when sin entered the world (Genesis 3:16–19). And those who participatein the kingdom life have the responsibility to use their lives, gifts, and resources to be ambassadors of God’s peace.

We pray we are helping equip you to be one of those ambassadors this Christmas!

Jesus is Here (December 18 -- FirstLook)

I hope you had an opportunity this weekend to come out and see our Living Nativity.  We had a great time and there were a lot of cars that drove through the hear and see the story of Jesus' birth. This week in FirstLook we are going to learn about the birth of Jesus as well.  We hope you use this blog to talk about the birth of Jesus in your home this week. The HomeFront Weekly has a great activity that will help you talk about the birth of Jesus at bedtime.

The news that Jesus was here was what faithful men and women had been anticipating since the garden. In the second chapter of Luke, we read how angels announced the birth of Jesus to shepherds—not to kings, or noblemen, or men of religious virtue. Shepherds. These men who lived on the fringe of society were chosen to experience the most incredible testimony given by celestial beings. It was here in this humble setting among the most common of people that the “chosen One of God enters creation among the creation” (IVP New Testament Commentaries).

Shepherds were hired by farmers to look after their flock of sheep. They were typically single men who didn’t have families. The duties of shepherds inhibited the men’s abilities to participate in religious activities with the community. However, this did not prohibit them from experiencing the holy. Some scholars believe the shepherds who witnessed the heavenly announcement were not ordinary shepherds. During the time of Caesar Augustus, flocks of sheep were being raised around the city of Jerusalem to be used as sacrifices in the temple. It is quite possible the men who were tending sheep the night Jesus was born were in fact caring for the temple flock. These men may have been tending sheep meant for sacrifices, and then gone on to be some of the first to meet the Lamb of God, who became the final payment for our sin.

Upon finding the Christ child, the shepherds responded by “glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20). They broke out in praise because God’s promise had come to pass. Jesus is the deliverer, Master, and anointed King. The prophesied royal leader had come to restore the kingdom. God came not for a select group of people, but for all, with the most common people being the first to receive the news. They were privileged with the opportunity to spread the message that Jesus is here!

We pray that we are also equipping you to spread the message that Jesus was born and is alive!

Jesus is God's Gift (December 11 -- KidQuest)

God provided for and prepared His people for the promised gift of His Son. All they needed to do was trust and obediently serve Him. God would continually remind His people of the promised gift via the prophets. One such message for His people was given to Zechariah, through the angel Gabriel. The angel told Zechariah he would have an heir—a son who would turn the hearts of many Israelites back to God. We know his son was John the Baptist, the one would have the responsibility of paving the way for the ministry of God’s promised gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Zechariah was one of about eighteen thousand priests serving Yahweh. Priests served in the temple only twice a year, and it was extremely rare for a priest to have the honor of entering the holiest place within the temple. “Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside” (Luke 1:8–10).

The opportunity to enter the Holy of Holies was considered a once in a lifetime opportunity, and Zechariah had no idea God would deliver a message of promise on that special day. Of Zechariah’s son, the angel said, “He [John] will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:15b–17).

Jesus is Immanuel (December 11 -- FirstLook)

Our God was drawing near to us through the Savior in the form of a man. It was so important for us to understand our Savior’s lineage that each of the gospels record the genealogy of Christ with a unique perspective. Matthew lists the generations from King David and traces Jesus’ royal lineage through Joseph. Luke traces the bloodline from Adam to David, and his genealogy from Abraham to David is identical to Matthew’s account. Luke diverges from Matthew after David, tracing the lineage not through Solomon but another son of David, Nathan, to Heli, the father of Mary, Jesus’ mother. The significance is that the combined genealogies establish Jesus’ absolute right to the throne of David through the bloodline of Mary (Luke 3:23–38) and by title through Mary’s husband, Joseph.

The genealogy of Jesus shows God’s hand orchestrating His divine plan of  redemption, but names also play an important role throughout Scripture. They intentionally point to the character and role a person will play. There were several names given to the Lord before He came to earth as an infant. These include: Jesus, “Savior” (Jehovah is salvation); Christ, “Anointed” (the Greek equivalent to “Messiah”); and Immanuel, “God with us.” Each of these names defines His title, purpose, and identity.

God came to earth and dwelt among men. He gave up His kingly rights to become a servant to all. He is the Messiah and the Savior of Israel and the world. He became God incarnate. The name Immanuel, God with us, was prophesied in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Jesus’ names announced His arrival and His purpose: God Himself will save us from our sins. He is with us. He has come.

Jesus is Immanuel!!!