KidzPort July 26 – See Yourself a Nehemiah

July 28, 2009

Vision is a funny thing.  Sometimes it can be clear, like on a sunny day.  Other times, things get in the way of our vision.  It can be blocked by objects, obscured by fog, limited by darkness, restricted by the strength of our eyes.   We can enhance vision as well, using night-goggles or binoculars. 

It’s no different with the vision that God gives us.  Some people have clear vision: what they want to do with their lives, how they want to live, what they want to accomplish.  For others, the vision is not quite so clear.  It’s dark and murky, with no clear focus. 

The Bible tells us about how two different people handled the vision that God gave them.  Now, by vision, I don’t mean seeing some ghostly apparition in front of them.  I mean that God gave these two men a sense of what they were supposed to accomplish, and how they were supposed to do it.  He did it in different ways, and the two men went through different paths before fulfilling the vision.

God spoke directly to Jonah: “Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.”  (Jonah 1:2)  This was a clear vision for Jonah – go and call the people of Nineveh on their sins.  A lot of times the vision God gives us is a difficult one, and sometimes we don’t even want to do it.  But we all know what happened to Jonah – when he tried to run from God’s vision, he was swallowed up by a large fish, and finally did what God wanted him to do.

Nehemiah had a different vision.  God showed him (through stories other people told) that the city of Jerusalem was in ruins.  God put it on Nehemiah’s heart to do something about it, to rebuild the walls of the city.  That was a huge vision for a man who was a captive servant.  But Nehemiah never hesitated, and he accomplished his vision.

Are you a Jonah or a Nehemiah?

For Parents:

• Read the story of Jonah from a Bible story book with your children.  What does that tell us about running from God?
• Ask your child if they have a vision for what God wants to do with their lives.  It’s alright if they can’t see it yet.
• Encourage them to pray, and seek God’s vision for their lives. 

KidzPort July 19th – Anti-what?

July 20, 2009

The world is a pretty big place.  Even in the early days of the church, and even in the time of Jesus, the world was still a big place.  (it was just smaller than it is today.)   Often in studying the Bible, we tend to focus on one small area of the world – Israel.  And this is not wrong – Israel is, after all, where most of the history that is in the Bible took place.  Jesus walked there, taught there, and died there.  and the church got its start there.

The biggest city in Biblical Israel was of course Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was the center of the world for many Jewish people.  But there was a problem with that.  Everyone in Jerusalem was the same.  They were mostly enthic Jews, all from the same area, all with the same ideas toward religion and politics.  But there was another great city in Biblical times that really stood out: Antioch. 

There were actually two Antiochs.  The one we’re talking about was Syrian Antioch, which was in what is now Turkey.  Antioch was called the “Cradle of Gentile Christianity.”   What this means is that there were a lot of non-Jewish people in Antioch.  It was the largest, most important city in the Roman Empire. (except for Rome, of course!)  It was a crossroads, which means that a lot of people travelled through it on the way to different places.  So there were many different kinds of people there.   Including the largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel.

Peter thought Antioch was so important that he went there himself to preach the Gospel. Paul and Barnabas went there, too.  In fact, the first time anyone was ever called a Christain was in Antioch. 

The world we live in (and especially our own city of Bridgeport) is a lot like ancient Antioch.  There are so many different people that we come into contact with every day, from all kinds of backgrounds.  Why, in our own KidzPort class, we had children with families from Brazil, Puerto Rico, Haiti, America, Canada, Jamaica and Cape Verde. And that was in one small class in one small church!!

For Parents:

• Get a bible map and try to find Syrian Antioch with your child.  Note its location, and how someone travelling from Italy or Greece to Israel or Africa would have to go through there. What kind of place must it have been?
• Read Acts chapter 11 together.  Talk about how the Gospel spread to the Gentiles.
• Look at the Bible map, and see if you can find other big Bible cities: Rome, Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, Phillippi, Thessilonica, Berea.  The map below may help.

 

 

KidzPort July 12th – Celebrate!!

July 13, 2009

 

We had a really busy and exciting weekend at Gospel Light.   There were multiple celebrations: a new Senior Pastor, a new church plant, old friends coming to visit.  You can read about that all here.  

Since there was so much going on, we decided to take advantage of KidzPort time and just have some fun!   Nothing wrong with a little fun, right?   So this week, Shannon, Mariah and Amanda helped all the kids to make tie-dye tee shirts for the summer.  It was a lot of work (and a huge mess!) but everyone got to pick there own colors and designs. 

During the week, Shannon will rinse and wash the shirts, and hopefully we can hand them out at cell Friday night.  Stay tuned for a fashion show!!

Amanda came all the way from Florida to help us out!

KidzPort July 5 – Freedom!!

July 6, 2009

Since it was Fourth of July Weekend here in the States,  it seemed appropriate to begin this week’s discussion with a question: “Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July, anyway?  Our oldest KidzPort group is 7-9 years old, so the answer to the question was not as easy as one might think.  Most of them could put together that it was Independence Day, buit no one could tell me what “independence” really meant, or who we were “independent” from. 

After a (very) quick primer on the American Revolution, we began to discuss the idea of “freedom.”  What exactly does “freedom” mean, anyway.  One common answer was that freedom mean you could do anything you want.  Of course, that’s not true.  In any country, there is still the rule of law, and so people cannot do whatever they want to do.  But, we are (here in America) free to voice our opinions, to vote someone into or out of office, and to worship how we see fit.

One person in the Bible who did not enjoy such freedoms was Daniel.  Daniel lived during a time when his country, Israel, was under the rule of a more powerful country, Babylon.  Daniel, in fact, Daniel was forced into service to the King of Babylon, a man with the unlikely and hard-to-pronounce  name of Nebuchadnezzar.  The King made Daniel interpret a dream, and because of that, Daniel (whose Baylonian name was Beltshazzar) became a man of great standing.  Danel later interpreted the “writing on the wall” (Dan 5) for Belzhazzar. 

When Babylon was taken over by the Persians, Daniel found himself in the service of Persian King Cyrus.  Cyrus had made a law that no one could be worshipped but him.  This limited Daniel’s freedom, because it meant that he could not worship God legally.  Imagine if someone came to your house and told you you could only pray to the President of the United States, or you would be killed!!  These things happen all over the world, even today.  Thankfully, we live in a country where we all have freedom to worship God.

Eveyone knows Daniel’s story, about being thrown into the lion’s den.  God rescued Daniel for his faithfulness.  Amen!

Our 3-7 group was working on John 3:16.  They made pictures depicting their idea of what God’s love looks like to them.

For Parents:

• Talk to your child about freedom.  What does it mean to you?  What does it mean to them?  How what responsibilities come with freedom?
• Read the story of Daniel in the lion’s den.  (Daniel 6)  What does the story mean to them?
• If you have a younger child, have them explain their picture to you, and learn John 3:16