All posts tagged Bible Study

Bible Dictionary for Kids

By | June 3, 2011 | Bible Study, Spiritual Milestones | 1 Comment
holman-illustrated-bible-dictionary-for-kids-reference-editorial-staff-hardcover-cover-art

In our quest to find some Cool Bible Tools, I stumbled across Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary for Kids and man was I impressed!  The pages are nice and big (around 8×10), great for when you want to show the class a certain page or two.  The illustrations are colorful and bright, but very realistic too.

Some of the cool features include maps and reconstruction of Bible-time towns, illustrated charts, pronunciation guide, photography, and easy to understand  definitions.  Almost every entry provides supporting scripture so kids can read more about a certain person, event, or thing.  Lots of entries have extras too — like a map of Abraham’s journeys next to his name or the descriptions of each apostle next to the “apostle” entry.

This book errs on the side of more information for each entry instead of many many entries.  It’s very complete on the things it does cover, but may leave out a lesser known places or people.   As far as I can see, though — it has everything a kid might be looking for when using a Bible dictionary.   It covers all the major things and quite a few obscure things such as Mezuzah and Mother-in-law.

Overall, a really great resource to have, and very reasonable priced.  Pick up your own copy here on Amazon for about $11 and start using it in your ministry!

Other Reviews for this Book:

We Love to Homeschool Blog

Download a PDF Sampler here!

Peace Creek on the Prairie Blog

Got Your Bible Competition?

By | May 20, 2011 | Bible Study, Spiritual Milestones | 3 Comments
Flickr by Seth Lemmons

Here’s a new contest we’re running at our church:

We got our Bibles, yes we do!

We got our Bibles, how about you?

We, the kids of East Lake Road Alliance Church, challenge both the adults and the youth group to the “Got Your Bible” Competition on Wednesday nights.

Here’s the Information:

Starts on May 4, 2011 and Ends on August 31, 2011

What you’ve got to do: Bring Your Bible!

Each week, we’ll be keeping track of how many participants in each group (children, youth, and adults) are bringing their OWN BIBLE from home to church.  At the end of each month, the group with the highest participation rate (by percentage) will get to punish the other two groups!

Pick the Punishment:

Pie in the face, Silly String, or Water balloons

Pick The Delegate:

Once sign-ups are in, you get to vote on who in the other groups will receive the punishment for May.  Just like Jesus took the punishment for all our sins, so too will the delegate take the punishment for the whole group.

Sign-ups:

You’ve got to sign-up to get in the competition.  Parents, here’s the guilt trip: You better be signing up.  You’re role models, you know!  (And, no hiding your kids Bibles!) Good luck and have fun.  I’m excited to highlight the importance of God’s Word.

Celebration!

Our first celebration and judgement day comes on June 1st.  I’ll let you know how it goes!   So far, the kids have won once and the adults have won once.  Youth Group, you better step it up!

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VeggieTales Atlapedia: Book Review

By | May 4, 2011 | Bible Study, Parents, Resources, Reviews, Spiritual Milestones | Comments Off
atlapedia

We’ve been using some Cool Bible Tools in our weekly Kids’ Club as we study Discipleland’s “How to Use My Bible” unit (by the way, have you checked out the free curriculum give-away yet?).  One cool tool I discovered at our local library was the Veggie Bible Atlapedia.  Packed with great information and colorful pictures, it would be a great addition to any Children’s Ministry Leader or parent’s bookshelf.  Here’s some of the great features:

Books of the Bible

This section provides a concise summary of each book in the Bible, complete with key scripture, major events, and how it fits in with the books around it.  A great way to get an overview of a book before studying it.  It would also help kids get familiar with the overall picture of the Bible.

Bible Timeline

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get so bogged down in the details of the the Scripture that it’s hard to see “The Big Picture” of God’s Redemptive work.  This section of the Altapedia provides a fun timeline to help fit all the pieces together.  Very useful Bible tool!

People of the Bible

The Books of the Bible section didn’t cover every single person in each book (only the major characters), so this section is great for filling in the particulars.  Listed alphabetically, people from the Bible are easy to locate.  The Scripture listed along with each name gives kids a chance to get the full scoop and see where each person fits in the bigger story.   Descriptions are succinct, complete and easy to understand.

Bible Life

There’s nothing like diving into the details of a culture to make it come alive.  In this section, not only are things like family life and customs explained but ideas are given for fun crafts and hands-on projects such as “Make Your Own Fishing Net” and “Make Your Own Matzo Bread”.

Bible Maps

The final section of this book is great for geography lovers.  It includes maps of the Israelites wandering through the desert, the Bible lands, Jesus’ ministry, and more.

Worth the Investment

Pick yours up on Amazon for $4.00 and up!

Sunday School Nightmare (or so it seemed)

By | October 6, 2010 | Preteens | 5 Comments

Flickr by Josh Liba

I was relaxing late Saturday night, reading a magazine from the overflowing stack, (seriously, why did I subscribe to so many?) when I got a phone call from the teen Sunday School teacher.  ”My kid is puking everywhere — can you fill in?  I didn’t really have a lesson prepared.  Maybe you could show them a video.”  Hmm…

I picked up a book about the will of God, maybe something in here would do?  I fumbled around on the bookshelf.  I prayed.  Nothing.  I resolved to figure it out the next morning before church.  I overslept.  I stuck Ice Age in my bag… just in case.

I got to early service and barely participated as I pondered the upcoming Sunday School class.  I printed off a lesson from a curriculum we never finished.  I drank some coffee.  I did not have high hopes.

I got to class, not sure what to expect.   Three preteen boys sprawled on the youth group couch and chairs stared back at me.  Great.  Just great.

We began by talking about school.  It had been awhile since I caught up with these kids, so hearing about their lives was well… refreshing.  After about 15 minutes we dove into the lesson: The importance of getting into the Word.  Since none of the kids actually brought their Bibles to class, looking up verses about the merits of Bible study suddenly became a bit pointless.   So I just started a dialog.  And you know what, it was really great.

We talked about the struggle of not only making time for God’s word, but mustering up the mental energy to really get something out of it.  As one guy put it, “There’s no point reading it if you’re not really going to focus, because then you have no idea what you just read.”  So true.

We talked about the temptation to put it off until it never gets done.  I shared from the The Screwtape Letters that one of Satan’s tactics is not to get us to think that prayer and Bible study aren’t important, rather he wants us to think they are SO IMPORTANT that we need to WAIT for a special time to do it.. and that very special time never comes.

We talked about how the Bible isn’t like a novel or other books, which have all the details laid out for you.  You have to really think about the story to picture it in your head.  You have do do a little commentary exploration for the full story.

By the end of class, that experience was one of the best Sunday School’s I’ve ever “taught”.  And maybe that’s because I didn’t really teach anything.  We discussed, we tried to plan, we gave suggestions and we prayed.  We gathered together and believers and supported each other and challenged each other.  That, I think, is what church is all about.

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Appleseeds Program: A Review

By | May 26, 2010 | Reviews, Small Groups | 6 Comments


We’ve been doing the Appleseed program for about 8 weeks now, and I am really pleased with the results. I’ve gotten a chance to connect with a small group of girls on a really meaningful level and we’ve had a lot of fun in the process! I thought I’d share some do’s and don’t's of the program in case you were considering it for your own church.

DO THESE THINGS:

  • Have the program! It is a great way for the girls to get to know other ladies in the congregation and for some adults to connect with the kids program in a way they might not have otherwise.
  • Read through the book before launching the program. I found that some of the chapters/crafts were a little over the girls head or just plain not applicable. I love the concept of exploring what we’re looking at, listening to, talking about (all chapter themes), but it might be worth taking the best of the book and adding your own stuff to it. Email me for more details on what I thought was the best of the book.
  • Have snacks! The first week the girls were really shy about eating. However, by the end of the night, they had cleaned up an entire pan of brownies (and there were only four girls!). I found having some snacks on hand really helped to loosen the girls up a bit.
  • Be aware of cliques. We had a few girls drop out because they weren’t super good friends with some of other girls, so be prepared for that. There was no bullying or teasing, but I guess they just felt uncomfortable. If I run the program again, I might spend the first week or two doing some “community building” activities in order to solidify the group and keep girls (hopefully) from dropping out.
  • Have mentors. Whether you use the Appleseed curriculum or not, be sure to include other ladies in your congregation. It is very rewarding for everyone involved.
  • Consider having the mentors come two weeks in a row. One of the ladies shared with me that it was tough getting into the groove of things because she had no background experience. It would have been nice, she explained to come one week to observe and other week to teach/share.

DON’T DO THESE THINGS:

  • Run the program for 10 weeks. We’re on week 8 and attendance is starting to fizzle out. Do an 8 week program or even a 6 week program. Better to keep them wanting more than to get tired of it.
  • Necessarily buy books for all the girls. Only one of our girls really did the Bible study part at home, and it might just be an added frustration and cost you don’t need. The girls can complete the Bible study all together each week and still get lots of application.
  • Be surprised if the girls head off on all kinds of rabbit-trails. The girls we had were FULL of questions, and I was happy to take detours and answer them. I think that’s what small groups are all about. Talking about things that matter to the participants personally. We’ve had chats on spiritual warfare, girl troubles, family situations, and more. The weeks I really enjoyed were the weeks that the girls got “down and dirty” with their questions. I felt like we were really connecting faith to life in those moments.
Other Posts You that May Interest You:

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Spy Guy (Part Three)

By | May 9, 2010 | Elementary Age | 1 Comment

This the last installment of our three part series. Be sure to check out the bloopers at the end. Joe (Spy Guy) had a blast coming up with all of those!

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