Lifeway Submerged VBS 2016

Submerged...it's an interesting theme to say the least, but do what you gotta do to reach thousands of families with the good news of Christ.

VBS is a must do at many churches. It's a week full of fun, music, and memories. 

As a lfie long church goer, I can still sing the theme songs of Rickshaw Rally (2004) and Artic Edge (2006) thanks to many summers spent in Brentwood Baptist and Triune Baptist.

It's effective. I don't care how you look at it, VBS works. There's just something about motions, themed crafts, and extreme decorations that prepare hearts for the Lord's work to be done. 

I don't know what it is, but it works, so I join in every year as a teacher. This year, I taught 3 year olds...It was an adventure but worth every second, when sweet Jake sang "Jesus Loves Me" and recited the week's theme bible verse without being prompted. Every frustration, dicut cut, paper folded, all worth it for a new heart to begin to understand the amazing love of Jesus.

I failed being an artsy and efficient blogger, meaning I did not take pictures of our crafts and how they turned out, but I did keep track of every craft we did. And we did a lot.

• Pipecleaner Fish- just a pipe cleaner with beads, twisted into the shape of an isthmus fish.
• Fishnet Painting- similar to the link, except we glued dicut fish to black paper and used white paint to create the "net". Our kids were too little do do in big groups, so we had to do it two at a time
• Bean Bag Fish- this required some prep from a volunteer in our room, as it involves sewing, but it is basic sewing that practically anyone could do. See the curriculum book for more instructions!
• Necklace- an elastic string with straw pieces and beads. Make sure to use elastic though, as not all kiddos heads will fit one size (we learned the hard way)
• Ocean Bottle- most use full sized 16.9 oz water bottles, but for younger kids, the snack size 8 oz ones work great! We gave each child 2 rubber fish, some sparkles, and shells.
• Fish Measuring- Lifway supplied the kit with a strand of one inch fish to place upon a yardstick, but considering most kids are taller than 36 inches, we had some difficulty. If I were to do this again, I would simply cover the wall in butcher paper, mark their heads with a marker, and let them fill up the space between their mark and the ground with dicut fish.
• Jelly Fish Sun Catcher- the contact paper was sort of tricky to peel off, but easy peasy, and the kids loved feeling how sticky it was.
• Celery Fish- This was another hit, though many used the celery as a brush, rather than a dotter.
• Blindman Puppet- we used this in our story time. As they followed along listening, they flipped their man from blind to seeing.
• Blindfold Coloring- so simple, but so entertaining. Blindfold each child and give them each a roasting pan with paper inside, to create boundaries. Help them predetermine an object to draw: dog, house, self portrait, etc. So cute to see how things turn out!
• Handprint Fish- I loved this one. It was so precious. We used cricut cut out hearts for the lips and dot paints to create scales.
• Paper Doll Chains- Glue the cut out dolls onto black paper, so they stick out sight wise. The kids loved creating outfits and personalities for the dolls.
• Snack Mix- We made assortments of goldfish, juju fish, gummy worms, pretzels, oyster crackers, and M&Ms as a special snack on Friday. You could tie to to "these are children's favorite snacks to eat." ;)
• Sticker Octopus- use circle colored stickers or fruit loops to create suction cups for the octopus. We used stickers.

Here are some of our decorations from the week, too!

 

My VBS board on Pinterest has tons of resources, too. Granted, we didn't use them all, and everything we did do isn't on there, but it is a good place to look through.

Happy VBSing!

Lauren

Side note: being with 3 year olds, rather than elementary schoolers, we used different music. Rather than using crafty writing styles and sly theme related puns, Lifeway presents the simple truths encompassed in our week in our music, and singing a long to the basic versions of these fundamental beliefs reminded me of the goodness of God. 

"God, you know everything about me. Help me do what is right."

"Do you know that Jesus loves you? Do you know that?"

"He made me special, just the way he planned."

They are so elementary, but so important. I was moved to tears singing "Do You Know That." VBS moves in many ways, y'all."

Snowball 2016

It's actually really hard to go to sleep at a regular time when for the past two nights you've been dancing around a worship center with 188 other girls. Laying in my bed just doesn't really sound appealing in comparison despite my mere 4 hours of sleep last night.

But that's the beauty of girls' retreats, specifically Snowball. 

This year, we went to Camp Widjiwagan, and talked about sisterhood and just the community that exists within the body of Christ.

A pretty universal thing I've found in churches everywhere is that there is drama and conflict in youth groups. It's really beyond me why this happens, and it makes me really upset, but that's a conversation for another time.

But we talked about it this weekend, and I really feel that it made a difference.

There are so many directions to go with the vague topic of community in Christ, and we went in all of them. We talked about how we are capable of loving others (by loving God and loving yourself), how to love yourself and begin to see yourself how God sees you, how relationships struggle but overcome those challenges, how each girl brings something unique to the body of Christ. 

And through peer groups, fellowships, small groups, group worship, and free time, we learned all of it.

To me, the coolest things we did were DISC placement and spiritual gift tests. They sound ultra lame, but I promise they're really cool. 

For the DISC profiles, there were 15ish sets of 4 words that we had to rank ourselves 1-4. For example, the four words are "humble," "enthusiastic," "results oriented," and "organized." I would rank them 2, 4, 3, 1. After doing all of them, you add up your points accordingly, and you're given 4 categories with 4 scores. The 2 categories with the highest points are your 2 strength categories. Either D, I, S, or C, standing for driver, influencer, stabilizer, and critical thinker. 

When you take this test, you'll then be given descriptors and tendencies for your categories and find yourself going "I didn't even realize..." It's super cool, and unlike the personality tests you take in magazines, this one is applicable.

The categories that are diagonal are often the ones that are find conflict between them the most, while the ones touching horizontally or vertically typically work well together.

Check out DISC's website for more information and look over some descriptions of each and see where you and your best friend fall. Are yall diagonal or horizonal/vertical? That could explain some things.

We also took spiritual gift tests, which I love. I love finding out how I best serve the Kingdom and where I really thrive.

And in addition to taking the tests, we talked about what they mean for us in daily life. Romans 12 gives example that whatever your gift is, use it. Don't hide it. Do what God made you to do despite if it's cool or not. 

Out of all 19 spiritual gifts in the bible, my highest gift was administration. Shocker. 

If we're being real, I struggle with this being my gift. I'm good at planning and organizing and logically executing, but it's not cool to me. I'm not on stage praying out loud in front of the entire youth group. I'm not walking up to strangers in Target talking about how there is a plan for them. I'm filing papers in folders and making spreadsheets for budgets and rooming assignments for a retreat. There's nothing glamorous about that to me. Until this weekend, I honestly kind of shook it off and gave myself 0 credit for being good at being organized because clutter and chaos is glamorized in our world.

But God gave me the gift of administration for a reason (1 Corinthians 12:18) and I have no reason to not totally own it.

Really, you can't love others like Jesus calls us to without loving yourself (Mark 12:30) . You have to understand who you are, why you're that way, and what that means before you can love others.

Who are you?

stay warm!
xo,
Lauren