God's Power

Monday morning and the van is loaded for Fontana's Backyard Bible Club.  Once I arrive on location, it takes me about 1/2 hour to set up.  Kid arrive anytime between 9:00 (at my Campbelltown group) to 9:45 am.  When the kids arrive, they stop by the registration table to sign in, say memory verses, pick up their bags and Bible Bucks.  Note to all my kids:  you will get a new paper bag each week.  So leave your old bags at home. 

This week, we made a Pentecostal Rusher.  I got this idea from this website:  http://www.sundayschoolnetwork.com/curr-dwn-Pentecost-craft.html

Not only did the kids love making this toy, they also enjoyed figuring out how to get it to work. 




For playground time, I had nine square in the air set up for the Fontana group and we played Tenzie with the Campbelltown group. Nine square in the air works best with 3rd grade and up.  When I made my game, I made the height adjustable so that younger (and shorter) kids can play.  Nine square in the air is four square and volleyball colliding. 

Tenzie is a great game for small groups.  The idea is everyone gets ten dice.  On "go" everyone begins rolling their dice trying to get the same number.  I use this a lot for small groups and/or a rainy day game.  If I have a younger group, then I only give them five dice. 






Tent Time began with singing.  Then I told a story about an empty glass of meadow tea and a black ant who discovered it.  This ant proceeded to tell all this friends the good news about the tea.  Soon, the ant and all his friends were at the glass enjoying the tea at the bottom.  Jesus wants us to be like the ant and tell our friends about him.  See Acts 1:8 for Jesus' command.  This is also this weeks Bible Verse.  Our Bible Lesson came from Acts 2.  Our word of the day and main character is the Holy Spirit.  We learned that the Holy Spirit is part of God.  Jesus promised that all who call on Him to save them from the punishment of sin (eternal death) will receive the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit gives us power to be Jesus' witness.  In Acts 2, we saw how the Holy Spirit gave Peter (who just 50 days before was hiding in fear) the power to boldly tell the people of Jerusalem that the Promise One came and they crucified him, but God raised him from the dead three days later.  Peter gave witness to the fact that he saw Jesus alive!  The crowd then asked, "What must we do to be saved?"  Peter answered, "Repent (admit your sinned and turn to God), and be baptized in the name of Jesus. Then you too will receive the Holy Spirit."  That day 3,000 people believed.  That was the beginning of what we call the church. 

After snack time, we played a game called the Bucket Game.  Because of my large group, I made my own buckets out of gallon milk containers.  I cut the tops off and punched two holes at the top of one side.  Through these holes I put a yard of twine.  We tied a "bucket" to each kids back.  Half of the "buckets" had blue caps and half at red caps.  This divided the group into teams.  To begin everyone got a bean bag.  I put the extra bean bags on a pile in the middle of the playing field.  On "go" each kid tried to toss, place/ throw their bean bag into a bucket of the other team.  They could only have one bean bag in their hand at a time.  After a set time, I had the teams return to their side of the field and we counted the bean bags in their buckets.  The team that had the least bags won.  For my smaller group (Campbelltown), we didn't play as teams.    I hope the kids had as much fun as we did watching them!

This week's missionary story told the true story of Saint Patrick.  St. Patrick was captured by pirates when he was 14-15 years old.  They took him to the island of Ireland where they sold him as a slave.  After 4 years, he escaped and slowly returned home.  Yet, years later, God convinced him to return to Ireland to teach the people to read and write AND tell them about Jesus.  This book was purchased from the Voice of the Martyrs. 

Our review game was called "Power Up".  I divided the kids into teams.  When a kid answered a question correctly, they could pick as many rocket ships as they wanted.  Their team received the points that were on the rocket ship, BUT if they picked a ship that said "POWER FAILURE" they lost ALL their points.  If they picket a ship that said, "POWER BOOST", then their points doubled. 

I handed out issue 2 of the Jerusalem Journal this week.  Can't wait until next week, when my evening Backyard Bible Clubs begin.