from 30K feet

Planning Getaway

Sherry and I had the privilege of getting away for a few days to do some planning for this coming year. My parents came down and stayed with the kids Thursday and Friday while we went to the lake. A family in our church graciously loaned us their lake house over these two days. This was absolutely the perfect setting for a couple of reasons.

·         We were only 45 minutes from home – we didn’t spend much of our time just driving.

·         It was quiet with no distractions – we were completely alone.

·         The house and location was stunning – we were surrounded by God’s creation…very inspiring!

·         It was free!

 

We spent our time talking through the different areas of our lives from our marriage to how to spend vacation time. We allowed ourselves to dream but also talked and planned through the everyday practical things too.  We started several years ago using a four quadrant worksheet to set goals for each of the kids. It was great to look back and see how they are progressing and set goals for the future too. Here are the topics we covered during our planning getaway.

·         Our relationship

·         Each of the children

·         Home schooling

·         The house

·         Evenings / discretionary time

·         Finances

·         Church

·         Vacations

It takes some planning to pull this kind of getaway off but it is completely worth it.  We took a lot of notes and worked through some issues we almost never have time to discuss.

 

Summer Content

I mentioned in a post called God's One Big Story back at the end of March that I was writing the material we planned to use for the 13 weeks of summer for our 3rd & 4th graders.

Carla asked if I would share the lessons. So here you go Carla, I hope it is helpful.

Download Summer Journal w notes page

Here are some things you might need to know.

Garage Time Notes - You will see that each week includes a Garage Time Notes page. The Garage is our large group setting where we will do worship and teaching. I want the kids to take notes by writing down key words and phrases so this page is included as the place to do that. 

Family Fusion - You will see a Family Fusion page at the end of each week. The kids should be able to do most of the other pages on their own but Family Fusion is designed to do together as a family. (hence the name)

If you download the document you will see that it only covers 8 weeks...so where is the rest of it?

Three reasons it is only 8 weeks.

1. We are using it as a booklet style piece and 50 pages is about the max our printer here at church will staple and fold without choking.
2. We will have the rising 6th graders with us until July 12 and then they will move up to the student ministries. No need to print any more than we need.
3. I don't have the last 5 weeks finished yet.

New Office!

Currently, I share an office with a ministry assistant and four Area Coordinators. Our office is next to the Fellowship Kids Director and Coordinator office with a connecting door. I love this configuration because we are all right together which provides some synergy and collaboration. The only drawback is, I do not have an office of my own.

I absolutely love the people I work with and being a former teacher and father of four, the noise doesn't bother me. So what is it? The truth is, there are many times I need to be alone to just think, plan and get direction from God and that can be difficult to do with the unpredictability of shared office space, not to mention private meetings and phone calls.

So, several weeks ago I proposed to my XP the idea of creating an office within an office by simply adding a wall and a door. We talked it through with the facility manager and he agreed to at least get a quote. I got a call yesterday while I am on vacation at the beach that the quote was lower than expected so they were going to get started on redoing the office. 

The first step is to remove the cabinets and patch the walls and carpet. The demolition has begun while I am enjoying the sand and surf with my family. Is God good or what?

  Jim isn't really resting but instead giving a little demo of what it will be like for me when I have my own office where I can put my feet up.

I am looking forward to my new office!

Mission Project - Water of Life

I am very excited about an opportunity I have this summer to go on one of Southside's mission trips to Liberia. Southside has taken a major interest in working with Samaritan's Purse and a Greenville based ministry called Water of Life.

Here is a link to an article that explains more. Clean Water Gives Liberians a Chance for a Healthy Life

The Pebble Project, a ministry of Water of Life, is an initiative to raise awareness and money to provide clean water to the people of Liberia through the construction of wells.

 

I will talk more about this project later but what makes this upcoming trip even more special for me is taking my oldest son. Being gone together for 21 days in Africa serving God should prove to be an adventure.

Preparing for Summer Program

Normally, the programming changes for us over the summer so I have been preparing the material we will use. First let me talk about what the format will be for the upper elementary ages.

Small Groups - We will start the kids off in informal small groups. This means they will come in and connect up with their leader and then meet in some corner or other section of the room. They will have several discussion questions to talk about. Then we will bring all of the them into The Garage for large group time.

Large Group - Their time in The Garage will be large group high energy worship plus some large group teaching.

Then they will finish up back in their small groups to discuss what they have learned. So here are the goals for this summer program.

Bible Use - I want to see these kids get into their bibles. I want this to be more than just bringing them to get  points. (We will be giving no points or rewards for bringing your bible!) I want them to read and investigate what God's story is.

Large Group Learning - The large group learning time will be fun and engaging but most of all they will learn. So I want to see every kid with their bible,journals (which we will provide), and a pen taking notes as we go through the material. I hope I get a million emails from parents about all the questions their kids are asking at home.

Parents Involved - I am not talking about on Sunday but during the week. In their journals there are activities that parents can do with their kids plus doing the study that is included.

Being as prepared as possible will increase our chances for success...so I keep working.