SS-120

In addition to giving you the week-by-week topics for the Sunday School lessons, I occasionally want to give you the big picture so that you can see where we are headed.  Starting this Sunday, we will begin our New Testament series, which lasts for 6 months every year.  In the coming months, we will learn the following:

You may end up getting this newsletter twice today, due to some technical difficulties.  Enjoy!

Last week I asked you to guess which ministry will be renamed with the initials N.G.L.  If you were hoping for the New Guinea Lions, sorry to burst your bubble.  The Children's Ministry Library will be renamed the Next Generation Library!  This is because it will be expanding to include a variety of resources for youth.  You can expect to see a great selection of these resources starting on January 9! 

In January, one of the current Childen's Ministry programs will get a new name, with the acronym N.G.L.  Take a guess which of these will be the new name:

• Narrow Gate to Life
• New Grass Lawn
• Next Generation Library
• Nehemiah's Great Leadership
• Needing God's Love
• New Guinea Lions

So which one is it?  Check out next week's SS-120 to find out!!

Starting next week, I be sending the SS-120 from a different newsletter service.  I am telling you now in case your e-mail server thinks it is spam.  The title will be, "Merry Christmas from the Children's Museum".  In that issue, I'll let you know about a chance that your family can attend the Indianapolis Children's Museum for free! 

A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Justin gave some very helpful information about the youth culture of today.  This was not only helpful to those who currently have teenagers; if your children are not quite youth, you need to be looking ahead!  Be sure to come to Part 2 of this important workshop this Sunday at 12:30.  Bring your lunch to the Youth Room, even if you missed Part 1.  See you there!

Sorry for the delay this week.  We've had some technical difficulties.

Last week I mentioned some metaphors for children's ministry that are not helpful.  By contrast, consider the following:

• Planting/ watering seeds, then helping the plant to grow
• Pilgrims/ guide
• Sheep/ shepherd
• Disciple
• Relay race

Here are some reasons for using these kinds of metaphors:

Metaphors can be helpful for clarifying how something should look or function.  Here are some metaphors that are often used to describe children:

This morning I was listening to the Family Life program on Moody Radio.  The guest (Rick Phillips) was suggesting four kinds of things that parents (fathers in particular) can do to have a huge impact on their children.  Consider the value of the following:  

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters--one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity" --President John F. Kennedy.

Have you ever asked yourself the question, "Am I smart?"  Have you ever wondered how smart your children are?  The CM Library has a great book called "How Am I Smart? A Parent's Guide to Multiple Intelligences" by Kathy Koch.  I would encourage you to read this book in detail, and you can get an overview of it this Sunday when I'll do a workshop about it.  You can come to the gym from 3:25-4:00 to learn: