My name on a sign!

Several churches from the area took advantage of this Kidology to Go. Bethany Evangelical Missionary Church was a great host and Children’s Pastor Tim Bryson really made this day a quality time of training, equipping and laughter! The church also asked me to speak on Sunday morning and I really enjoyed speaking with the church on the importance of reaching the next generation. Very cool to be with our friends north of the border!

The boys got to play hockey in the church’s gym! Well, floor hockey anyway.

Shelly Burkett

Children’s Ministry Pastor Shelly Burkett will be our host and from the looks of the church website she has got a really tremendous children’s ministry and attendees at this Kidology to Go will be inspired just by coming to this church and rubbing shoulders with this choice servant of Christ! Anyone in the Michigan or northern region of Indiana will want to consider coming to this fun, encouraging and sometimes crazy time of equipping! Register online before the day of the conference and get $5 off admission, just $10 for a great day of training! At that price you can bring your whole team.

Kids from First Baptist Church in Cadillac

Pastor Randy in the Monkey Room

We had a great crowd out for this training session because of the great leg work done by Pastor Randy and his staff. The facilities in the children’s area are first class and entice kids to come in because this place is fun. Just coming into the building is a vision lifter for anyone who works with kids. The day started off with some lively kids-style worship complete with a dancing ape!

After I spoke in the opening session, the attendees were given several choices each breakout session in various areas of specialty. Patsy even spoke twice on children’s worship. We ended the day with a question and answer time from the presenters and some give aways including a bunch of candy shot from an air canon Pastor Randy invented and sells. The day was so full of fun and good stuff I just “HAD” to have a butterscotch cappuccino from the church’s own coffee shop “La Cafe” in order to keep up!

Ebony the mascot of the children's ministry

One of our favorite memories of the weekend was watching Pastor Randy’s full-size poodle Ebony walk around the church interacting with people. She is the children’s ministries mascot and she interacts with the kids yet is a well-mannered lady of a dog. Plus she is completely hypoallergenic. How fun is that!

Bethany Evangelical Missionary Church

Tim has been a faithful pastor at his church and employs a wonderful sense of creativity to all that he do. There will no doubt be many things that we all can learn just from visiting his church. Marty will also be preaching at the church on Sunday morning. His sermon is entitled “For Such a Time as This” and will cover the topic of the timeliness of discipling this generation of young people who may be as Josh McDowell’s call them the “Last Christian Generation” of the west.

Pastor Tim Bryson

Kitchener is close to Toronto, London, Hamilton and even Detroit - so anyone close to this area be sure to mark calendars and get online and register for this event. You can register for this Kidology to Go by going to the Kidology.org for $10 or register at the door for $15.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” -

Jesus

History is full of examples of heroic and courageous and selfless deeds, right alongside cowardly and evil acts. The tension between being created in the image of God and having a fallen nature is seen not just in individuals but in all of humankind in a general sense.

War can serve as a fire that brings out the worst and best in our souls. Incredible acts of love wrought out side by side unspeakable acts of horror. Our culture tends to view war in two erroneous ways. At times we forget that freedom, justice and honor have been bought with price and evil and oppression will seek to dominate free individuals until Christ returns. Others tend glorify war as some sort of adventure game for young men who are longing for some sort of bold quest or crusade.

Martin family in front of the "Angel" statue

Visiting battle sites across our country has helped us as parents give our sons a full picture of both the horrors of war and the price that was paid for our freedom today and the honor that is due those who paid this price. At the Fredericksburg National Battlefield site in middle Virginia we introduced our sons to an incredible tale and individual known as the Angel of Marye’s Heights.

The Angel is Sgt. Richard Kirkland, a Confederate soldier from South Carolina. From behind a sunken road a brick wall, Confederates had repelled thousands of Union soldiers attempting to take the strategic hill and move unto Richmond. After a bloody battle, some 8,000 Union soldiers lay in between two armies, dead or injured. Many were crying out for help.

Richard Kirkland asked his commanding office if he could take water to the injured enemy soldiers. He was granted permission and jumped from behind the safety of the wall and took water to hundreds of thirsty soldiers. The Union troops from down the hill soon saw what he Kirkland was up to and not held off from firing but cheered him on.

Kirkland’s kindness to his enemies soon became the stuff of legends and the story was spread throughout the land. He was later killed himself in a battle in Georgia. Today though the courage and compassion of this 19 year old young man is still remembered by all those who visit this site. He was in a way the embodiment of what Jesus said when he urged us to love our enemies. His story illustrates both the honor and the horrors of war. May we never take the price that was paid for our freedoms.

We are super excited to be partnering with Only Believe Ministries Christian Center at 13815 Botkins Road in Botkins, Ohio! Our host Children’s Pastor Randy Waters and his team at Only Believe put together this amazing video to promote the upcoming conference on Saturday, April 28.

This Kidology to Go will have an expanded format and featuring eight different session options and live children’s ministry style worship. Registration will begin at 7:30 in the morning and this fun day of training will run until 4:00 p.m. Quite a bargain for $10 advance registration. Lunch will be available for $5 each as well.

Botkins is close to Columbus, Ohio, so anyone close to this area be sure to mark calendars and get online and register for this event. You can register for this Kidology to Go by going to the Kidology.org for $10 or register at the door for $15.

Patsy and our hostess Elisabeth

The original church building is a wonderful classic structure, a gorgeous place to worship. We enjoyed the Sunday morning sermon and a fried chicken lunch after church. Our young boys loved their time in children’s church and keep asking us to go back to “that cool church!”

Siler Presbyterian

We had around thirty children’s ministry workers attend this conference and we will always have warm memories of the people who came and interacted with us here!

While the Billy Graham Library in  Charlotte is certainly a testament to this man’s faithfulness to his calling and God’s Word, it is more than that. Anyone who visits the library will hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached several times in the straightforward manner Billy Graham made famous. We were all pressed into the conviction we can do more to speak boldly about our faith and our hope in Jesus as the lone path to salvation.

Tanner is a very spiritually tuned in young man and he had a couple of great observations as we walked through the museum that detailed various eras and aspects of Billy Graham’s life and ministry. He said “I just feel like I know him now” and most impressive to me “I feel like I grew in my Christian walk today more than any other day!” Well that made the trip worthwhile for me!

Our younger boys like the “talking cow” Bessie who welcomes you into the huge barn facade of the museum and tells you a bit about Billy growing up on a dairy farm nearby. There are numerous video presentations throughout the museum as well as lots of photographs and memorabilia that is part of the Graham household. Did you know Billy Graham has personally prayed for and gave spiritual advice to every US President since Harry Truman! Plus he met with countless other world leaders and politicians.

I especially liked the interview clips they played that showed Billy getting some tough questions about the Bible and the Christian faith. Each time he calmly but courageously answered using the Bible to explain the eternal Truths of God. What an example to all of us of sticking to God’s Word, boldly and kindly sticking to the truth and loving people who may even be trying to chide him or belittle him. Great example for all of us.

Siler Presbyterian Church.

The schedule for the day will start off with Kidology 101: relating to kids in their culture. The rest of the day we will cover “Keeping Control of Kids” for Workshop Session 2, split into “Engaging a Generation in Worship” and “Learning Styles” for Session 3, and “Blend” for Session 4.  What a full day of learning, laughing and growing!

Children's Ministry Director Elisabeth Smith gets her nerd self going

Children’s Ministry Director Elisabeth Smith has a wonderful ministry at Siler Presbyterian and if you attend you will be encouraged just to look around and ask her and her team some questions on how things operate at this first rate church. The address for the church is Siler Presbyterian Church 6301 Weddington-Monroe Road Wesley Chapel, NC  28104 and the phone number is 704-821-7445.

You can register for this Kidology to Go by going to the Kidology.org for $10 or register at the door for $15. We look forward to meeting everyone who comes and sharing with you what God has put on our hearts after our experiences serving Him and kids in the local church.

Teaching at Kidology to Go

The participants were super and got involved and asked questions and interacted. Most importantly they laughed at my jokes!! All together we had a little over 30 people attend the session and we spoke on relating to kids, classroom management, learning styles and my favorite – creating crazy characters for kid’s church!

Pastor Jim O'Connor and the Kidology to Go RV

On Sunday we attended church at Calvary Chapel and we loved it. The children’s area are bright and fun and the teachers are very kind and welcoming. Pastor Jim has a done a great job of creating a culture that welcomes new people. The adult service was great as well. The senior pastor truly preaches God’s Word with clarity and boldness. I love it when a pastor actually preaches through and from the Bible! If we ever make it back to the area we will know which church we want to attend.

Bicycle built for seven

We stayed in a field near the church while we were there and got to photograph this little kestrel who was looking high and  mighty on his perch above us! I love the way he flies like a little jet plane, swooping and diving and pulling up and switching directions. Sort of like a miniature F16! Even in the midst of teaching and preparing, God allowed us to see and photograph some wildlife, which has become a hobby we love!

After church on Sunday our family went to Firehouse Subs where our kids had the best time they have had in months, playing with their fancy soda dispensign machines (with flavor enhancers there are like 145 choices). After that we drove to the pier in downtown St. Petersburg where we rented a huge bicycle for an hour and peddled around the boardwalk. We saw lots of wildlife including a small pod of dolphins very close to the waterfront and some very cool birds called black skimmers. These birds look like a mix of a toucan and a seagull. We spotted a very large horse shoe crab doing his best to crawl bak out into the ocean before getting spotted by a predator.

The afternoon bike ride was a great way to see some of St. Petersburg and not very costly! We decided maybe next we should see America on a bike! Ha – not going to do it!!