I’m helping lead a 3rd-5th grade boys small group during our 3rd worship experience. I’ve had 2 weeks and still can’t believe all the things I’m learning about them, life, God, and my faith.
Here’s just a small sample. We were in large group worship time and when the song leader announced that we’d be singing a worship song that would help us worship with our hearts (read slower tempo), I braced myself for behavior issues. Not only did the guys join right in, they drew me in as well. Imagine my surprise to find myself in an emotional encounter with Christ. It really was the highlight of my Sunday. During a slow song that I guessed would unleash all kinds of behavioral issues, no less. What will children teach us if only we are open to receiving?
I think I’m going to ask for a new requirement in our membership covenant at Crossroads: “I covenant to spend quality time learning from children each week.”
Doing life with a mobile church definitely makes some interesting moments...make that some interesting hours, both before and after Sunday experiences. It can be hard work, it can get in the way of "my" schedule, but NEVER once have I thought "It's not worth this". To be able to create exciting environments for kids (and adults) to learn about God and worship Him in is one of the coolest things around. Every Saturday night a team takes a boring school cafeteria and turns it into an exciting place for kids and their parents to come on Sunday morning. Then Sunday afternoon we get to carefully pack things away, to be ready for next week, and turn that great place back into a boring cafeteria :). This transformation of space can take several hours, and often does. But this past Sunday we had some incredible help! Staging was taken down, tables were moved in, chairs put out, the trailer loaded up, all in under one hour and everyone seemed to have fun while they were doing it. It's amazing what a group of people can do when everyone pitches in and we all work together! So, if you were one of my helpers this week, THANKS!!! You showed cooperation (last month's virtue) and compassion (this month's virtue), and made a really important task a lot of fun! If you weren't able to stay and enjoy this opportunity last week, consider doing so this week. You might be pleasantly surprised by the impact you can have to change lives!
I do about 90% of my musical acquisitions at Sweetwater Sound in Indiana. I have always bought most of my stuff from them. There president is close friends with my former studio partner. Anyway cool company, cool people. On a lark I signed up for there 21 days of Christmas and won! A pro tools system. I don't use protools. I'm a performerand liveguy so I will have to find a good home for it. Very cool none the less.
One of my life joys is teaching people to play the violin. Part of the joy comes in learning so much from my students. Take Micah and his most recent lesson. This second grader is a bundle of energy and curiosity. Sometimes that means we stop the lesson so he can run around the house a couple of times. Some weeks it does so much good, I ought to try that at my Crossroads work space!
More than his energy, it’s Micah’s curiosity and eagerness to explore that fills me with so much wonder and joy. He’s already trained me to expect that he’ll pop out some piece on me that wasn’t included in the assigned practicing for that week. I love to see what he’s experimented with. It actually seems to accelerate the rest of his skill development.
So often, I find myself thinking that a person needs to fit into my track and follow my sequence. Shari Glass, our Director of Kid Crossing was wondering why parents weren’t taking advantage of a certain take-home resource. We’re realizing that the way in which it has been presented doesn’t make a very easy, obvious, and strategic next step for parents. In an earlier day, my first response would have been to place the blame on the parents. Now I’m exploring what needs to change on our end of things so that the take-home resource will be more effectively utilized by our parents.
Exploring takes more work but it also offers the possibility of much more exciting rewards. Thanks, Micah, for reminding me that exploring can be lots of fun and can accelerate learning.
Crossroads own Brian Glass is going nationwide on ABC News. check out the story here. Click on the video. Brian is credited at the bottom. In Brian's words. "My animation is the very last footage on the video for this story" ( they used a piece of blender animation Brian Created).
