"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." -- Jesus
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SSTN # 37 - May 8, 2006
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IN THIS ISSUE OF THE SSTN e-NEWSLETTER:
Color Coded Product Areas
1) Growing In God's Word 2) Donation Necessary? 3) Complaint on SSTN 4) Crippled Lamb Christmas program?
After Easter Activities
5) Growing In God's Word 6) Lord's Prayer Tune 7) Making Palm Trees 8) Growing In God's Word 9) Christmas In July?
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Color Coded Product Areas
For your convenience the curriculum pages have been totally revamped! Products are now placed into color-coded areas to help you identify specific ministry resources in the following areas:
Main page with contact info (yellow) Bible-4-Life Curriculum (turquoise), Gospel Fun Activities (purple), Easy Make N' Take Downloads (navy), Holidays & Holy Days (red).
I sure hope you find this to be helpful! I welcome your feedback.
Your webservant, Sarah Keith <>< SundaySchoolNetwork.com
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1) Growing In God's Word
Hi everyone, can we please stop squabbling over research methods for sunday school material and maybe get on with the jobs that we're supposed to be doing rather than arguing with ourselves. After all it's not a good witness, remember this memory verse: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
John 13:35
thanks
Beth
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2) Donation Necessary?
I received an email this week from a subscriber asking, "Is a financial donation to the newsletter necessary in order to keep receiving it? and if it was, "then I should remove her from SSTN."
The answer to this question is, "yes" and "no". Everyone is entitled to join the network with a complimentary subscription, but the fact is that if no one supported my work, then SundaySchoolNetwork.com and the SSTN newsletter could not continue.
My hope is that you find the site and newsletter to be helpful to your ministry. I also hope you find it to be an outlet whereby you can share your ideas with other Christian educators. With this in mind, without your support other Christians and soon-to-be Christians cannot benefit from it. So, if you're reading this newsletter and using the site, then you and I have my Support Partners to thank! ;o))
In service together for Him, Sarah Keith <>< SundaySchoolNetwork.com
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3) Complaint on SSTN
This is in response to Shawna in Canada. I must say you are the first person I have seen in the two years I have been part of this network who has had a complaint of any type. I have always been extremely happy with all responses. Sometimes we must be patient and wait for the replies because not all of us are able to sit down daily to review the newsletters. Just as you stated in your letter; you don't have time to go thru the archives, so it is with some of us. Sometimes I miss the newsletters because more than one person checks them out at my house and will delete them when they are finished...I am very dissappointed that you responded in the way you did...I hope this is not a reflection as to how you handle situations in your children's ministries. Dianne in AL
--from SSTN: Dianne: I wish I could same the same, I receive lots of complaints all year long for different things I have said or done in the network that someone doesn't approve of. In the beginning it REALLY hurt my feelings, but now I'm not quite as sensitive. Unfortunately I've had to develop a bit of a thick skin.
Anyway, please pray that I'll have the wisdom to know how to handle these situations as they arise in SSTN.
Your webservant, Sarah Keith <><
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4) Crippled Lamb Christmas program?
I am considering centering our church Christmas program around Max Lucado's book "The Crippled Lamb." For those unfamiliar with the book it is about a little lamb who is crippled and different from everyone. Because of this, he ends up in the stable with baby Jesus and learns to love himself in the process and also that Jesus came to this earth to save us. I was thinking that someone could sit around the Christmas tree with some children and read the story to them (choir in the background) while a few children act out the story. Any ideas of Christmas songs that could be placed in or around the story that would be fitting, or any other ideas in general for the program? Thanks! Jill
Whoa. I guess you don't think the rest of us are busy too, in our own ministry to children, working, family, etc. You expect us to take our time to search for you, and neglect the children God has put in our churches/ministry??? While all of us are passionate about children (or we would not be doing what we do), I think all would agree the children in our ministry come first. As a CM director, as well as a teacher trainer and speaker who travels lots of miles every year, one of the things we advocate is balance. Getting to know the children/interacting is important, but on the other side of the scale - preparation and teaching them the Word is also essential.
I do not consider any time I am on the computer putting lessons together, researching for an upcoming lesson, etc., as play time. That is time spent in preparation so I can reach children with the Gospel.
This forum, along with several others, is a great SHARING place. We all share ideas with each other, and use each others ideas. Other people think of things we have never thought of, and by sharing ideas we all benefit. However, if a person uses ideas and never posts any, that sort of messes up the sharing idea. Sarah has the archives set up so well that searching a subject is quick and easy.
Just my 2 cents!
TB
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6) Lord's Prayer Tune
Ishmael has a good version on the album '52 scripture songs with Ishmael'
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7) Making Palm Trees
--from SSTN: A lot of palm trees are being made out there. ;o)) We received multiple replies on this. Rather than post them all, I'll post a few of the ones which were different:
We did a teacher appreciation banquet that had a Hawaiian theme. We made palm trees out of the tubes that you get large rolls of paper on. We wrapped them with brown construction paper that we had cut slits in the tops of. When the tube was all wrapped in the construction paper we bent the tops back to look like the bark of the palm tree. Then we cut out leaves from green tissue wrap. Attached a wire to them and used duct tape to secure them to the top inside of the tube. Yellow colored balloons were used to represent pineapples.
If you are looking for other decorating ideas, we also made grass shacks to serve the food in. What we did was set up a shade tent (awning), then we put a table under the tent, used a Hawaiian style print table cloth and put a grass table skirt around the bottom. Palm branches were put around the edge of the table to make it blend in. The top of the tent was covered with another grass table skirt. Toy snakes and other animals were put around the poles to decorate them. We also put Tekki poles around the tent (of course, unlit). If you don't want to spend the money for grass table skirts, brown paper can be used to create a table skirt that looks like grass. Simply tape it from the top of the table to the floor and then cut strips in it.
Connie G.
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Susie: We made palm trees a couple of years ago for our VBS. We got carpet roll tubes from a carpet shop and a local florist donated a bunch of palm leaves. (You could also make the palm leaves from green posterboard.) We used a staple gun to secure the branches to the tubes. I hope this helps. Sherri
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For Tall Palm Trees Supplies: A roll of brown craft paper or lots of brown construction paper and a roll of green paper (from teacher store) a. Look at the shape of the stalk of a palm and cut out pieces to that shape. b. Start at the bottom of your area and tape the first one, then overlap the second, etc. c. Once you have your palm as tall as you wish or when you are tired, begin to tape the fronds. d. If you have any more energy left, make some balls out of brown tissue paper and put at the center of the fronds for coconuts. Sandra
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We made palm trees for our Christmas Pageant several years ago, and we are still using them for various events.
We were fortunate to have someone who was handy with power tools and hardware stores, and had a pickup truck, who helped out.
We went to our local carpet store who gave us the carpet roll tubes - these come in 12' lengths (they offered to cut them for us - so we had them done in different heights) They are very, very sturdy.
Our handy man cut foot square pieces of wood and screwed on a plastic plug (from the Home Depot) to the top of the wood, which fit the tube. The tube (palm trunk) was placed firmly over the plug. We painted the trunks with brown squiggle to resemble a plam tree. We bough round green foam balls from Costume and Display (local to us in Seattle but available on the web) - these are firmer then the green foam you use for wet flower arrangements . Our handy man drilled four holes near the top edge of the trunk , we then hot glued the balls in place , and used nylon cable ties (more Home Depot) and criss crossed them across the top of the balls going through the holes in the trunk - we did this because we were concerned about the balls popping loose, which has never happened. For the fronds I cut the long, sucker branches from a tree in my yard - any long, thin branches would work. We glued end to end large size pieces of dark green construction paper, folded them in half lengthwise, and cut palm fronds - they varied in size and length. We then hot glued the frond to the branches. My branches had a natural curve to them and the fit really well into the crease of the paper. I thing we used around 12 branches per tree.
As you can tell these were fairly involved to make, but with several people helping it's make it not hard to do, and they didn't cost too much. We broke the job down into tasks - our handy man + 3 painters ( 2 would have been fine), 2 frond makers/gluers (this was more time consuming then we expected, I would get a few more helpers). We made 5 palm trees and have taken them to camp, lent them to another church for VBS, and to a school for a play, used them for Christmas Pageants and Sunday School rotations. And just recently had to replace some of the fronds.
Blessings, Linda in Edmonds
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8) Growing In God's Word
We had a VBS that we wrote ourselves called "Down on the Farm". If you would like to use some of our songs or puppet shows, please feel free to email me at Singer1966@aol.com... This is a very busy time we live in, and anything that I have written or found on the internet thru hours of searching I would love to share with any of you. We should all want to help each other further the cause of our Lord and Savior! This newsletter has been a God-send for me... I hope you will continue to enjoy it as much as I have! Sarah, thank you for publishing all of the replies, even if some are not exactly nice... It helps me to see that we all fall short, and not just Me..LOL
Sandy from Indiana
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9) Christmas In July?
Hi, I'm doing a Christmas In July theme for VBS this summer, does anyone have any ideas? Blessings, Sherri
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