Easy Superheroes Idea

Adult tshirt + Felt = Awesome Superheroes Costumes for Sunday

Five Tips For A Successful Training Meeting

No one wants to attend a training meeting that feels like a waste of time. Here are five tips that will go a long way in making sure your next training meeting is a success:

1. Have a clear beginning and end time advertised. Stick to it. Trust is eroded when people realize that they cannot count on someone to do what they have said they would do. If attendees have questions at the end of the meeting, dismiss the group as a whole and answer questions of those who would like to stay longer.

2. Be able to articulate in one sentence what the meeting is for.  “We are meeting to learn the new check in system.”  “We have been discouraged so this meeting will be a time of encouragement by reminding the teachers why we do what we do.”  “We will be hearing a speaker who will educate us on social media use among preteens.”

3. Provide a visual tool for those who are not auditory. Handouts, power point or prezi presentation, charts, and object lessons go a long way in keeping people’s attention. Be creative. Use a theme for the meeting- how about a recent kid’s movie or a favorite sports team in your community?

4. Make the training practical. Tie the information back to your own church. How does this affect the kid’s ministry? How does this affect the parents? How does this affect the community around the church? Make connections between ideas and real life.

5. Food. Recently during a training meeting, I said that I would be doing some training through email so as not to kill our volunteers with meetings. One of them piped up with, “If you bring food like you just did we don’t mind.”  Don’t bring doughnuts from the gas station. Bring bagels and cream cheese from Panera. Have a favorite cook create a breakfast, lunch, or dinner buffet. Make it special. Present it in a way that speaks this:  “You are important. We appreciate you enough to spend time making this an excellent event.”

Find ideas for food here and volunteer appreciation gifts here.

How do you make your training meetings successful?

Memorable Easter Object Lesson

Dissolving paper is a tangible way to teach kids that when Jesus forgives sin, it is gone. The sight of paper dissolving before their eyes makes the lesson memorable. The dissolving paper can be purchased from magic stores or plumbing supply places.

Jesus Forgives Sin

Supplies: plastic Easter eggs, dissolving paper, pen, clear container (drinking glass works), water, red food coloring

Preparation: Place a couple drops of red food coloring in the container filled with water. Write “SIN” on small pieces of dissolving paper. Place the pieces of paper inside the Easter eggs. Hide the eggs in the room.

Have the children find the Easter eggs- one egg per child- and open the eggs.

What is written on the piece of paper hidden in your egg? “SIN”

Let’s see what happens when we drop the piece of paper into this red water. (Have the children take turns dropping their paper into the water and watching it dissolve. You might have to stir the water with a spoon.)

The red water symbolizes Jesus’ blood. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He took our sins on himself.

“Christ didn’t have any sin. But God made him become sin for us. So we can be made right with God because of what Christ has done for us.”  2 Corinthians 5:21

When we ask Jesus to forgive us for our sin, He does. It is like the piece of paper that disappeared. Jesus will not remember that sin.

Take the empty egg with you today as a reminder that the tomb that Jesus was buried in was empty on Easter morning. Jesus died on the cross for our sin but did not stay dead. He rose from the dead. He is no longer in the tomb. He gives us new life when our sins are forgiven.

How would you use this lesson on Easter or the weeks leading up to it?

 

Find Easter resources here, a free family devotional here and a preschool Easter idea here.