The 2 Commandments that Everything Hinges On

I love it when complex truth gets distilled into pure simplicity. Jesus was a master at this. The Pharisees and religious leaders were always taking Jesus on, and he was always taking them down. In Matthew 22:34-40, those tricky Pharisees come to Jesus, and they pick a lawyer (go figure) to ask Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment in the Law?" I love Jesus' answer - especially when he gets to the end and he tells them, "All the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." Wow!

So just what does the word "hang" mean? Well, you could think of it as coat hooks on a wall and everything is suspended from them. OR, you could thing of the hinges that a door hangs on. Those hinges support the whole weight of the door, and it turns on those hinges. That's how important these two commandments are.

To demonstrate this, I used a door, of course. The two commandments are #1 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and #2 Love your neighbor as yourself. We put the words LOVE GOD on the door by the top hinge and LOVE PEOPLE on the door by the bottom hinge.

Hanging the Commandments from Joan Eppehimer on Vimeo.

To make it more interesting, I had printed up, cut apart and hid the 10 commandments. I hid them so well, we never found one of them. We let the kids each read the commandment they had found, and then we decided whether it went with the LOVE GOD hinge or the LOVE PEOPLE hinge. It was a simple way to help them see how each commandment related to one of these two principles.

Incarnational Relay Race

"If an alien in a titanium spaceship landed in New York would that be a big deal? Jesus, entirely alien from anything we know, landed on earth in Bethlehem" over 2000 years ago, and he didn't even use a spaceship. We call this the incarnation, and according to Alan Root who penned that quote, there is no bigger miracle than God visiting our planet in an earth-suit (so far anyway!).

Pirating Children's Interests

In my former life, I used to work in the children’s room at a local public library. One of my jobs included being in charge of the story programs for school-age children. I often used ideas I would have used in a church program to transition into a book. Here is one of my favorite story time programs that I did: Dress Like a Pirate Day.

Of course everyone including me had to

Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

This is a very familiar story to those who grew up in the church, but if you have the privilege of teaching children who have never heard it before - it is dynamite.

I used a combination of flannel-graph and homemade action figures to teach the story.

The main point of this lesson is that Elijah is trying to bring the people to a decision - If the LORD be God, worship him, but if Baal be God, then worship him. They were wavering between two opinions and his job was to confront them with the truth and help them come to the right commitment. Their devotion was divided. God wants our undivided devotion.

Minions of Reasons to Make this Valentine

Mr. Mark, from Mr. Mark's classroom, made these cute minions from Twinkies. I loved the idea, but when I bought the Twinkies, I saw that Hostess has their name all over it. Sorry, Mr. Mark, but I had to dress this guy up more so he would really look miniony.

What you will need:

6 Ways You Can Use Canva in Minstry

KidFrugal exists to help equip and resource those in the small church children's ministry. This post is to introduce you to a great resource that is FREE. It's called Canva.

Canva helps you design beautiful graphics and it can make you look really good. They have tons of tutorials to help you get started. Once you learn your way around Canva, I think you will find it very useful. I first learned of Canva from a podcast called "Oh So Pinteresting" by Cynthia Sanchez. (You can find her blog and material under Tailwinds now.) Canva enables me to make my blog graphic the correct size for pinning. But it does a lot more...here are just 6 ways you can use it.

Thanks for Your Commit-"mint"

I saw this idea for appreciating workers on Pinterest and tweaked it a little. You can find the original posts here and here.

Basically you purchase different types of mints. York Peppermint Pattys, Mentos, Andes, Lifesaver mints, peppermint gum, hard peppermints and so on.

Feeding Elijah - Part 3

This was a fun themed review game for stories about how God fed Elijah during the three and one half years of no rain in Israel.  I like this review game for two reasons. First, it provides visual reinforcement of the story (God fed Elijah bread). Second, I like to have the kids do something active during a Bible lesson.

I put slices of bread in sandwich sized Ziploc bags and the kids tossed them into the hole if they answered a question right. Each kid had three tries.

I let the early arrival kids help make Elijah as a pre-session activity. They drew the face and hands (we actually let 2 of the kids trace their own hands). I had the board ready before class and then we just glued on the parts after the kids made them.

For part 1 of the Feeding Elijah lessons click here. For part 2 click here.

The idea for this game came from a Pinterest pin.

Feeding Elijah - The Widow Part 2

This is part 2 of Feeding Elijah. Part 1 is here. I used props and story telling for part II. Lifeway has an excellent blog on Bible storytelling that includes 6 steps of preparation for telling the story.

I acted out parts of the story as I told it, and then had 2 props I brought out at the appropriate time.

You always know when you have engaged your kids when they start to question things from the story. They wanted to know if you could really make bread with just oil and flour. I googled it, and sure enough, you can. Click here for the recipe and full instructions.

Recipe:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/2 cup water

Feeding Elijah - Life Size Diorama Part I

When you think about it, God fed Elijah for three and a half years through various means. First there was the Kerith Ravine or Valley with the ravens and brook. When that dried up, there was the widow with the bottomless jar of flour and oil.

I used flannel-graph, a life-size diorama and props to tell these Bible stories.

For the diorama, I decoarated one of our classrooms to look like the Kidron Valley. I explain what I did in this video. The ravens are really crows I bought after Halloween on sale at Joanne Fabrics. Michael's carries similar items. The only other things I used were plastic table clothes and salvaged brown packing paper to make the river bed and the mountains.

I broke this story into 2 weeks. You can read about Part 2, Elijah and the widow, here and see the flannelgraph figures I made here (coming soon). Click here for part 3, a review game you can use with both Elijah stories.

A Cool Treat for KidMin Workers

I use a Christmas tree each year to hang our kidmin workers gifts on. This year I read about these key fobs from Wendy's. At only $2 a piece, they are a great gift. They attach to a key chain and you can use it at Wendy's to get a free Junior Frosty with any order. So yes, as one of the enterprising workers said, "So, I can order a Junior Frosty, and then I can get one for free for my boyfriend." Now that's a KidFrugal date.

These key tags are good for all of 2017, and the $2 you pay goes to support adoption. It's a win-win.

I include other small gifts on the tree to give our workers a choice. This year's other pickings included Avon balms and hand-creams. I have used K-cups, travel size bubble baths and other small items.

So what have you given your workers for Christmas? We would love to hear your ideas.