Swords of Light

A while ago Kaitlin joined a hand mime group in church. The group is named S.O.L (Swords of Light). It is composed of nine kids ages 10-14, so as you can imagine, the rehearsals are dramatic, with a lot of bickering and just general wiggling around among the kids.

However, they have been very dedicated and endured long practices for several weeks. This afternoon they presented two songs in church. The first one (with the sticks) they did a couple of weeks ago in church (the one I missed because of my surgery) and people liked it so much they asked them to present it again today. The one of the hands they performed today for the first time.

I think they did great! I am very proud of their performance. Enjoy the videos!

Our Church Rocks!!

This Sabbath marked the eighth annual celebration of our Church Children’s Sabbath. It really was a special day! The children participated of a worship service prepared specifically for them and the day ended with a very fun Carnival Party. I really felt God’s blessings throughout the day and was happy we accomplished all the goals we had for this program and went even beyond our expectations.

As I was uploading the pictures into my computer that night it struck me that for my girls participating in church is so second nature, they do not look at it as anything out of the ordinary. Even I have to admit I have never even created a scrapbook page about the different programs and activities the girls have participated.

You would think with church life being such an important part of our lives their scrapbooks would be full of pages documenting those activities, but not even one page have I made. It scares me to think that I am inadvertedly passing the message to the girls that what we do in church is not our real life. Documenting birthday parties, holidays, vacations, those are worth of scrapbook pages and documenting, but participating in church is not part of our “main life”.

I hope that is not the case. I hope the girls do see their involvement in church as something special and worthy. I think they do. Just yesterday, Kaitlin had a friend over for a play date, they were talking about church and the different activities they have, and she told her friend, “I wish you would attend our church, it’d be so great to have my friend there”. Her friend replied with, “Why don’t YOU come to my church?” Kaitlin’s answer was “because my church ROCKS, they really care about the children and we are always doing activities.” Then I also heard her brag a little saying “my mom is the Children’s Ministries director.”

However, the realization that I might be passing on the wrong message really gave me a wake up call. I do not want them to grow up leading double lives, the church life and then our “real life”. I want the two to be merged; I want them to realize that our spiritual life should be our “real” life and what directs and gives meaning to everything we do.