The Fruit of the Spirit is...

JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! KIDS WORSHIP IS SO MUCH FUN! need a new burst of God-life? energy? drive? interest? come join the vopkids every sunday morning on the lower level! fun! fun! fun! and some really neat quiet moments too :) God is with us.

Little People, Big Faith!

Here are the long awaited and highly anticipated Kid's Prophetic Conference pictures. They highlight how we sought God's heart and how He met us. So cool!

Who agreed to this?

Did i really say "yes" to going on the 4th and 5th grade retreat (to bring in the worship element)??????????? You know, these are the things you don't think about when you initially say "yes" to God's rollercoaster ride. But once you do, you commit yourself to a vision, to a people, to the building of something big, there's all sorts of stuff you never thought about that comes along with it... yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.

Warning: Mac truck!

After our big "first" kids' prophetic conference this past weekend, our Children's Pastor says a Mac truck hit her "and backed over" her. i think it's funny she adds that last part. It's true -- one should not underestimate the amount of energy it will require to spend that amount of time with that many kids -- doing things "for the first time". It's darn hard being pioneers, we are discovering. It's great, don't get me wrong, we love it, we welcome God's call on us to do this, i'm just sayin'... For the past 3 days i have spent all my free time, including my lunch break on Monday, catching a nap. Getting refreshed, renewed, restored -- out of sheer necessity. And i have to also put a reminder in here for myself (as i review these entries later) that the enemy takes Full Advantage of hitting us while we're down. We are warriors, but when warriors get tired...yeah. So I got plastered with enemy fire starting Sunday afternoon, continuing through until Monday evening when, thankfully, God had already built in a saving grace for me -- our regular Monday night Prayer for Kids' time. So i dragged myself to church to meet the faithful ones, fully expecting to just sit there like a lump as they prayed around me prayers of thankfulness for all God had done, sang praise songs, maybe danced a little. But they were good nurses and gave their first attention to attending to the wounded -- speaking truth, words of identity and remembrance for all God has done, pulled me out of my pit, shoveled off the lies the enemy had piled on me, gently lifted me out. I was so grateful God had orchestrated that for me, no guarentees how long it would have taken me to plan my own rescue attempt. So then we were all above ground again and able to pray in unified voice prayers of thanks for the things God has done, and is doing in our midst. We are pioneers in this revolution, following God's lead. It is not always easy, or glamorous, but we had such joy to partner with Him this past weekend, and we have such hope for all that's ahead. It is our privilege. Just beware of the Mac trucks :) Plan for them, keep yourself close to God. Remember that 'relaxing' after a big event like this better still include some god-time, not just movies and naps. Or at least keep your armor on! And pray pray pray for each other. God designed us to do this whole thing (life) together -- not just the ministry parts. Carry on, soldiers!

No works? It worked!

My works mentality has gotten a terrible blow to the head. date i say fatal? probably not, but here's my story...

you know how i say it's 90% listening, waiting, watching, downloading plans and the rest adds up to 10% of my own real 'preparation'. well, this week i heard God say my assignment in 'preparing' for this conference -- the MOST IMPORTANT thing i was to do to prepare was to stay close to Him. that's it. stay close. so i would try to think of Him more throughout my day, worship, listen to teachings, etc. i mean, i really hoped to plan some things for the conference as well, but i knew the most important part of my leadership at this prophetic conference would be to make sure things were right in my relationship with God so i could be a vessel to HEAR HIM and follow His leadership as we went.

The crazy thing is i never did get any activities 'prepared'. i brainstormed some possibilities with some friends last night and grabbed armloads of possible tools this morning when i got to church (percussion instruments, flags, scarves, etc for worship workshop times) and that was the extent of my prep. other than my folders of "possible" music for the band to pull from.

the outcome? God was with us. the activites/ideas flowed "just right" throughout our morning. part of me loved not having a plan in my head which i would first have to get rid of if God changed direction and planned things in the moment for each class, each kid. total craziness that He would be that interested -- honestly, it seemed He was the one actually running these classes - handing us the ideas as we went. Our job was to stay close to Him, listen, respond, mix it with our own personality and experience (which He has given us as well!) and have courage to do it.

I can't say i'm yet in favor of giving up 'planning' all together, but this was a serious encouragement and personal workshop time for me to put priority on my private life with Him as preparation and staying open and close enough to say "God, what are you doing right now, how can i partner with that right now."

[Final thought] Preparation?? My whole life has been preparation for what happened this weekend at the vopkids prophetic conference. amen.

Still listening

Here i am, the night before our first ever Kids' Prophetic Conference... knowing i am to take leadership for worship times and help lead two workshop sessions (one with 4-6 yr olds!)... here i am still preparing (doing my 90% listening...) waiting for God to download His plans for His kids... getting pictures of some ideas slowly coming into focus... but mostly just confident knowing the people i'll be working with are solid -- and God won't let us (His kids) down.

So I am ready for the revolution. Bring it on.

Who?? Me? The Sequal

[POST BY ERIN HIBBEN] So indeed here I am posting about leading worship at KidsChurch. The non-musical, vaguely rhythmic on a good moment, slightly overwhelmed teacher led worship today. I drug myself into KidsChurch this morning tired and burnt, but knowing I had to be there and that God had to have my back. He had to have my back for two reasons. 1. My amazingly creative worship plans had been foiled by utter fatigue and lack of brain activity. 2. What's the point of doing it if he doesn't? So even though I had this original idea of having the kids create names of God banners while quietly listening to some soaking music, I could not get the plan coherently in my head. So instead Rachel and I worked out that we would talk talk to the kids about what it is like to hear God and then just let them listen. I gave them paper and markers in case they had a picture they felt like they wanted to draw.

So 9:30 service we soaked and immediately I could feel his presence and now I'm a mess and crying and then all the sudden the kids just kind of lunged for the markers and paper. They were so intently drawing and when asked to share one girl shared a picture of God's face in the clouds and he was giving her a thumbs up. Then another child shared a picture of an apple tree and some hills and he said God was walking towards him in the picture and telling him he loved him. Does it get any better than this?!?!?!? These kids just got loved on by God in such a personal way.

Well here comes 11:15 service, three times as many kids. We spread them out and they were so amazingly calm. Two girls got similar pictures about red flowers and a girl preaching. Kids were getting pictures of angels worshiping Jesus and Jesus coming to them and telling them how much he loves them.

The point of all of this is that we serve a LIVING GOD! All we have to do is seek him and get out of the way. God didn't stop from speaking to the kids because I was tired or burnt out. That didn't matter.

I Heard Recently...

[in light of VineyardUSA's decision to ordain women] that we're going to have to learn to listen to God through women because God has an even more radical plan and that is to reveal Himself to us through children. Wish i could remember who said it. at any rate, i think it rings true. see Rachel A's previous post "Revelation".

Revelation

Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. - Matthew 11:25

God pointed this scripture out to me during my 2 hours at the 24 hours of prayer on Friday. It seems appropriate to acknowledge that God has a passion for revealing the knowledge of His kingdom through children (some translations use the word infant). Especially during this 40 days of faith, when we are seeking God for "a spirit of revelation" to know him more, we must give our kids the room to express their knowledge and the deepness of their revelation - to move beyond "kids just wanting to have fun" and to respect and honor their ability to KNOW God, to SEE God and to HEAR God... and to learn from them - the privileged ones who the Father trusts with his revelation!!

Who? Me??

[KEY:PEOPLE] Okay, so i kinda did a crazy thing. on friday night i asked a non-musician to cover worship for me this weekend. It makes perfect sense to me, but perhaps not to the average joe so let's lay it out...

WORSHIP is what? Intentional turning toward God? A time to remember what's He's done and praise Him for what He will do? Simply exalting Him for who He is, speaking His name? Loving Him? These are things we traditionally do in 'worship time' and we traditionally do it with music. Right. But not exclusively. Right?? Honestly, my favorite definition of worship is simply responding to who He is -- we can't even worship unless He enables us to, unless we first can see Him. the more we see, the more we say 'yes, oh Lord, you are great, i am in awe of you, i love you'. that's worship. if, in response, my voice wants to sing it, or play it out that's cool. others may express it through visual art, or movement. whatever our response... those are the vehicle for the outcome, and the outcome is what's in our hearts. so this morning, as every sunday morning, i wanted to give our kids a chance to connect with the living God, to hear from Him and to see and understand more of who He is with a chance to give voice to their hearts' response. now if YOU were the one responsible to see this growth and experience happen in our kids, would it be more important to you to employ a person with stellar guitar skills and a beautiful voice OR someone who had a personal love relationship with the Lord and the abilities to relate to and connect with kids, meeting them in their world? i mean, IF you had to choose.

Surely you would want the one who is passionately in love with Jesus and had a track record of passing that passion on to our kids. case in point: Erin Hibben. and, honestly, it's not that i went looking to give her MORE things to do :) but i did feel that the Lord put a spotlight on her and said to ask her to lead worship this week. so i did. and i got all the responses you might think... "but i don't sing... i don't play an instrument... i don't know how to do that!! and, really, aren't i doing enough already?..." and yet, she knew that if GOD was prompting then it was pointless to resist. i love her for that. and it's true - i wasn't asking her as my last resort - i felt God said ask her as your first resort. so i did. and she did! and i can't wait to hear the outcome of her saying yes. not that we always see the results immediately...

Sometimes it is enough to be obedient to the Lord by saying yes, and let Him handle the outcome, and i believe this even includes how we feel about it. in fact, i feel so strongly that we need to live from this place that i may have to write a separate entry about that sometime -- God only asks us to give our best and trust the rest to Him. our job is the sewing and we must trust Him with the timing of the reaping and to bring forth the kind of harvest/fruit HE has in mind -- not us. who would dare say they know what this is all going to look like in the end. not only do i have no idea how to get there, i'm not even sure i know where i'm going!

But this whole "revolution" is all God's idea anyway -- His kids, His thing, we're just along for the ride wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee