Kids Quest Online

Two weeks ago I started a little get-to-know you game about me. If you didn’t see it, you can read it here. Between comments on the blog and parents participating in my 411 meetings, we had about 25 or so take a shot at it. I said the winner would get a prize. How does $20 in Starbucks gift cards sound?

Well, I had answers all over the board. People didn’t necessarily flock toward one answer or another. However, it seem that those who picked the “right” answer were VERY SURE about their answer. My encounter with a cobra sounded pretty far-fetched, but I actually did have this encounter while in a small fishing village in India. The thing about me putting an index card in my forehead was also true. As stupid as it sounds, it was really just a silly practical joke that went bad… and actually became much more funny. I guess that leaves us with the Space Shuttle. I was in Orlando last December and I was sitting on a park bench waiting to see it launch way off in the distance. However, there were complications and the launch was postponed until 2008.

So, congratulations to the 10 or so that got it correct. We randomly selected one of our correct guesses and that person will be receiving $20 in Starbucks cards. Woo hoo!

Wait a second! I know… What was I doing in a small fishing villiage in India? What kind of practical joke involves putting a staple in your head? Good quesions, I know. But, you’ll only get the answers out of me in person. So, if you see me I’ll be glad to tell you my story and would love to hear your’s.

I remember when I went on a mission trip when I was 15. It was to Venezuela for two months. I had to raise about $2500 and I worked really hard to raise that money. I did odd jobs, saved Christmas and birthday money and even sent out support letters to family and friends. It was an incredible experience. When I got to Venezuela, I met many other teenagers who got their by a different method. Their mom or dad wrote a check. This isn’t really a bad thing. Those kids had an incredible experience in Venezuela just like I did. However, I learned and experienced some things that they never did. I had a team of 40-50 supporters who experienced this trip through me that summer. I experienced the fruit of a lot of hard work on my part. Last of all, I saw God provide for me in a BIG way.

As I posted earlier, we’re doing a little mission project to restock the food pantry. We’re letting Kids Quest own this project. Although we want to raise as much food as possible, we also want this to be a project of significance for our kids as well. Each and every one of our kids could run home on Sunday and grab four or five non-perishable items and we’d have tons of food (literally). But what good is that? Sure, we’d restock the pantry, but would it make a lasting impact on your kids? Would it make a lasting impact on your family? Not likely.

So, here are a few suggestions that will help your kids “own” this project:

Work for food:
Sit down as a family and talk about how much food/non-perishables you’d like to raise. Set a goal. Then assign a value to these items. Maybe cleaning up their room will be worth a can of food. Or washing the car for another can. Let the kids earn it. Have fun, maybe even parents can set goals of things they can do too. Maybe finishing that little side project is worth a can of food as well. Let kids help celebrate completion of tasks and movement toward goals.

Go without food:
This one isn’t’ easy, but can be a powerful teaching tool. There are many in our community who don’t have as much as we do. Maybe for one meal, everyone will do without one item. Maybe it’s one of the extra side items. Perhaps it’s the french fries in that happy meal. Talk about it what it’s like to not have as much as your are used to and thank God for the opportunity to have “plenty” and the willingness to share. Make a special trip to the grocery store with the whole family to pick out the food to donate. Involve everyone in this process.

Get others involved:
Let us not keep this to ourselves. Sit down and talk about who you might ask for help. Maybe a neighbor or good friends. Determine how much you want to bring in as a family and then set a goal of how much more you can raise by asking others.

Well, those are a few ideas to get you started. As the month goes on, we’ll provide updates as well as other ideas. Hey, this is a blog. If you have some creative ideas you plan to do, post them here as a comment and share with everyone!

Okay, we have a great opportunity for kids and families to serve the community. I’ve been told that there are no food pantries in the same zip code as Gateway Church, although there are plenty of needy families. How do we know this? Well, our church food pantry is running very low. We’ve been serving more families lately and if we want to continue to make a tangible difference in our immediate community, we need to restock.

So, Kids Quest will be working to restock the food pantry during the month of August. Your kids will bring home information each week on how they can help. We’re not talking about anything major. If everyone brought in a few non-perishables, it will make a big difference. The problem is that not everyone always participates. So, we’re encouraging the kids to do what they can. We’ll probably even be making a little contest out of things for the elementary aged kids. Why? Well because serving the community can be fun and kids need to learn that. In addition, our community really needs our help and making a fun event around something like this ALWAYS produces better results.

So, thank you in advance for helping in our little mission. Together, we’re all going to make a big difference! What a great thing for our kids to learn!

When I got here a few months ago, I was kind of amazed that our Middle School program only had 20-30 students. I wasn’t suprised when I discovered why, we only offer Middle School during the 12:30 PM Sunday service. No wonder! For those of you who have made having your kids in Middle School a priority, thank you for being flexible. I know too many other paretns who wanted to but just couldn’t.

It seems like the reason for this wasn’t because Gateway didn’t want to reach out to Middle Schoolers during the other services, but because there just wasn’t any space. Not anywhere. Chad Swanzy (student pastor) and I began talking soon after I arrive to remedy this situation. Since we’re adding portable space to our existing facility, we thought that it would be best to create a permanent space for Middle School students… during all services.

So, on August 24th, the Cottage (our upstairs 5 year old room) will become the Middle School home. It was a no-brainer. It’s too big of a space for the 35-40 kids in there (in the portable, we’ll have the same amount of space, but divided into two rooms). On the other side, the Middle School program needs a larger room for their activities. Perfect!

So, this summer we’ve been holding 5th grade preview services. Chad Swanzy and his team have been taking the 5th graders out of Kids Quest and giving them a sneak peak at what Middle School would look like. So far, so good. The kids love it and we’ve been getting nothing but great feedback from our parents. We expect anywhere from 40-60 5th graders to promote to Middle School on August 24th. Did you hear that? 40-60! That’s alsmot twice the number of middle school kids attending now. In addition, our hope is that many middle school kids who only come during the 9:30 and 11:00 services will come out of the woodwork. It’s completely possible that we’ll be running 100 or so middle school students this fall!

So yes, we do love middle schoolers! We’re building a great community for them here at Gateway. If you know a middle school student who isn’t currently attending at 12:30, let them know that they can begin coming on August 24th at any service time. Also, our remaining preview services are on July 27th and August 17th.

This may be more information that you want to know, but at least it is an explanation. As most of you may know, I’ve been sending out weekly emails for the last 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately, these emails haven’t been reaching all of our parents. It also hasn’t reached our Kids Quest volunteers who don’t have kids. So, I’ve been in the process of making a transition. We put this blog up as a better place for information than just emails alone. We’ll be using an email service that will make emails look a little more friendly than just text on a page. Last of all, I’ve been working in our church database to gather all the email addresses of all of our parents. This list is much more inclusive than the one I’ve been using the past 3-4 weeks… I hope.

So, on Wednesday morning I will be sending out one last email the way I’ve been doing it for the last 3-4 weeks. In the afternoon, I will send out another email using the new email service. This way, if you didn’t get the second email, you’ll know that you didn’t make the list (somehow) and let us know so that we can add you back. Hopefully by Wednesday afternoon, we’ll be communicating with as many parents as possible. Don’t worry, you may get two emails in one day, but for the next few weeks we’ll keep our emails to just once a week.