Christmas Verse (Blog Revisited)

I will never forget the Christmas message I taught when Margaret was 5 months pregnant with Scout. We were working at a small church in Waco. I think we may have had 20 both preschool and elementary in kid's church. We met in a school's music room using a karaoke machine for sound. (I think back to those days and just realize how spoiled I am now with all the lights, equipment, and space we have now.) It was still one of those days in Ministry I don't think I will ever forget.

I decided I was going to use John 3:16 as a text to teach the kids about God's love for us at Christmas. I had written out the lesson. I spent time in prayer about it. I was ready to teach it. We went through the normal parts of our lesson. We played some silly Christmas game. Sang some fun songs. Had a puppet come out and taught the memory verse. Worshiped. I got to the lesson and began talking about this verse that we all have heard a thousand times.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I began crying right there in Kid's Church. It hit me. I don't think I really understood what God gave up for me that Christmas until I was teaching that room of kid's that day. I realized, I would not be willing to give up my unborn daughter who I had not even met yet for anything in this world. I realized my love for her was so strong that I would do whatever I could to keep her from any harm. I realized that instance what God gave up. I knew the verse. I thought I understood what it said. I knew at that moment I couldn't do what God did for anyone. That is why, to me, John 3:16 is the most important Christmas verse. He gave up the most important thing to him for me. He knew the pain Jesus would go through. He knew the kind of death Jesus would have to go through. This Christmas, think about that. If you are a parent, you know what I am talking about. If not, one day you will know exactly what I am writing. God sent his son that Christmas morning for each of us.
I decided I was going to use John 3:16 as a text to teach the kids about God's love for us at Christmas. I had written out the lesson. I spent time in prayer about it. I was ready to teach it. We went through the normal parts of our lesson. We played some silly Christmas game. Sang some fun songs. Had a puppet come out and taught the memory verse. Worshiped. I got to the lesson and began talking about this verse that we all have heard a thousand times. 
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I began crying right there in Kid's Church. It hit me. I don't think I really understood what God gave up for me that Christmas until I was teaching that room of kid's that day. I realized, I would not be willing to give up my unborn daughter who I had not even met yet for anything in this world. I realized my love for her was so strong that I would do whatever I could to keep her from any harm. I realized that instance what God gave up. I knew the verse. I thought I understood what it said. I knew at that moment I couldn't do what God did for anyone. That is why, to me, John 3:16 is the most important Christmas verse. He gave up the most important thing to him for me. He knew the pain Jesus would go through. He knew the kind of death Jesus would have to go through. This Christmas, think about that. If you are a parent, you know what I am talking about. If not, one day you will know exactly what I am writing. God sent his son that Christmas morning for each of us.

The Makings Of A Snow Hill

Many times in life we have dreams that never come true. In my offices, you will find a picture of a piece of barren land in Florida with a quote by Walt Disney that says, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible". It is fun to dream up something and work out the crazy details and see it happen. Last night, I got to experience one of those crazy fun days that you get to do something amazing. Here is how it came about...

About a month ago, I was looking at the calendar and noticing our annual Kid's Rock Christmas Party. I thought to myself, "Last year was fun, but I need to take it to another level this year". I stepped back and began to think of things about Christmas and this time of year that would make the night memorable. I thought about giant Christmas cookies and Snow men. I considered Christmas light tours and hot chocolate drinking contests. Nothing seamed right. I kept going back and forth on different things and two different things happened. First, I was having a conversation with someone about the greatness of the movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". I thought about the scene where the Grizwalds put some special cream on a sled and it takes off across town like a rocket. I am sitting here chuckling as I am thinking about it. Then, I went and visited some friends in Cleburne for a wedding that I was supposed to perform on an icy weekend. I saw snow, ice, sleet, and a host of other cold stuff that totally messed up my weekend plans. I had fun hanging out with friends inside but while I was gone I had an idea. What if I made some sort of snow hill, real or fake, for our kids to sled down at our Christmas party? It would be worth thinking about. 

Driving home, I asked Marge to look up snow machines, snow rentals, snow blowers, snow makers, anything to do with snow. I had no idea what it would cost to make this happen or if it was even possible to make it happen. We found fake snow that they use in movies and productions. We found people that sold snow by the bag. We found someone that would mail you snow from the Rockies at a small fortune. She would read information and websites to me as we drove. If it sounded like something I needed to look into further I had her text me the information. I got back and tried to figure out a plan for staff meeting and had some general stuff, but not all my details. I knew I needed to just throw the idea out there. If you don't ask about a dream then you will never know. My Pastor kinda looked at me like I was crazy at first, you know we do live in south Texas. Then, he said get good details like how much and stuff and then we can talk more. I preceded to calling "snow" companies about this crazy idea. 

The first company, they never returned my call. They had different ways of doing this but I know God was guiding this dream because the next company I called was the one we ended up using and they were great. It costed about a third of what my Pastor initially thought it would cost.  It was still kind of expensive but I was willing to bring our Youth department in on it too. We split the cost and Pastor said he could make up the difference. He was on board and that encouraged the dream. Called the snow guys up and everything was booked. They showed up about 6:30 last night and shot about 8000 lbs of snow onto the front lawn of our church on a day that it was in the 70s in San Antonio. Our kids got a "white"Christmas... party and got to have an evening of sledding. It was a great night.

The thing I love about this, I knew I could dream and take a shot. Whatever you do, "Dream!" You don't know if it is crazy until you tell someone. Even if it is crazy, do your homework and see if you can get others to get on board. I love my pastor, without him being encouraging this would have never happened. He saw the potential for kids to have a very memorable night at God's house by helping make this happen. I have worked with and know other kid's pastors that work for Pastors who may have thought this was just a waist of money being put on frozen water. They would have missed an opportunity. Nights like these are the things outside of the altar that I want to create. Memorable moments that kids fall in love with church time and again. It is at church where they can learn about God and have fun. So dream, dream big and don't be afraid to ask. Even if it does seam as crazy as putting a snow hill in San Antonio. 

Christmas Plays Past

This is the first year in many that I decided not to do a Christmas play. Over the last couple weeks, via Facebook, I have seen all my Kidmin friends posting about their Christmas plays. I did miss it (a little). It did give me a few moments to actually reminisce about some of our previous productions. We have had some very cool moments and some moments that well... they are kids. I have been blessed to do some very cool productions. We did one on the Riverwalk in SanAntonio. We did one on the front lawn of our church. I have had full on set changes and massive costumes made for different plays. I will always remember our first Christmas play as a kid's pastor.

The first year I was a kids pastor at Christmas was in Arlington. We had a small group of kids because it was a small church. We spent the entire fall working with our 16 kids to do this program. I told those kids, "This may be someone in this audience one chance to hear about Jesus." You got to love the "putting extra pressure" on kids (young kid's pastor mistake). It worked for the most part. The kids were taking a play about a rebellious angel serious because they wanted to be a witness. It was smooth right up until... we added the 2 preschoolers playing Mary and Joseph. They were supposed to walk out and stand at the manger and really just look longingly at the baby doll in the manger. The little girl playing Mary decided she wanted to hold they baby, of course that made our little Joseph want to hold the baby, too. These two wonderful little ones, they began playing tug of war as we are singing this grand finale. Of course, the idea was no longer on this great ministry moment like I had been building up with the kids. It is now a crowd of people laughing at our Mary and Joseph now fighting over the sweet baby Jesus. I am just trying to get the rest of the kids through the song. It was great. I went up to the microphone to tell people the great news of our savior coming. I found a crowd that was still laughing their butts off because these two precious little ones fighting during this great finale. I then returned to the backstage with steaming older kids that were extremely mad at our poor parents of Jesus, "You messed up people getting saved!" It was quickly something I never thought I would have heard an older kid yelling that but I did. 

I messed up and told the kids the message was the key. The key was actually them. The key was them standing up in front of a group of people and being the light themselves. They were the ones that could show family members what they were becoming, young men and women of God. Their lives were so much bigger than any song they sang and any words I shared. They were the gospel that night and any time they do anything. Who those kids are what matters.