A Youth Sunday School teacher spent considerable time explaining the details and information for an upcoming evangelism conference. After answering questions from several students, one seventh grade boy asked: “Can you tell us again, the date of the vandalism conference?”
As told by Tan Fippin, Texas
As a teen, your bedroom is a mirror on which your personality and passions are reflected. Though it may be small it is your domain. Its Yours! Your room becomes your mansion, your castle. Inside you are King of your palace, at least until you are dethroned by parents telling you to clean it, pick it up. Three aquariums, a nursery for caterpillars that would become monarch butterflies, a chemistry lab, an enormous rock collection, an apple //e computer, and a bookshelf filled with books of science and science fiction showed my general interest in anything science. At one point mom replied that if I added another rock to my collection I’d have to start sleeping outdoors.
Of course, like all teens, the music was too loud, and at times you couldn’t see the floor. For some reason, mom never accepted the excuse that with everything on the floor “I wouldn’t get the carpet dirty.” Like most teens, I was at times sent to my room to “pick it up”. I always wanted to go outside and lift the house and reply with a sly grin on my face “where would you like me to put it?” I had this incessant habit of taking everything literally if it gave me an opportunity to be mischievous. “Put up the towels” meant tossing them in the air and telling mom they wouldn’t stay up. “Pass the mashed potatoes” was translated into passing the potatoes by you, but not stopping, or better yet, passing them to you basketball style. Unless you were prepared to catch you’d be wearing them. But in reality, for the record, it was mom who usually started the food fights.
It took some time before I understood the importance of cleaning my room. Surely my parents understood that if I picked it up, in a a few hours time it it would be cluttered again as a result of my hectic schedule. And of making my bed? What a waste of time. What was the use of making something look nice when it’s sole purpose was its destruction in a matter of hours? If I was in my room for any matter of time, I was sprawled across my bed, listening to music or reading a book. After a good night’s sleep I’d have the sheets pulled from the corners. Sheets and quilts, once nicely covering the bed, would be plastered across the room. If I was lucky I would awake on the bed in the same position in which I went to bed. Most of the time, I’d wake up somehow turned around 90 or even 180 degree and would be sleeping on the bed in the opposite direction from which I went to sleep. If my bed had been a soccer field, I am sure I would have covered the entire field every night.
Eventually I came to pride myself in a clean room, though at times our definitions of clean were different. My key concern was that it was neater then that of my two sisters. Sometimes that meant really cleaning mine, at other times, like any good older brother, it meant sabotaging theirs. My favorite method of sabotage was to hang all their dolls from the canopy bed with ropes around their necks. Often they wouldn’t have the slightest inclination I had been up to my tricks until they entered their room and let out a squeal, which precipitated a corresponding giggle from me.
I later discovered that my parent’s primary concern in cleaning my room was the development of self-discipline and responsibility. Now it seems that I have more than just a room that needs self-discipline to keep it in order. Our lives, like our bedrooms as teens, reflect on us. What passions and aspects of your personality does your life now reflect? Does it reflect a passion for God? What clutter do you have scattered about the floor? What, like your teenage bed, have you left undone? It seems things get cluttered so much easier as adults. Work commitments, family matters, bills, and personal habits need the same self-discipline and responsibility we needed as teens. Spiritually, the task of keeping our lives picked up is even more daunting. It seems there is always cleaning, fixing, changing, and maintaining to be done. Maybe its time someone sent us to pick up our lives, as our parents sent us to pick up our rooms.
Yet, may we always remember, like our parents, God always loves us, even when our room is a mess.
copyright 1997 – Ken Sapp
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200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.
Description
In this Icebreaker game for your Valentine’s Day Party, youth will move forward or backwards when they meet the Valentine’s day criteria that is called out.
Resources
Preparation
What to do
Sample Instructions
Take It to the Next Level
Action Point
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Introduction
This is a high energy elimination game for Valentine’s Day where one couple is eliminated from play each round until there is only one couple left.
Game Description
Every time the Valentine’s day music stops, participant must pair up with their designated partner.
Game Materials
Game Setup
Game Play
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Description
Can you separate the Valentine’s Day related facts from the fiction?
Resources
Valentine Heart shaped pieces of paper or Index cards and pens (or pencils)
Preparation
None
What to Do
Take It to the Next Level
Action Point
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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About 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year. That’s the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
February 14, 270 A.D. : Roman Emperor Claudius II, dubbed “Claudius the Cruel,” beheaded a priest named Valentine for performing marriage ceremonies. Claudius II had outlawed marriages when Roman men began refusing to go to war in order to stay with their wives.
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
Some people used to believe that if a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a millionaire.
In the 17th century a hopeful maiden ate a hard-boiled egg and pinned five bay leaves to her pillow before going to sleep on Valentine’s eve. It was believed this would make her dream of her future husband.
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine’s Day.
The red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Red stands for strong feelings which is why a red rose is a flower of love.
Wearing a wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand dates back to ancient Egypt, where it was believed that the vein of love ran from this finger directly to the heart.
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Description
This is the traditional scavenger hunt where participants are given a list of items to retrieve and bring back within a designated time limit. The Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt consists of a list of the Valentine’s Day related objects and some rules. Variations may allow photos of an object to replace the actual object or creative substitutions. The rules may forbid the purchase of items or restrict the participants from going to their own homes or malls to collect items. Various points are assigned to the objects based upon the difficulty necessary to obtain them.
Resources
Valentine’s Day List for each team.
Preparation
Protecting Participants
Sample Rules
What to do
Suggested Valentine’s Day Items
Heart shaped balloon, Chocolate Candies, Chocolate Kiss, Red Ribbon, Red Rose, Red Carnation, Italian Dinner Menu, Cupid, Valentine’s Day Card, Something with the words “Be Mine” written on it, Candle, Calendar with Valentine’s Day on it, Red Arrow, Heart pendant, love letter written more than a year ago, Lovebird, Passion fruit, Poetry on love, Sweetheart cup, DVD movie where some is serenaded, CD with a Love Song, Red and white Stuffed Animal, Honey, Valentine’s Day Candy Heart, matching rings, wedding invitation, Wine bottle, Red Dress, Something made from lace
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Creative Scavenger Hunts: Once Lost, Now Found
is a 160 page e-book that explains everything you need to know to easily plan your very own scavenger hunt: Item Lists, Rules, Riddles, Safety Tips, Guidelines, Scoring, Tips for Facilitators and MORE! There are more than 50 complete ideas (scavenger hunts, photo hunts, video hunts, amazing race, etc.) to use at home, around the neighborhood, at the mall, in the park, on the beach, at church, and around town!
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If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about your needs and then help you, I’m simply making a lot of empty religious noise.
If I graduate from theological seminary and know all the answers to questions you’ll never even think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it and if I say I believe in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to have incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to find out where you’re at and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I’m nothing.
If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for some poor starving kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God’s service and burn out after pouring everything I have into the work, but do it all without ever once thinking about the people, the real hurting people-the moms and dads and sons and daughters and orphans and widows and the lonely and hurting-if I pour my life into the Kingdom but forget to make it relevant to those here on earth, my energy is wasted, and so is my life.
Here is what love is like–genuine love. God’s kind of love. It’s patient. It can wait. It helps others, even if they never find out who did it. Love doesn’t look for greener pastures or dream of how things could be better if I just got rid of all my current commitments. Love doesn’t boast. It doesn’t try to build itself up to be something it isn’t. Love doesn’t act in a loose, immoral way. It doesn’t seek to take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn’t lose its cool. It doesn’t turn on and off. Love doesn’t think about how bad the other person is, and certainly doesn’t think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved deeply (as God is) over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.
Love comes and sits with you when you’re feeling down and finds out what is wrong. It empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you’ll come through just as God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love doesn’t give up, or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even when everything goes wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn’t seem as special anymore. Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend, is what real love is!
Copyright 2003 David Sanford. Not to be used for commercial purposes.
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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Some years ago on a hot summer day in south Florida a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back door, leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he went.
He flew into the water, not realizing that as he swam toward the middle of the lake, an alligator was swimming toward the shore. His mother in the house was looking out the window saw the two as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear, she ran toward the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could. Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed and made a U-turn to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the alligator reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed her little boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war between the two. The alligator was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was much too passionate to let go. A farmer happened to drive by, heard er screams, raced from his truck, took aim and shot the alligator.
Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital, the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. And, on his arms, were deep scratches where his mother’s fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.
The newspaper reporter, who interviewed the boy after the trauma, asked if he would show him his scars. The boy lifted his pant legs. And then, with obvious pride, he said to the reporter, “But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn’t let go.”
You and I can identify with that little boy. We have scars, too. Not from an alligator, but the scars of a painful past. Some of those scars are unsightly and have caused us deep regret. But, some wounds, my friend, are because God has refused to let go. In the midst of your struggle. He’s been there holding on to you.
The Scripture teaches that God loves you. You are a child of God. He wants to protect you and provide for you in every way. But sometimes we foolishly wade into dangerous situations, not knowing what lies ahead. The swimming hole of life is filled with peril – and we forget that the enemy is waiting to attack. That’s when the tug-of-war begins – and if you have the scars of His love on your arms be very, very grateful. He did not and will not ever let you go.
Never judge another person’s scars, because you don’t know how they were made.
Author Unknown
Holiday CollectionCreative Holiday Ideas has over 300 pages of ideas to help you plan your next New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween or Fall Festival, and Thanksgiving event. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re going to do for all these holidays and how you’re going to do it, this resource is for you.
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