Christmas Pageant Dec. 4th at 6:30pm

This year we have a most amazing Christmas Pageant in the works. Let me tell you our kids have been working on this since August!! With all our work now what we need is an AUDIENCE!!

Please come and see this year's production of 30 minutes Special Report: Mayhem in Bethlehem. Starring the Youth and Children of Oak Harbor Church of Christ

Candy Candy Everywhere!!

Thanks to all who came out for the fall festival! It was a huge success!! I think the kids had a great time and I pray that you all survived the sugar high aftermath :)

Thank you so much to all my volunteers that helped out with Fall Festival.
Chuck with his Fish Pond full of awesome prizes, there was a line all night for that game. Becky had the kids making all kinds of funny faces reaching into her caldrons with troll bogies, eye of newt, and other gooey things. The kids had an amazing time trick or treating with Woody, Jason, Chuck, Crystal, Sam, Jordon, Josh, and Kassidy all manning the doors and handing out candy.

The Chilis and Pies were "oh so good"!!!
Chili Master: Tony
Pie Extraordinaire was made by: Collene
Other Chili and Pie makers:
Dick and Evelyn
Joe
Crystal
Gladys
Earl

Thank you to the parents who brought your kids and helped them carve some amazing pumpkins.
Congrats to our winning pumpkin carvers Lily and Woody with the "Puking Pumpkin"!


Last but not least!!! A HUGE THANK YOU to those that stayed after to help me clean up! There were so many of you that pitched in at the end, I won't name names for fear of leaving someone out, but please know how much you are appreciated!

Fall Festival 2011

Our annual Fall Festival is coming up on October 30th at 4pm.
The main event is the pumpkin carving contest! Please bring your own pumpkin and lots of creativity, carving supplies will be provided. We will have Craft, Games, and Facepainting for the kids.

This year we are going to also have Chili Cook-off and Pie Bake-off. If you are interested in making Chili or a Pie please let Sabrina know either at church or via email ohkidsforchrist@gmail.com

THANK YOU TEACHERS!

I just want to say again to our teachers how thankful we are for the time that you put into teaching our young ones. You are truly making a difference in their lives every sunday. I also want to let you know that if you didn't get your thank you gift made by the children please see Sabrina!

Nursery Ministry

As our new quarter starts we will also be staffing our church nursery with attendants during worship. In considering this service opportunity, check out what this blogger had to say about working in the Nursery. This post came from Ministry-to-Children.com

7 Reasons Why Your Church Nursery Service Is Vital To Your Church

by TONY KUMMER 

Reason #1

God is in the church nursery. This may come as a shock, but the Bible has specific promises about God’s presence when children are welcomed and loved in Jesus’ name. You can read my article about this titled God Is In The Church Nursery.

Reason #2
Your service in the church nursery allows church goers to focus on worship, rather than worrying about their children. In a very real sense you ministry makes it possible for the pastor to fulfill his ministry.

Reason #3
The first (and sometimes lasting) feelings a child will have toward church is formed in the nursery department. While not everyone agrees, I believe that a positive experience in the church nursery is essential.

Reason #4
When you serve in the nursery, you are being entrusted with the most important (and vulnerable) members of the church family. There is no greater treasure on this side of heaven than the little ones God has given us. You must be someone special to have a job that is so important.

Reason #5
Your service is essential for your own spiritual growth. You may have never looked at it this way, but a growing Christian is always a servingChristian. Jesus was known for putting others first, when you serve in the church nursery you are walking in his example.

Reason #6
The church nursery is the first contact young families will have with your church. Your friendly greeting and exceptional care for their children can make a great first impression for your church. If they don’t feel like their children are safe, they will not return – and rightly so.

Reason #7
Your service in the church nursery is a powerful opportunity for prayer. If every nursery worker would spend several minutes praying over the children in their care, imagine how God might begin to change this coming generation. There is no better way to create an environment of spiritual nurture than to pray while you serve in the nursery.

Christmas Pageant

We are going to begin rehearsals for the Christmas Pageant this year. If your children are interested in playing a part please see Ms. Gwen or Ms. Sabrina for more information.

The children will be rehearsing the play and learning the songs on Wednesday nights at 6:30. In place of our regular children's wed. night class we will have a short devotional time and then spend the rest of the hour practicing for the pageant.

If you child would like to participate without playing a part they may also help with costuming and props. We are looking forward to a great play this year, and starting early so that we have plenty of time to easily learn our parts.

National Night Out

This week we set up a booth at National Night Out. Our booth was buzzin' all evening with kids getting their facepainted and playing bean bag toss. Thanks so much for all who came out to help.  Hope all our kiddos got to enjoy the festivities it was such a fun night.

Fall Quarter Coming soon!

Kid's are getting ready to head back to school and we are getting ready for a new quarter of Sunday School here at OH Church of Christ. Our new quarter promises lots of fun with some great hands on experiences to learn about God's Word. We also have lots of babies at our church (even some brand new ones) and I am anxious to get our cradle roll class up and going again for them.

I am looking for an Elementary teacher for this new quarter. I want to pass on to you memory verse the kids are learning now. I pray that some of you will fearlessly step into this ministry so that you may pass God's Word on to our precious children.

"Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel." Ephesians 6:19

Inside OUT and Upside Down Memories!

I want to thank all of the wonderful volunteers that came out for Vacation Bible School. A special thanks goes to my planning committee who aren't all pictured in these photos. They worked so hard beforehand to make sure everything was set for VBS.


Check out pics of VBS at the link below
VBS slideshow

Remember Verse for June

Reminder to Register

VBS is just around the corner, don't forget to pre-register. You will be helping us by letting us get a good idea of how many children will be attending. It will also save you the hassle of filling out paperwork on the first day of VBS.

You can go here to register online

www.vacationbibleschool.com/ohkidsforchrist

If your interested in volunteering for vacation bible school you can also register for that there.

Ice Cream Social June 22nd at 6:30pm

Join us for a summer time treat at our Ice Cream social on Wednesday June 22nd. 

Ice Cream and drinks will be provided. *Please Bring a Topping to Share*

We will have a dairy free option for our friends with food allergies. 

Remember Verses

I am so proud of our elementary students our curriculum has really challenged them with some hard verses to learn. Our kids have not only memorized these verses but they have learned what all those challenging words mean. I have to say that this is all thanks to some awesome teachers.

Their current remember verse is:
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,
but in humility consider others better than yourselves"
Philippians 2:3




Starting next week they will be working on this verse:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life... neither height
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord"
Romans 8:38-39

New iphone App for parents

Hey Parents,
For those you that may have iphones or ipads our sunday school curriculum came out with an app for parents. With this App you will have the Homefront Monthly at your fingertips. You can download the App free in the iphone App Store by doing the keyword search: Tru Home
This app will be available for androids soon.

Also new this month is the availability to download our worship songs from itunes. Just keyword search: Tru Worship in the itunes store.

Vacation Bible School Registration

Guess what VBS is only a few short weeks away. Get your kids registered online by going to
www.vacationbibleschool.com/ohkidsforchrist

Summer Quarter Teachers

When I Grow Up... from Marty Taylor on Vimeo.

It's that time again... start of a new quarter. First we need to thank those that are currently teaching!
Thank you so much Walidah, Britnee, Molly, Lynn, Crystal, Dawn, and Erin for all your hard work this quarter. Some of you taught for more than one quarter and I just want to say an extra BIG thanks to you!!

Now we need some new volunteers to take over these jobs and give our last crew a little break. Will you help?

Currently we have openings for:

Cradle Roll Helper

Preschool Teacher and Helper

Elementary Story leader
Elementary Small Group Leader
Elementary helper

Contact ohkidsforchrist@gmail.com or Sabrina Ehlenberger in person

Join us for Movie Night 6:30pm Friday the 6th

Looking at the BIG picture

Since the fall of 2010 our elementary classes have been using a curriculum that looks at the bible as a whole instead of breaking it up into smaller stories. We started at the beginning in the Fall and began by putting up a timeline on the wall to track our progress. As a parent and a teacher in these classes I have learned so much and continue to grow in my understanding of the bible. I hope that other parents are seeing this at home as well. Every month you have been receiving a magazine or articles of a magazine that is built to give parents a way to take the lead in this bible study with your children.

I admit that I have a hard time slowing down and doing a daily reading with my children, but consider how powerful it would be for our children if they read out of the bible with us and then went to sunday school and heard it again from their teacher. Wouldn't that be awesome!!

This week someone sent me this link and it has been a huge encouragement for me to take time to read the bible daily with my children. It is also such a great example of what we are trying to do with this curriculum in our bible class.

*Just so their is no confusion, this was another church and they were doing a project called 4:4. Our elementary curriculum is called TruStory.


http://www.christianchronicle.org/blog/2011/01/video-9-year-old-recaps-what-hes-learned-reading-the-bible



This is the Homefront Weekly for this weeks bible class. It tells our parents what we are reading this week in sunday school class.
http://tru.davidccook.com/Lesson%20Documents/TS_3-9_HomeFront_Weekly.pdf

Here is the monthly magazine for this month.
http://tru.davidccook.com/HomeFront%20Documents/HomeFront_Monthly_Serving_S11.pdf

Vacation Bible School Planning Committee

Summer is just around the corner and that means Vacation Bible School. I am looking for a few good hands to help plan our event this year. Planning for this event means deciding how best to bring this message to children in an effective and fun way.

Vacation Bible School is scheduled for July 17-20 from 6 to 8pm. Which gives us approx. 3 months to get everything in place for it.

We currently have a Preschool Director, VBS spokesperson and Skit Director. THANK YOU Mollie Waldron, Crystal Brazle, and Victoria Lacey!!
Specifically, these are the positions available for the planning committee. These are jobs that need to be filled as soon as possible.:

Publicity Coordinator - Work with Director to develop and implement a plan to get the word out in our community about VBS.

Decorating Coordinator - Recruit people to create an exciting Main Street environment inside our church.

Registration Coordinator - Work with director to plan the details of the pre-registration and registration process.

Supply Coordinator - Work with director in ordering and gathering supplies for each classroom. Work with teachers in distributing supplies.

During VBS we will need some other volunteers and below is a list of those positions in case some of you would like me to go ahead and put down your name for those.

Crew Leaders - Travel with a group of 6-8 kids leading them from site to site according to the planned schedule.

Brown Bag Bistro Leaders - prepare and serve snack during vacation bible school.

Fun Factory Leaders - Help kids to make a craft at vacation bible school

Parable Productions Leaders - Prepare and organize all experiences at parable productions, where kids will be given the opportunity to act out the story as a way of learning it.

Firehouse Fitness Leaders - Choose games and fitness activities that will work best for kids' environment. Get them movin'!

Leadership Training for Christ

Our LTC team will be headed to Richland, Wa this week to compete in various events from bible reading to christian art. Please join me in praying for a safe drive and a great trip for these kids and their awesome teachers.

Holland Happening Parade walkers

Currently we have 11 people signed up to walk in the parade during Holland Happening. What an opportunity we have to invite our communities children to learn about Jesus at VBS. If you would like to join us in handing out invitations please contact me as soon as possible. All the parade walkers will have VBS t-shirts. You can either buy your own shirt and I will just give you and iron on or you can let me know your size and I will make the shirt for you. We just want lots of bright colors going through the parade.

The parade is on April 30th and I will let you know line up time and placement when I get that information.

Our New Blog

Hi All,

Welcome to our new Children's Ministry Blog. I wanted to first tell you the purpose of this blog. Posts for the blog will consist of information on upcoming events, pictures, and encouragement for parents. I will send parents a homefront monthly magazine each month as well as a reminder to check the blog for updates. I hope that this blog will give us another way to stay connected and become closer as a church family.