On Sunday, October 9, we took a 'field trip' (quite literally!).  The day began with a stop to Commons Park in Angola, IN for a picnic lunch and a chance to play on the playground. After lunch, we drove to Ridenour Acres in Angola, where we spent a couple hours having fun experiencing all the fun things they offered! The kids (and adult chaperones) had a great time finding their way through the corn maze, climbing the straw bale tower, playing in the corn pit, sliding down the big slides, racing on bouncy balls or tricycles, riding the barrel 'train', and taking a hay ride (and those are just a few of the many, MANY things we did)!!!!  It was a fun (& exhausting) day, with a lot of smiles and laughter all around!

We feel it's important for kids to know what it's like to be a participant in church, but we also understand it's a lot to ask of kids to sit quietly for an hour. So children attending our church begin the service upstairs with everyone- but only for the first few minutes. After announcements and a song or two, we have a children's moment (a very short child focused lesson for the kids), and then the children go downstairs, where our children's church teachers have crafts, games & activities planned out for them. Our children LOVE children's church! Whether it's making a craft, playing pool or table tennis, building a castle or a fort, or having a 'snowball' fight (even in the summer!), the kids always know they will have fun!

Our new program, which kicked off on Sunday, June 19, is 'Around the World'. Each Sunday in Children's Church, we 'travel' to another country. We learn a little bit about the country of the day, and each student gets their 'passport' stamped for that country. We learn a Bible verse that ties in with the country of the day in some way, and have craft time where we make something that we've learned about from the country, or play games that are played in that country.  We'd love to have you join us on our travels! 

We had a very successful VBS this year, averaging approximately 35 kids per evening. (We had a total of 49 different students throughout the week). Our song leader Jodi did an amazing job of energizing the kids with her music (& they LOVED the song "Pop Up"- I suspect there were at least a couple times that people standing across the street could have heard the kids singing!).  They also loved the recreation games and snacks, and the crafts were a big hit- I think the little kids loved their 'Crabby hats' more than anything, while the older kids seemed to enjoy making their flip flop wind chimes the best. And Science was, as always, a HUGE hit! The kids learned how to blow a bubble inside of a bubble inside of a bubble & a ton of other fun experiments.  We hope they all return next year. We will have a completely new program, which we are VERY excited about!