In this workshop Dave Edgren addresses how families can intentionally weave faith into daily life, focusing on the Sabbath as a central vehicle for spiritual formation. He begins by emphasizing that children constantly learn from parental behavior, so authentic Christian living is the most powerful teaching tool. Edgren cites research from Oxford College showing that children, even in secular homes, instinctively create super‑power‑like deities, indicating an innate sense of something greater, and that they struggle with concepts of death, underscoring the need for a sacred rhythm like the Sabbath. He then traces the biblical origins of the Sabbath—from the Exodus command, through Jeremiah’s call to keep it as a national identity, to Jesus’ radical Sabbath‑day healings—arguing that the Sabbath is designed for relational rest and joy, not merely rule‑keeping. The talk stresses that Sabbath practice must evolve with a child’s developmental stage: what works for a toddler differs from a teenager, and families should avoid “one‑size‑fits‑all” worship that can cause disengagement. Edgren shares concrete family rituals that mark the beginning and end of Sabbath, such as preparing a braided loaf, serving “thankful juice” where each child names a gratitude, and mourning the Sabbath’s departure, all of which create memorable, repeatable cues. He then introduces a suite of practical resources for families: short daily prayers, the Table Talk conversation cards, the Shine service‑journal for kids, Sabbath Action Blast activity cards, the Lamb Scroll series of bite‑size Bible stories, the 28 Stories book for small‑group study, and story‑telling kits that let children act out biblical narratives. Finally, Edgren offers a personal narrative about his brain‑tumor surgery, his temporary step‑down from children’s‑ministry leadership, and the transition to Catherine, illustrating the principle of discipleship and the importance of empowering others. Throughout, the tone is conversational, instructional, and warmly enthusiastic, aiming to equip parents with theological insight, developmental awareness, and ready‑to‑use tools for a vibrant family Sabbath.
Chapters
The main purpose of gathering in this workshop is to talk about increasing our faith involvement at home. The way that we spend time as a family doing things that are integrating faith into the lives of our children. Your children basically learn from you all the time. You don't really get a choice as to when they're learning. They're always learning. So I kind of shudder at some of the things they've learned from me just by watching me drive, by They're watching me talk on the telephone, and you notice they start mimicking you when they're really young. They'll start, "Oh, okay, bye." Where'd they get that from? And you're gonna say, "Okay, bye." And you go, "How'd you do it?" "Oh, that's exactly how I say goodbye." And so they copy us. So when we are putting faith into practice in the home, it really is going to come out of who we authentically are, who we really, who we are in Christ, and who we, how we live our faith every day is who our kids are gonna see us as really being. They understand that when we pull into the church parking lot and we say, "Okay, everyone sit up straight," No more arguing. I remember we would be driving to church and it would be hair pulling and screaming and everything. And as we came around the corner where the church was, my mother would be like, "I can see the church!" And we would all go, "Oh, yeah!" She'd say, "I don't want any more of that nonsense!" And then we'd be all good, walk into the church, the perfect little family, you know? "Oh, those have been such lovely children." And then after Sabbath a minute, we left the church, it's like, "Argh! I'm gonna kill you again!" So there is There is, and kids understand it at a very early age, holy places and holy spaces. Kids understand that idea of we, we act in a unique or a special way when we're in this environment or when we're with these people. And some of the research that's been done, Oxford College actually initiated this project trying to figure out why, because they don't believe in God. They're trying to figure out why is it right around the world, no matter where you go, You look at the history of people, they all believe in gods. They all believe in either one god or multiple gods, but there's never been a culture that's evolved anywhere that is an atheistic culture at its foundation. They always have gods. And so they wanted to know why. You know, what anthropologically— we need to study this— and sociologically and psychologically. And so they sent all these researchers out to write papers and to come back. And 3 years later, they came back in 2010, and they had this symposium where they showed 40 papers. And one of the very interesting things that they hadn't really intended, it wasn't a mission at the beginning to do, was in order for them to study the foundations of these people, many of the researchers ended up researching children. Because children were the most authentic expressors of what was really happening in a community. They weren't just doing what they were, you know, what fit in, what they were supposed to do, but they were Kids are kids. They really, really are. And so one of the papers just absolutely fascinated me. And the results this person came to was they said that children that don't believe in God— so they're like raised in a family, a contemporary family that doesn't have any religious experience or any beliefs— when they make believe, They make-believe into their world superpowers. They make-believe gods, goddesses, princes and princesses. Very, very rarely do they make-believe things that are underneath them, like pets. They almost always create something that they can go to that's higher than them, that they can ask, you know, "What should I do about this?" or they can— it's like their super friend. And often it's someone that they actually connect to like a deity, like a god figure. They found that it's really fascinating in their research that kids intuitively kind of get the idea that there's something bigger above and beyond us. And the other thing that they noticed that kids did intuitively is when they talk to children about death, children don't understand the idea of death. Death is very difficult for children to understand, and that's why we'll have pets and things like that so kids can experience— we don't buy a pet so the thing will die, but we know in the life cycle of that that hamster or that pet snake or whatever, it's going to pass away. We're going to be able to talk about death in a natural setting rather than having to wait until somebody they love dies. And, um, some kids make it a long time without experiencing death, and it's a very unnatural experience for them when something that they love dies. On the opposite side of the spectrum, kids from the minute that they can really verbalize what they're thinking, so like 2 years old, 3 years old, understand the idea of immortality. That you can live forever. That makes perfect sense to them. That— well, of course, why wouldn't you live forever? That's the way we're supposed to be, isn't it? Well, that's how we were created. We were created to live forever and sin has created death. So, when we look at an understanding of what sin Sabbath is meant to be and what family worship is meant to be, it changes. You know, because if you did Sabbath worship, family worship or Sabbath time the same way with your 2-year-old as you did when they were 20, you know, the 20-year-old would be going, "Why are we still singing these silly songs?" And maybe they would think that's all our faith gets to. And so then they would feel like, "Yeah, it's time for me to leave my faith." because my faith hasn't grown up. So in the way that we express our faith, and particularly on Sabbath, and even in Sabbath keeping— it's interesting, we talk about keeping the Sabbath, but really the whole purpose of the Sabbath is to keep us. God created the Sabbath to draw us to himself every week. And when we turn it into something where we have to keep the laws on the Sabbath, it makes it possible for us to break the Sabbath, which is actually not possible. When we are not keeping the Sabbath, it breaks us. We fall apart because we're not resting and we're not having that connection with God and connection with community. So Sabbath is an eternal principle, and the Bible actually demonstrates that throughout eternity, even after the Second Coming and after we go through Heaven and the New Earth and we're living in the New Earth, it says that God He's going to live with us in the New Jerusalem, and we will come every Sabbath and worship Him. And Sabbath is going to be eternal. So Sabbath can't be just about not breaking it, because in the New Earth we're not going to sin. So if you were thinking, "Oh, what are we supposed to do today?" Well, I know what we're not supposed to do. Um, what we're not supposed to do. You know, you can see that's just the wrong kind of thinking for Heaven, because nobody's going to be wanting to do what they're not supposed to do. So what if we started playing Heaven on the Sabbath now? What if we started saying, what's it gonna be like when God's right next to us and he wants to experience the Sabbath with us? And at each level, and we change that as our kids grow up. By way of kind of an illustration, I just thought it'd be fun to explore the Sabbath. And you can go through your Bibles later and have a look. But the first time that the Sabbath is introduced in the Bible, to the people who were living in that day and age is in the Exodus story, because that's when the whole Bible was first started to be written, was by Moses. And so the first time they experienced thou shalt keep the Sabbath, what was remember the Sabbath, that was the first time that they had heard that because they had been in slavery for 400 years. And so when you hear, you know, the idea of what's got the word remember at the beginning of it, It's because as a people, they had not been experiencing it for so long that they had disconnected from, you know, however many hundred years before it was Joseph, and then before that Abraham, and way back to Adam and Eve. It was a long time since creation and since the Sabbath was instituted in the Garden of Eden. And then in retelling the story of creation, we get, "And on the seventh day God rested and then therefore blessed them." Sabbath day. But the first experience of God's people, as far as biblically would go, the Bible would go with the Sabbath, was this idea of the do and don't. Honor the Sabbath, don't disrespect the Sabbath, keep the Sabbath holy because God made it. And on 7 days he created, he did all this work. And that's where we get that idea of hard work on the 6th day, rest on the 7th day. And it's, it's a, it's a structure for slaves to reclaim their identity in God. And he's saying, yes, we know you're hard workers because you've been forced to work for 4,000 or 400 years. You are a people who knows how to work, but God wants you to rest. And it's just as important to him, just as important as all the work of creation. That rest was so important that he actually made that a special day. So the Sabbath commandment is really, really poignant. It's really direct and really a hard statement where to force these people who basically they only did something if they were told in black and white to do it because they came from a slave culture and weren't used to the freedom of choice yet. And then as they've been alive as a people for a while, they've been free for a while, Moses tells them the story and it gets written down of creation and how on the seventh day, the seventh day was is actually God blessed the seventh day. It's interesting when you look in the creation story, it doesn't say anything about how hard God worked on the first 6 days and that's why he rested. It just says, "And on the seventh day God rested, and so he, because he was finished with all of his work, he blessed the Sabbath day." And it's more about, I've created a day for everything else, and now I've created a day for worship, for me and the people that I created spending time together. If you leap forward another few hundred years in the story of God's people, Jerusalem is being sacked. It's being destroyed by the Babylonians. And God comes in through Jeremiah and he says to the people, the reason why your city is falling apart is because you've forgotten the principles of Christianity. You've forgotten about Judaism. You've forgotten the principles of what it means to be my people, and particularly You've forgotten the Sabbath. You're doing business outside the city gates on Sabbath, and you're cutting the edges of the Sabbath finer and finer. And you've lost that. You've stopped saying, yes, that's us, when people say, so what happens on the Sabbath? There's no difference in your city. How can I put my protective hand over you if you've put your hand up and said, go away? God's not into the business of forcing people to obey. So he said, if you don't want me to protect you, I won't. So start keeping the Sabbath again. And if you'll keep the Sabbath, and if you'll make it holy— and so he creates the Sabbath, or he retells the Sabbath to them as a way of identity in comparison to the countries around them. The Sabbath makes you a unique, peculiar people. And by keeping the Sabbath and by honoring the Sabbath, it makes you an honorable people who have a powerful for God. And so the Sabbath hasn't, in effect, the Sabbath hasn't changed, but God tells the story differently through Jeremiah to the people because they need a different picture of the Sabbath for it to become a day that they will honor it. And then when they come back out of Jerusalem and they set up and they start honoring the Sabbath, and it kind of just keeps, they ebb and flow, positive, negative, positive, negative, As the Old Testament goes. And then Jesus comes. And Jesus does the wackiest things on Sabbath. Jesus is going around healing people on Sabbath, which is obviously— it's got to be hard work. How can you heal somebody who's deaf and make them so they can hear? Or heal somebody who is lame and make them so they can walk? If you can do that, that can't be easy. It's got to be— whatever power you're using to do it, that's got to be hard work. And so the Jews said, no, healing is which is actually not a Sabbath thing to do. And then he also, while they're walking through the fields with his disciples, they're just pulling off the heads of the grain and roughing it up and taking the little bits of seed and chewing on them as they're walking. And again, the religious leaders said that they're harvesting grain on the Sabbath. We don't do that. That's bad. And the other thing is, how in the world can they count their steps when they're just grabbing the top of the grain and having conversations? And stuff. They were probably walking way further than they should be on the Sabbath. And they had all these rules and stuff. And Jesus, He demonstrated, not just through His words, which He said it very beautifully, but through His actions, that the Sabbath was created for people. People were created for the Sabbath. So it is not like God said, "Okay, I made this special day. Now I need some people that fit in it really perfectly." He created us, and He said, "Now I need a day where I can spend time with these people and really experience them worshiping me. And so he created an extra day. He could have, if he created the whole earth in 6 days, he could have just, could have 6-day weeks. Why do we have 7? Because he recognized that there's something in us that needs that moment of rest. And evidently, 1/7 of our time is how much time we need to really be healthy and and holistic people. And if we spend that 1/7 of our time on the Sabbath worshiping God, it's the time He promises to show up. But the way we spend it, and even the reason we spend it, the way we teach it changes as we as a people change. And when we as a family are growing up, family is probably the time when we are changing the most as individuals, even the parents. We, we watch our kids become something new, we become something new, to help them kind of grow. And then when you're, you know, when you're done raising your children, you realize that now you know why teenagers had all the answers, because once you've had kids, you realize there are no set answers for anybody else's kids. Just raising your own was hard enough. And also, God put you with those children in your life to care for. So the Sabbath, and this is largely from from my own experience, the Sabbath is meant to be a day of joy. Sabbath is meant to be a day where, at whatever level we are spiritually, that when we come to Friday night— the Jews actually have this special thing they call the 26-hour Sabbath, where they start the Sabbath 1 hour before sunset because they're so excited that it's coming. And it's like they have a special friend who's coming to visit for the weekend. And so they prepare the whole house for this friend who's going to arrive. And they really— it's a special family member, that kind of idea. They really hope that the person will arrive early. And so they're ready, and they're waiting, and they're kind of like, when's he going to arrive? When's he going to arrive? Oh, he's not here yet. But they're ready for him an hour early. So they anticipate the Sabbath, the visiting of the Sabbath, of God's presence in their life on that day. And then they mourn the passing of the Sabbath, at the end of the Sabbath. So they don't say, like my brother who used to have the remote, do like this. Sitting there, watch the clock. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 3, 2, 1, football! And he turned it on. And he honestly, when there was football on Saturday night, that was my brother. Was there. And I can remember, I don't know how old he was, but it wasn't for a few years because that was his tradition. At some point my dad walked in and he said, "Ted, if all that's on your mind right now is football, you might as well have the TV on." And he said, "Really? Cool." He just turned it on and then watched the final. It was probably 5 minutes before Sabbath was out or whatever. And then over time he started He rethought it, and he didn't sit on the couch like that anymore, because I think my dad kind of challenged him to— where's your head? You're thinking about football probably during church. You're thinking about the game tonight. So anyway, the idea of mourning the passing of the Sabbath was also the same idea of this friend, this loved one who they have to leave. They have to go back to their home, but they don't want them to leave. And so they try to hold on to them for as as they can. And the reason why isn't because they're trying to be holy and they're trying to say, oh, we really love the Sabbath. Because the Sabbath was actually an extremely joyful occasion for a Jewish family. It was the one time when Dad stayed home all day, spent time with the family. They walked to synagogue together. They would have the most delicious feast on the Friday night and then on the Sabbath lunch. And And much like what many of our families are like, they made it a special day right through the whole time and focused on the children. And they actually had in Jewish homes, and still today in Jewish homes, the children ask questions to transition into different parts of the Sabbath. And actually in their life, even like in Bar Mitzvah, it's all question-based where they'll say, "Why do we do this, Father? Why are we lighting this candle, Father?" And say, "We're lighting this candle to represent What does it represent that our people were in darkness and then they were set free? And, "Oh, okay." And the kids know the answer to the question probably by the third or fourth time they've asked it. But they're taught, "You need to ask this question." And mom gets them to ask the question. And then the father answers the question. And they have like this mirroring thing of question and answer that happens. And they do that every Sabbath. They have this beautiful ritual of conversation. And while we don't have to have their exact traditions, It's powerful and it's enjoyable, it's beautiful to actually have traditions as a family. But they change over time. I remember earlier in Cyrus's life when he was, um, when he was probably 6 or 7 years old, every Friday night Jenny, my wife, would make a braided loaf of bread because she'd read somewhere that the Jews make this braided loaf of bread. She thought that would be neat and she actually found it was It was really cathartic to be actually working the dough and stuff just before the Sabbath came in. And then she'd make this loaf of bread and it would be ready right as the Sabbath came in. And we'd have pumpkin soup and this loaf of bread and we'd rip it up and eat the soup together. And then we noticed a few years later that Cyrus was having difficulty. Whenever he got to the table, he was complaining about things. And we were thinking, "How do we— what can we do to make Cyrus be positive at the table?" table. Now he's a super positive kid, but he just went through this phase. I think all our kids do it. And so we said, okay, you're going to have special juice on Friday nights and on Sabbath at lunch, but particularly on Friday nights. And we just had water on the table the rest of the week during meals, but on Friday night we put out fruit juice. And it could be anything, whatever. But we started with really nice, you know, really nice tasting grape juice. And and put it in all their glasses— at first the hands go "No no no! Careful! That's special juice!" That's thankful juice. What's thankful juice? Well you can only drink it once you've said something that you're thankful for. And it has to be in the last week. It can't be since... it has to be from last Friday until this Friday since last Sabbath. Something you're thankful for. It can't be something coming up next week. It has to be in this last week. They think about it for a little bit. Oh, I'm thankful that— and they say something, and then they get to drink their thankful juice. And we did that for, I don't know, for a long time, probably a year or so. Every Friday night, we'd have thankful juice, and the kids loved it. And one night, I came home late, and I didn't bring any juice. And there was no fruit juice in the house. And we sat down, and the table was set, and we're all sitting down there. I don't want any glasses because I said, "Jenny, I forgot the drinks, so just don't put glasses and maybe the kids just won't say anything." No way. Rachel walks down and she looks at the table. She goes, "Cyrus, come with me." She takes Cyrus upstairs. She goes, "You take the glasses. I'll take the juice." Cyrus brings the glasses down and I said, "Oh, I'm sorry guys. I didn't get any thankful juice." Rachel goes, "I'm getting it." I hear the tap come on. She pulls it down. She comes down with water. Obele. She goes, "Tonight, this is thankful juice." And she put the water on the table. And we all treated water just the same way. And it was the ritual of having that entry point into the Sabbath that was really valuable to them. Of course, it made us laugh. What a beautiful, beautiful thing that the kids would do. But children really do, they love ritual. They love repetition. And if you have a special way of bringing in the Sabbath, and it doesn't have to be the way anyone else has done it. It could just be something that's your way. Sitting around at a certain spot or having a certain meal that reminds them that this is the beginning of the Sabbath. And then a certain, you know, whatever, something you read, something you pray. Just some experience that happens every Friday night. It's very powerful in the life of kids. And likewise, closing the Sabbath and welcoming the new week. And like the Jews say, mourning the passing of the Sabbath and saying we're looking forward to next Sabbath when we get to spend the whole day with you. But until then, please be with us as we do our work and lead other people towards you. Just a prayer like that and maybe a story. There's just, there's so many different things you can do. And what I found in my life is when anyone tells me— I think this is something with the postmodern generation— if you tell me what to do, I'm not going to do it. But if you just share with me some ideas and stories of what you've done, I'll think about it and I'll think, oh, we might try that, or we might try something a little different. So what I thought I would do today is bring some resources and just show them to you. This is a resource that Catherine the minister, that children's ministry director in Victoria. She made this up and she just printed it out. She said the website's on the main one, timewarpwife.com. And they're little prayers. Number 1 prayer, honor my parents. Dear God, please help me to honor and respect my parents. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. And then there's another prayer the next day. So you can have that for your kids. Have a look at that. Pass it around. So that could be a way that, you know, you have a prayer a day that you say with your kids and talk about what it means. That's one possible thing. Have you guys seen these? I know Darren's been sharing them around. These are fantastic. Table Talk. Great way to get conversations just flowing. I'll pass that around as well. You can have a look for those of you who haven't had a look. So there's just heaps of questions to get kids to have a discussion. This is brand new. Have you guys seen this yet? Have you heard of Shine? Shine is basically serve Him in everything. And it's a spiritual nurturing journal for kids based on service. So inside of this little journal, it's a one-off kind of thing that a kid does for, I think 2 weeks or something, where you join the club by filling the book in, and there's pages like that, and it's— this page is called Our Family Serve— Serve Our Family Log. What we did, and you write what you did in the box. How I felt, you write how you felt. How it went, and you write how it went. And parents or caregivers comment. And then you can write something there. And then there's a plus for a seal of approval. And there's all these challenges at the beginning of the book that challenge the kids. Oh, there's the rules. See if I can find them. Oh, here's some ideas. Some things— here's some ideas to get you started. Clean my room without being asked. Clean up the kitchen after a meal. Help prepare the meal. So if they— let's say they help prepare the meal, then they can come and write on this What I did: I helped Mom prepare the meal by chopping up the broccoli. How I felt: It was amazing! Mom let me use the knife and I didn't even cut myself. How it went: I still have all my fingers and also the salad was delicious. And then your parents— you get your mom and dad to write a message in there about halfway and then sign it. And then your children's ministry director, or maybe they send you a pack of seals that you can put the seal over approval. And when they finish the 20 Days of Challenge, they become a Shine member. So it's just a way to get kids to think about service and to be integrating it into their life for 20 days. This is Sabbath Action Blast. Has anyone seen this book? If you're just looking for a quick idea for something to do on Sabbath, you just open it. Vegetable Buddies. What you need: vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, turnips, yarn, scraps of felt or fabric, cotton swabs, and then it's just based on— this one is based on, let's see what— it's going to be based on a Bible story. But they just have all these different activities of fun things to do with kids. Now, different ages of kids, different things will work. And some kids, um, or littler kids need really active things because they're not going to sit down and read a book or listen for very long while you're reading a book. But as kids do get older, they start enjoying reading. And I remember Cyrus, he started really quite young, um, probably 5 years old he was sitting down trying to read. By the time he was 6 or 7, He would be gone for hours reading books. He read through books that I couldn't even make it through them. And he still does. He still loves reading. This is a book that, out of a series of books that I've written, that the goal of them is to explain Bible stories in a fun way that will keep kids gripped into the story. This one's called The Lamb Scroll. I only have Lamb Scrolls in stock with me. There's the first one is called the Serpent Scroll, and there's the Lamb Scroll, and then the Kingdom Scroll. But you can read them in any order. And they basically take the kids on a faith journey. This is the middle of it, which is following Jesus. So following the Lamb. But they explore stories around that word. So that's— these are Lamb stories. So they see a sacrifice and learn about what sacrifice means. And the kids get pulled into a Bible, and then they go explore. Exploring the stories from the old— it's like The Magic School Bus, that kind of idea. They shrink down to go into a story. But at the end of each chapter, there's questions to be discussed. And I wrote the chapters purposely to be no more than about 10 to 12 minutes of reading time aloud. And so you read it out loud for 10 minutes, you finish a chapter, you ask the questions, that's the end of family worship for the day. If you do it that way, the book will last you for, well, including Sabbaths, you probably wouldn't do it on Sabbath morning. Anyway, it's 20, between 21 and 24 chapters, I think, each of the books. So it's a month. And the kids, if you keep it away from them, because if you give it to them, they'll just read it straight through. And then they'll beg you. So the number of stories that I've had of parents call me or write letters to me When I read these chapters, my kids will not let me stop reading. Because I purposely wrote them as the end of the chapter kind of makes you want the next chapter. It's a cliffhanger. And the kids are begging for, "Oh, we have to know what happens next." And, "Well, let's answer the questions. And boy, it's going to be fun to have worship tomorrow, isn't it?" "Yeah, all we have to do is worship." And hopefully, by the time you've read through a whole book like that, the kids will be in such a rich of doing family worship. You know, they say 3 weeks, that if you do anything consistently for 3 weeks, it becomes a habit. And so once you've gotten into the habit of doing family worship for 3 weeks, it'll become the kind of thing that your kids will remind you of, rather than you having to remind them and say, "Come on, we're doing family worship." If they're enjoying it and it's aimed at their level, which this is aimed at primary school kids, that's the level of the book. Book, that book of that series. This is aimed at older kids, unless you just read the story. The 28 Stories is— I actually wrote it as the Sabbath school director to help Sabbath schools transition to having small groups, because one of the comments I get the most is, "We don't have any materials. We have Sabbath school lessons for Sabbath school, but we don't have any materials for small group." So I wrote this to explore the 28 fundamentals, but in a fun way. So it starts with a Bible story, each one, and then it goes into exploring, um, how does that— how does that Bible story apply to my life? And then how does it reveal biblically the fundamental, um, that we're exploring? You can have a look at that. That one's geared at probably upper primary to high school age kids, unless you just use the stories. The little kids would love the stories because it is Bible stories. And that one, for those of you who came to the Sabbath School workshop last Last night. That's basically the Sabbath School workshop in a book. If you're interested in that. So, once we've done passing those around, we'll leave all those resources around so you guys can have a look at them. They're all available from your ABCs. The books that I have with me, I've just got an honor box there because it's Sabbath. I don't want to deal with money and stuff. So if you want to, um, they're $10 a book. If you want to just write an IOU and your name and phone number or email address and push it into that box, I'll catch you later to get the cash or get to email me, I mean to mail me money or pay me on PayPal or whatever. Or if you want to just push the cash into the box, that's fine too. And just take whichever books you want, they're $10 a book. But before we get into that, I have to show you these. This is probably one of the best ideas for exploring Bible stories at home when you have little kids. And Catherine made these up. Catherine is the Children's Ministry Director now in, uh, Victoria. I was the Children's Ministry Director for the last 3 years, and then last year in the middle of the year I found out that I had a brain tumor, and so I had to go on sick leave. Um, and I had the tumor out in January surgery, and then 3 weeks— 3 months of recuperating. So I needed somebody to do the children's ministry responsibilities at camp because there's 4 divisions to run. So Catherine and I have been working together. She's been volunteering, helping me with things for a couple years, and I'm always teasing her saying, you know, one day you're going to be the children's ministries director, so pay attention. No, never, never. And then here comes this tumor, and I said, Catherine, somebody's got to look after this while I'm gone. Yeah, I can do it. I can do it. Don't you dare ask me to stay, to keep it forever. Because I couldn't handle being the children's ministry director. And then after doing it for 5 months, she said to me, "I really hope you don't want your job back. I love it." And she's doing such a fantastic job. I just went into the conference president and I said, "Isn't discipleship all about finding the right person to replace you and then getting out of the way so they can do what God shaped them to do?" Yes, but Dave, it's up to the nominating committee to put someone into a position. I said, well, I, I resign. I think Catherine would be a great replacement. And he said, okay, well, write a letter of resignation. So I did, and that's what they've done. Now, what she— Catherine has one boy who's ADHD, all over the place, and she has a daughter, and she homeschools both of them, and her daughter is extremely highly creative and into everything. Anything you put out, she'll be into it. So what they've started doing as a family— just, um, maybe I'll just give each group— I'll just demonstrate one, and then I want to get you guys to go off into groups and have fun with one— is they've taken the Bible stories, and what Catherine realized, and I think she read this on a website or something, is most of the stuff to to tell Bible stories we have around our house. And so you can get the kids involved in the actual process of making the kit, and then you can create one of these to go on the pillowcase, and then you just keep it together. So what she has here, Noah. Use the following items, plus any more you have at home, to tell the story of Noah. You could have one person read the story as others play it out, or you might like to read it together and then play it out as a family. And so then the content she has in here, obviously an animal. I think that one squeaks too. A bowl. I wonder what that's for. Might be the boat. Oh, to pour the water. Anyway, it's really fun. And then this is a— for babies telling the story. It's just all kinds of things to help you tell the story to kids. Which part of the story made you happy? Which part— do you think they were happy when the rain fell down or sad? What about the people outside the boat? Happy or sad? Choose. Those are great for any story, just to have that emotional responses. There's to pour the water. Bubbles? Oh, that would be fun. Washi tape? I think that's the ark. There probably is. It probably floated in the bowl. And then you just use— and this is like this morning what they were doing with the— is that? Where was that at? That was a video. Yeah, when you had the paper and you had the waves and in the ground. Yep, that kind of stuff. So who wants— which kids want to come up and get a bag and then go and prepare to tell us a story? Do you want to explore one of these? Maybe if I bring it to you. How about this? Because this is— you can select who wants the story of The Wise and Foolish Builders. Does anyone want the Wise and Foolish Builders? Or what about Daniel and the Lion's Den? You want that one? Eddie, you want that one? Probably have 3 or 4 people in a group. Anybody want to come and get the Creation Story bag? Uh-oh, not that one. Not that one. You want that one? You just need to take that to a group of— Abby? Take that to a group of grown-ups to help you. Do you want to do it with Abby, Sarah? Sarah and Abby can do it together. How's that? Good. Okay, and do we have enough? Must have some more kids up there. The lost sheep we have, and we have Jonah.
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