MAD HATS IN THE FINAL STRETCH!

MAD HATS HAVE BROUGHT IN $180 SO FAR!! BUT WE STILL HAVE $830 TO GO TO REACH OUR 2010 GOAL! SO KEEP PUSHING FOR VOTES!

Here are the stats so far:

1st Place to be worn by Ms. Aimee so far coming in at $70.09 - Hat #1: Pink Eiffel Tower Hat

2nd Place to be worn by Ms. Lou so far coming in at $43.15 - Hat #2: Google Eyed Zsa Zsa Hat

3rd Place to be worn by Ms. Olivia so far coming in at $19.91 - Hat #4: Shell Hat

4th Place to be worn by Ms. Tammie so far coming in at $12.51 - Hat #6: Patriotic Paper Hat

5th Place to be worn by Ms. Barb Williams so far coming in at $11.82 - Hat #5: Bug Hat

6th Place to be worn by Ms. Nicole John so far coming in at $9.52 - Hat #9: Cardboard Box

7th Place to be worn by Ms. Sarah Britten so far coming in at $7.49 - Hat #3: Paper Fish Hat

8th Place to be worn by NEENAH so far coming in at $2.33 - Hat #8: Pink Fuzzy Hat

9th Place to be worn by Ms. Deanna Laforge so far coming in at $2.31 - Hat #7: Fisherman's Hat

REMEMBER: There is still ONE MORE NIGHT to vote, so don't give up yet! Call your family and friends and get them out on Wednesday night to vote. These numbers may not reflect at all where things will end up because things often change up at the last minute with grandparents who get the E-BAY bid-sniping spirit on them! And remember that it's ALL for Jesus, not who wins and loses anyway! HALLELUJAH!

20 Tips to Hiking with Children

Have your children lost touch with nature? When is the last time they rolled in a pile of leaves, climbed a tree, rode their bikes, chased a butterfly through the park or went wading in a creek? Kids need outdoor time. It's good for them, and, according to many experts, the lack of it can take a toll on their physical, emotional and psychological well-being.

So make it a point to allow your children plenty of time to play outside. And get out there with them! Take a hike, paddle a canoe, explore a nature trail, hunt for bugs or go fishing. Connecting with nature is good for their bodies - and their souls!

Have you ever hiked with your kids? Here are 20 ideas to get you started down the right path:

Find a great trail near you: www.localhikes.com

1. Don’t go too far, take it slow, enjoy the journey.


2. Explore, play, have fun —how far and where you go are secondary.


3. Sometimes it is the little things that can mess up a trip, so be sure everyone puts on sunscreen and reapplies it on a regular basis. Then keep children fed and hydrated.


4. Keep talking or play games while hiking to distract children from their potential misery.


5. Bring cards and a good lightweight paperback for a rainy day in the tent.


6. Quit the lesson while it is still fun.


7. Take a layover day at a nice lake.


8. Bring a friend. Our children love you but might have more fun with a friend.


9. Learn enough about backpacking and hiking to feel comfortable in the woods.


10. Don’t be discouraged after a tough sleepless night or when you cannot get things to work. Focus on joy.


11. Love the ones you are with, or at least learn from them. Watch experienced backpackers—copy them, as ideas are free.


12. Always leave an itinerary with a responsible party, and follow it.


13. Go on the Internet and find a star/satellite chart for the area you are visiting.


14. Be a parent, not a wimp. Be positive and supportive of your child. Deal with the situation and move on. Kids look to you for strength and fortitude, so fake it.


15. Tell bad puns and scary stories.


16. Understand that dirt is o.k. and it is part of the fun.


17. Do your part to protect the areas you backpack in.


18. When you put your bear canister away for the night, make sure to put it a good distance from your tent.


19. If you venture into high-altitude terrain and you live at low elevation, try to spend a day or two acclimating to the altitude before starting you trip. Take it easy the first day.


20. Laugh, giggle, guffaw, whoop, titter, and chuckle as much as possible.

BGMC WEEKEND AND FINAL WEEK TO VOTE ON MAD HATS!

This is BGMC weekend! Don't forget your BGMC offering! Fill those Buddy Barrels and bring them in. We've still got a LOOONG way to go to reach our 2010 goal! Every dollar helps!

This is also the last weekend to vote on Mad Hats, so remind all your friends and family to support your favorite hat! Next Wednesday is the final chance to vote! Top money makers will be worn by the pastor's wives!

Finally, this weekend is lesson 7 in our Outback Adventure and we'll be focusing on the crown of creation: MANKIND! Adam and Even finally show up on the scene! So don't miss this exciting lesson as we wrap up our focus on the 6 days of creation!

Are You Giving Instructions Clearly?

We’ve all found ourselves in situations where adults are supervising children. Some adults have the ability to command attention and get children to listen better than others. All they use is what we call a Firm Instruction, a very important part of the discipline process. It's quite useful whether you're working with your own children or someone else's.


Good discipline doesn't just mean finding appropriate consequences. In fact, developing the skill of giving instructions can prevent many of the discipline problems we experience. Here's what makes a Firm Instruction work best.

To give a Firm Instruction you must first get your child's attention. This may involve things like moving close to the child, obtaining eye contact, and requesting the child remove the earphones. Next give a brief, firm, verbal instruction. You don't have to be harsh or irritated, just calm and matter-of-fact, communicating one-on-one with the child.

After giving the instruction, teach your children how to acknowledge your request. This will help you know that the message was received. A good response is to say, "Okay Mom" or "Okay Dad." This type of response tells you three things. It tells you that the child has heard the instruction, avoiding the common excuse later, "I didn't hear you say that."

The child's acknowledgment also tells you that the child intends to follow through. And lastly, the way the child responds to you indicates the child's attitude at the time. Is this an angry or disrespectful "Okayyyy Dadddd!” response? If so, now you know you're dealing with an attitude problem, not just working on following directions.

The Firm Instruction is one step in a complete discipline process, yet it’s often overlooked. Take time to evaluate your instructions and you'll be surprised at how small changes can make a big difference.

What benefits have you seen in your family from a firm instruction? Click here to tell us about it.



This parenting tip was taken from the book, Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids, by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

Awana Schedules

CLUB NIGHT SCHEDULE:

6:30pm - 8pm

K-2nd Grade
SCHEDULE:

6:30pm - Game Time
(Don't be late! Any Sparks who arrive late will miss the first round of games.)
6:55pm - Handbook Time
7:25pm - Large Group Teaching Time
7:50pm - Flag/Awards Ceremonies


3rd - 6th Grade
SCHEDULE:
6:30pm - Handbook Time
6:55pm - Game Time
7:25pm - Large Group Teaching Time
7:50pm - Flag/Award Ceremonies

Sexy Too Soon

The battle against the sexualization of our children
by Vicki Courtney

American girls are increasingly being fed a steady diet of products and images that pressure them to be sexy. From clothing to cartoons, choreography to commercials, the emphasis on sexuality undercuts parents' efforts to instill purity in their daughters.

The American Psychological Association (APA) warns that this sexualization of girls is harmful to their self-image and healthy development. "[Girls are] experiencing teen pressures at younger and younger ages. However, they are not able to deal with these issues because their cognitive development is out of sync with their social, emotional and sexual development," the APA reported.

The proliferation of sexual images also undermines a girl's confidence in her own body. In fact, research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women — eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression.

Let's take a closer look at some of the cultural influences bombarding our daughters.

Suggestive fashion
Have you shopped for girls' clothing lately? Toddlers to teens are inundated with adult fashions. Pop singer Beyonce now has her own clothing line that introduces the red-light district to the school lunchroom.

Popular clothing items among teens include thong underwear and shorts displaying suggestive words across the backside. The abundance of racy clothing emphasizes the message: Dress sexy.

Tarted-up toys
As young girls, most moms probably owned Barbie dolls and enjoyed collecting their clothing and accessories. Mattel today takes style to a new level with the introduction of Black Canary Barbie for adult collectors. Designed as a comic-book character, this doll is dressed in fishnet hose, a leather bikini bottom and a black leather jacket. She's available in toy stores, right next to Ballerina Barbie. Explain that to your preschooler.

Pop-culture icons
You can't walk through the grocery checkout aisle without seeing the latest shenanigans of young celebrities. The lives of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan fascinate young girls. The Hannah Montana phenomenon, while seemingly innocent at first, has been colored by provocative photos of teenage actress Miley Cyrus. The media push young starlets to move beyond "precocious and cute" to "sensual and sexy." All the while, impressionable tween fans stand by in wide-eyed wonder, wanting to be just like them.

Who's to blame?
While it's easy to blame media for these poisonous influences, we also need to scrutinize ourselves. How many of these influences have we allowed into our homes? Are we modeling a healthy biblical view of gender and sex? If we fret over physical appearance or enjoy media laden with sexual images, chances are we will pass on the same mind-set to our daughters.

We must take a fresh look at what messages enter our home. While it would be impossible to shield children from every damaging influence, we can certainly take a stand against the worst offenders. And we can inoculate our kids against the world's counterfeit sexuality by talking to them about God's good plan for men and women.

Our culture tries to convince our daughters that they amount to nothing more than the sum of their parts. Only by addressing this lie head-on will we equip our children with the truth. Our daughters need to know that God's standard for beauty is the only standard that matters.

This article first appeared in the February/March, 2009 issue of Focus on the Family magazine. Copyright © 2009 Vicki Courtney. All rights reserved.

Outback Adventure Lesson 6: Creation Day 6 - God Created Animals

5:30pm Saturday Night Service

10am Sunday Morning Service

Awana kicks off tonight!!!

Tonight at 6:30pm!

New Sparkies Leadership Team!

New shirts & awards for both clubs!

More kids signed up than ever!

Don't miss the fun!

Learn to Recognize Emotional Signals

The minor emotional signals you experience many times a day can help you know when and how to discipline your children. This takes some work and you may need to spend time educating yourself on the emotional signals you're already receiving.

Imagine a car's control panel with many little lights. They flash occasionally, sometimes even intensely. With experience you begin to learn about all those lights and what they mean. One indicates that the oil pressure is low, another reveals that the trunk is open. Yet another tells you that it's time to take the car in for maintenance. Emotions are like those little lights. It takes time to understand what they mean and how to respond rightly to them. When you become more in touch with the emotional signals in relationships and are more sensitive to others then you can begin to respond in healthier ways.

Hundreds of times a day, you make decisions about life. You'd be surprised at how many times it's a minor emotional signal that gets you started. A salesman knows just the right time to close the deal. A husband is amazed at his wife's perceptiveness to sense a problem in their son. A teacher decides to let the class take a stretch break. If you ask those people how they knew how to respond to a situation, they may not be able to articulate what it was that gave them the clue. They just felt as if it was the right thing to do.

If you analyze all of the above situations, you will discover that each involved specific objective signals that don't have to do with emotions. People relied on details that they saw, heard, or remembered. However, those cues trigger emotional responses, not intellectual reason. Salesmen, teachers, and parents often learn to look for signals and clues in others in the form of expressions or behavior. But some of the best skill comes from an emotional sense that this is the right response for the current situation.

Considering emotional cues may seem contradictory to what you've heard in the past. We've all been warned, "Be careful about making decisions based on emotions." That's good advice, especially as you're growing in your experience, because emotions can give unclear signals about life situations. It would be unwise to leave the house messy just because you don't feel like cleaning it, or confront someone just because he made you mad. That's not what we're talking about here.


When a decision is very important it's essential to base it on more than a hunch or an emotional cue, but you'd be surprised how anger can become an asset in your parenting if you learn to keep it in check and understand what it is telling you.

To learn more about emotions and parenting, take a look at the book, Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and Your Kids, by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

BGMC Fundraising is Struggling!

We've kicked off our Mad Hats fundraiser, but unfortunately, we're off to a VERY slow start and I fear that if we don't have a better showing on this one, we will fall miserably short on our end of the year goal. We only have collected about $2,000 so far this year and our goal is $3,200. We need this Mad Hat fundraiser to bring in a bare minimum of $500 or we may not recover. Of course, anything can happen, but we are considerably behind where we were last year at this time and we barely hit our $3000 last year! I did get some encouraging news that some of our kids have been working on a rummage sale for BGMC behind the scenes. That's the kind of extra effort it's going to take this year, I think. But we need more kids to get serious like that. We only had 5 hats turned in so far and one of those was done by Lloyd Vandenberg's kids.

So how about it, guys? Can we count on another 10 hats to come in this week? The longer it takes to get them out on display, the more opportunities we're missing to collect money for them but we'll take them up to the last minute if need be. Remind your kids that some of them made pledges to participate in our fundraisers this year, even if they're not feeling like doing it now. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate or difficult. It should be fun, but we need SOMETHING if possible.

On another note, I've noticed several buddy barrels sitting on the coal rack in the hallway outside the CW Playhouse door that kids have left here at the church. They might want to make a point of taking them home so they can fill them for the next month.

We can do this! We've done more than this in years past. We've just got to take it up a notch! So come on, everyone! Do it for the BGMC party next year! Do it for kids in other countries! Do it for the Kingdom! Do it for the KING!

10 Ways to Help Your Kids With Their Homework

1.Set the time
Structure is always important. Designate a specific time frame for homework to be completed. Creating a regular routine will increase productivity.

2.Get involved
It is important to be active in your kid’s education. Most schools offer online services to check on grades, homework assignments and overall progress. Keep yourself up to date on all of these things.

3.The proper setting
Provide a quiet and well lit location. Make sure there is a spacious work area and all necessary items to complete the assignments. Preparation is half the battle.

4.Limit distractions
Our homes are filled with distractions. Televisions, cell phones and video games just to name a few. The use of these items should not be allowed during homework time. The mind should be focused on the task at hand.

5.Organize
Multiple subjects and classes can create confusion. Provide a planner and instruct your child how to organize and prioritize assignments. Create a solid game plan.

6.Be a cheerleader
Always show support and give encouragement. Reward strong effort as well
as results. We want our children to always give their best.

7.Provide guidance
We all get stumped sometimes. Make sure help resources are available when needed. These might include yourself, school provided telephone services, or school approved online assistance. A child should always be able to ask a question and get an answer.

8.Work first
Just as their parents, children have busy lives these days. Homework should always come before sports and social activities. Make sure education is the number one priority.

9.Notes
Make sure your child develops an excellent note-taking system. Experts believe an outline form of note-taking is the most efficient method. However, all children are different, so just make sure they have a system that works for them.

10.Study habits
Help instill strong study habits and work ethic. Tests and projects require plenty of planning. Provide tips and techniques that will bring the top-notch results that are desired.

MAD HATS ARE DUE THIS WEEKEND!!!

REMIND YOUR KIDS!

MAD HATS ARE NEEDED

BY SATURDAY NIGHT FOR DISPLAY!

Be creative. Any kind of head covering works!

Decorate it or don't,

as long as it's MAD

and fits on your head!

The Outback Adventure Continues with Day 5 of Creation: Sea Life!

The History Hunters are back in the CW Playhouse this weekend exploring Day 5 of creation at the Great Barrier Reef as our Outback Adventure continues in the land of Australia! This week, we'll be focusing on the incredible variety of sea life as we look at fish and their wonderful design by a masterful creator! Don't let your kids forget to bring their Road Map (Take-home page) and Bible so they can get a piece of candy or two from Rowdy Raccoon! And they might want to bring their snorkel and fins too!

(Ok, maybe not. We're a bit far from the real ocean, unfortunately.)

Correction's First Step

When you need to correct your child, start with calm words, avoiding threats or harshness. If children can respond to words then no further consequence is necessary. After all, that’s the mature way to handle conflict and mistakes. When a boss sees an employee doing something wrong, the best thing is to start with words of correction. If that doesn’t work, the boss may have to bring in some other kind of consequence.

You're teaching your child something very important when you start the correction process with words. You might even say to your child, "If words work, then that’s all we need. If you don’t respond to my words, then we’ll have to go to the next step.” Whether you’re working with a preschooler jumping on the couch or a sixteen-year-old coming in past curfew, the principle is the same—start with words of correction.

We’re not suggesting that every time there’s an offense, you have a dialogue. If your son hits and you’ve already talked about hitting, then you can just proceed to the next step. What you’re trying to do, however, is train your children to eventually receive correction through words without needing a further consequence.

Although your kids may need more than words at first, over time you’re moving them in the direction they should go in order to listen to God. It’s always best to respond to the whispers of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. But when we don’t listen, he’ll use other ways to get our attention. As parents, we don’t like to go further, but we will if we have to. Children need to see that their responsiveness or resistance determines the extent of the correction.

For more on how to build a good Correction Routine with your children, consider the book, Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and Your Kids, by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

Summer is over and it's Family Week! Time to Decorate Mad Hats!

This is Labor Day weekend and the beginning of Family Week, the break between Summer Cinema and Awana Clubs which begin the following week, Sept. 15th! Enjoy the week with family and friends. And take some time to look over your kids' Outback Adventure Road Map (Take-home paper) with them. It's a great way to have some family discussion around God's Word and reinforce what they are learning at church.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Don't forget to help your children get and decorate a Mad Hat this week. Hats need to be finished and turned in to the church for display by next Saturday if possible! Any goofy looking hat (or various head coverings) will do! Have fun with it!

The Value of Training

Every day you're training your children to become healthy responsible adults. Is it okay to get up and walk away in the middle of a meal? Is it acceptable to leave the table without helping to clean it up? Is it all right to eat without saying thank you to the one who prepared the meal? How will kids learn what's appropriate if you don't train them?

Unfortunately, as parents we get upset when our children need lots of correction or when they can't seem to change right away. It is true that some problems our children have take longer to overcome than others. Our response as parents is important, though. Our exasperation can damage the relationship. Firmness is important but the harshness can do more harm than good.

Kids make mistakes. Whether the errors are deliberate or accidental, children need a godly way to think in order to get back on track. Identify an issue you wish would change in one of your children. It might be arguing whenever you give an instruction or complaining when life doesn't go just right. Break the problem down and think of the alternatives you wish your child could do or think.

Talk about healthy alternatives and look for positive ways to motivate your child to maturity. You may have to use consequences to motivate change but don't neglect the potential of teaching new patterns of thinking, developing new skills, and giving children a vision for doing what's right.

Most of all, be patient. Training takes time and implies lots of work. You're a coach and your children are in training. Give your kids a vision for living life on a different level and they will grow into some great relating patterns.


This idea was taken from the book, Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids, by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.