Christian Momma

Our 31:30 Women’s Ministry at The River Church, is getting ready to have a game night for our fall kick off!  I’m excited!  I’ve missed getting together with women and just hanging out.

There will be games, food, fellowship, and don’t tell anyone, but I think there may even be prizes!!

Hope to see you there!!!

I am on the 31:30 Women’s Ministry team at The River Church.  We just had our retreat called “Freedom in Obedience”.

We had 3 speakers (women from our church) speak on different aspects of obedience.  Freedom in Obedience, Daily Obedience, and Blessings of Obedience.  All 3 of their talks were wonderful!

On Friday night, we had dinner, then after dinner was Worship time and then our first talk entitled “Freedom in Obedience” we heard about how to hear from God, that we can gain courage and freedom from sin through steps of obedience, and how we will “make it right”.  Most of the teaching was from 1 Samuel 3.

After a time of discussion we had a game night.  The first thing we did was an ice breaker game…all the ladies stood in a circle and a stuffed animal was thrown from the first person to another then to another.  The one thing you had to remember is the person you threw to and the person who threw to you (always the same 2 people).  As it went on, they would add more stuffed animals until we had a good 10+ animals flying.  I’ll say that there was a lot of laughter!!

Then there were 2 other main games going on, Bingo and Bunco.  Of course we had other games, like Apples to Apples, decks of cards, and a variety of other games for the women to play until they were tired.

The next morning, after breakfast, we had more time of worship before going into our next talk called “Daily Obedience”.  We learned things that can keep you from being obedient to God, like fear, lack of time spent in prayer and reading God’s Word, and complacency.  We learned why we should be obedient, what the result from being obedient was.  Our speaker sited many verses out of the bible during her talk.  A couple things that stuck out to me was “God is calling me to be obedient today…not 5 years from now”, and “Define yourself by Jesus and who he says you are”…meaning I am a Princess, a Child of the Most High God.  Also to “Choose life in all the decisions you make”.

After some discussion and a break, we went into a Panel talk,  our 3 speakers were part of the panel and questions were written on cards and placed in a bucket prior to break.  We had our MC asking the panel the questions (all anonymous) and they each had a chance to answer the questions our women had.  This takes the pressure off of the women having to speak up during a Q/A time on their own to ask the questions.

After a break and lunch, we came back in to our last talk of the weekend called “Blessings of Obedience”.  Again our speaker sited many verses throughout the bible.  We learned what blessings looked like, the power we have when we obey and so much more.

Overall it was such a great experience.  Many of the women I talked to really enjoyed the retreat.

I want to publicly thank all those ladies who helped make this retreat happen, you know who you are!

Our Women’s Bible study is doing Beth Moore’s Here and Now…There and Then I was nervous about starting a bible study in Revelation, afraid that I would get lost, but I had this longing to really dig into Revelation too.

I’m so glad that I joined this bible study.  It can be overwhelming at times, but since we only meet once a week, it gives me a week to digest the whole lesson, going back and doing the homework that is listed after each session a couple days after the bible study.

If you you have the chance to go through this study, I would highly recommend it.  I have learned so much and we are only on Chapter 7 of Revelation!!

I was asked to be on the Women’s Ministry Leadership Team a couple months ago.  I was so excited to become involved in helping Women get connected with each other…to strengthen the bond of friendship in our church.

Friday was our first meeting of the New Year at The River Church.  The title of the meeting was “Have a Soup-er New Year”.  It was a Soup dinner…there were lots and lots of yummy soups and breads and desserts!  We talked about Friendship and did a devotional called A Recipe for Friendship.  Then we spent some time doing a few “get to know you” type of mixer games.

One of the first things we had the women do as they entered was write something unique about themselves on a slip of paper along with their name and put it into a basket (folded of course).  We used these as a transitional type of thing.  One of the leaders read a couple of the slips of paper (one at a time) and everyone would just throw out names trying to guess who it was!  It’s funny the things you get to know about other people…and who knew one of my friends from church had the same talent as I do…zyxwv…

We also went around the room and told our names, a little about ourselves (how many kids, how long you’ve been attending the church, the city you live in, etc.), along with a “Truth or Lie”.  We had to come up with a statement that everyone would guess would either be a truth or lie.  I now know those women who really can’t lie.

However, I think the best game, by far, was another get to know you type of game we did.  We all got into a circle, the first person would take a small stuffed animal and throw it to someone while saying their name.  Then that person would throw the animal to another person saying their name.  As that animal went through a couple people, the first person would grab the next animal and throw it to the same person.  One rule about the game is that you ALWAYS throw it to the same person and you ALWAYS receive it from the same person.  Just imagine a circle about 25 women large and 6 stuffed animals flying through the air and people yelling each other’s names.  It had us all laughing…mine (and a few others) stomach hurt from laughing so hard!

We are also starting a Secret Sister program in the church.  We are hoping to get all the women in our church involved in this.  Each member fills out a form, then they will be matched up with another member that you will pray for, send encouraging notes to (using a designated return address of one member who has graciously agreed to helping), and gifts.  We will be revealing at our Women’s Retreat (May 7-8), or that weekend for those who are unable to attend.

Next month, we will be doing a Service Project.  We are making those No-Sew fleece blankets and giving them to one of our local ministries.  So, if you are planning on attending, please remember to bring your 1 1/2 yard or 2 1/2 yard fleece.  If you are making a double layer one, please remember you need 2 pieces of fleece the same size (one solid color and one print that match each other)

I hope and pray that all the Women in our church will be blessed by our Monthly Meetings which are the 2nd Friday of each month with the exception of April (Spring Break) and May (Retreat).

What an awesome time!

The River Church hosted a Woman’s Retreat this past weekend (Friday evening – Saturday afternoon).  It was a great time of fellowship.

My car load arrived later than I was supposed to, but still early.  We hustled through the set up and registration then headed off to dinner.  I was in charge of the media…I was so grateful to have other women there who had done this type of thing before!

W was so happy to get to know the women of our church.  We spent time in the evening on Friday just talking.  A couple of the women I already knew fairly well, and a couple that I didn’t know well at all.  I have never laughed so hard…that’s what it’s all about.  Making friends and bonding with other women!

On Saturday, before lunch, there was a question and answer time.  At breakfast we were all given index cards to write a question on…the question could be about ANYTHING you wanted.  I was so excited when the question of “When is the next retreat?” came up!  How exciting that the women had so much fun that they were ready to start thinking about the next retreat!!

For those of you who didn’t attend, I strongly encourage you to try and attend the next retreat.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!

So I have been spending a lot of time looking for the 2010 VBS’s that are out there.  Do you know there are a lot to choose from?  Choosing is overwhelming me right now.  I will sit down with a group of people from church in a few weeks to talk over the different options that are available to us.

Here’s what I’ve found so far…

Lifeway is offering 2 different VBS’s this year…Saddle Ridge Ranch and Route 254.   Then there’s Group who is offering 2 different ones as well…High Seas Expedition and Egypt; Joseph’s Journey from Prison to Palace.  Answers in Genesis is also offering 2 different VBS’s…Amazon Expedition and Operation Space.  As if those weren’t enough to choose from, Standard is offering Hero HeadQuarter’s….Cokesbury is offering Galactic Blast…Gospel Light is offering SonQuest Rainforest…WordAction is offering Deep Sea Adventure…Concordia Publishing House is offering Planet Zoom…Sunday School Publishing Board is offering Xtreme Spiritual Makeover…Bogard Press is offering Soul Survivors on Danger Island…

I know there are more out there that I haven’t mentioned…but those are the ones that I’m taking a closer look at for the moment.  I will probably look into others after I process all those listed above!

So the question is…How do you choose?  What I’m doing is listing out all the information for each VBS so that I can present it to those who will be helping me choose.  Of course Prayer is the MOST IMPORTANT part of choosing.  Once you decide the reason you have a VBS in your church…the purpose for your VBS, and then through prayer and all the information given about each VBS on their web site, you can start to rule out different curriculums for your church.

I am currently compiling a spreadsheet overview as well as a detailed sheet for each of the above VBS for our church.

Overwhelmed??  Why, yes I am!!

Another year has come and gone with VBS.  At the VBS Finale’ on Friday night, we had a total of 175 children and adults.

After our characters went through the closing ceremony, they handed out prizes for those children who brought a friend….we had so many prizes donated that every child who got their name into the drawing got something!

After the closing, they showed a video slide of all the photos taken at VBS.  It was great seeing all the things that have happened.  Once that was over, everyone filed out to get some ice cream before heading home!

After thinking over VBS, I think my favorite part of the whole program is when the children offered prayers.  Our music leader would ask for a volunteer child to come forward to pray for the whole group into a microphone.  The amount of children raising their hand was so neat to see.  These children were anxious about being the one chosen to come forward.  Yes, they were “fed” the prayer from the music leader, but the point of the whole thing is getting those children used to praying in front of a group of people and being comfortable.  It was just so touching to see them pray!

Today, I have sorted and put away items for this year’s VBS.  Now onto the next task of finding a church willing to purchase/switch VBS programs so we have more room in our storage.  Our set was AWESOME, our decorating committee went above and beyond what Standard told us!

I’m currently compiling my list of things that worked and didn’t work and those who have said they wanted to help out next year.  If God leads me to run VBS again, I will have a head start, however, if it is someone else God wants to lead it, then they would have the head start!!

Day 4 has come and gone.  We ended up with 82 children last night!

You should have seen how crazy it was when 2 of our characters got slimed!  The kids went wild!!!

Finale’ is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

Day 3 has come and gone.  We ended up with 82 children last night!  Things seem to be going a bit smoother, but that’s probably because the Registration table hasn’t had many at it.

The children are having a blast, and you could see last night that they were more comfortable with their crew leaders than the night before.

Day 4 is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

Day 2 has come and gone.  We ended up with 84 children last night!  That’s great!!

The children are having a blast, and you could see last night that they were more comfortable with their crew leaders than the night before.

Day 3 is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!