The Power of Creativity

This is long overdue. I promised to write about creativity in ministry a while back and I was reminded of this when I went back to read my old posts. Ha! Sometimes I wish I was a super hero who had the power to remember everything I'm supposed to remember at exactly the right times! Back to creativity. Our church had some creative minds working this last Sunday for Operation Christmas Child. We wanted to do something different as a whole church that would make a big impact for Operation Christmas Child. My team and I decided to have the whole church pack shoe boxes this year. The creative part was trying to figure out how 400 people could pack shoe boxes at the same time. We decided to set up tables out in the hallways of the Children's Ministry and let people walk from table to table putting items in their shoe box. It worked really well! I think everyone had so much fun, especially the kids. One sweet girl came up to me and said, "I've packed 7 boxes and I'm going to pack another one!" I LOVE to see the kids in our church get excited about helping others. What a great Sunday and what great, loving people we have in our church. Thank you to everyone! We packed over 220 boxes this year!

We Love Fall!

Our Fall Festival at The Branches was so much fun this year! My favorite part was the pie eating contest. Gotta love stuffing your face into a pie for fun! Sidney was a Volleyball player, Lucas a ninja, and of course Will was Nemo. Will actually liked wearing his costume and he got to go trick or treating for the first time.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD PACK A SHOE BOX SUNDAY NOVEMBER 8

Don't forget to bring your shoe boxes, gifts, and $7 donations to Farmland Friends Church by November 1! Help give the gift of hope to children in other countries. This gift goes beyond candy and toys, it's the gift of the message of Jesus Christ. What could touch a child more than meeting their physical needs and spiritual needs in one simple gift?

Click on the title to see a video of kids recieving gifts!

Jump In!

Will is walking!

Sorry about the quality of the video, my camera's batteries were almost done. I'll have a better one later.

moments of weakness

I guess in every person's life there comes a time when you have to tell the truth even if it hurts. Lately, I have been dealing with my own insecurities and what other's think about me. I can say out loud as much as I want that words don't hurt me and I don't care what others think, but inside I am cringing at the thought of someone not liking me or my family. I put way too much emphasis on what other's think sometimes. It's one of my downfalls. God has reminded me time and again that we are not called to be popular, we are called to bring the truth to the world, His Truth. My weakness is to say the right words to make everyone get along and I am constantly fighting that. God doens't want me to compromise His truths just to get everyone to like each other. God has given me so many opportunities to stand for the truth and sometimes I fail. I want God to work and shape me. Part of this transformation is the way I view myself. Thankfully God never gives up on me and my faults. He uses these moments to shape me. It's up to me how long it will take God to form me into the woman he wants me to be.

The Power of Creativity

I know this is the end of the day, nontheless I wanted to start a new series on my blog devoted to creative ideas in ministry. I was reading a Children's Ministry Magazine called "K" and came across some great creative ideas and ways to get our creative minds moving.

Creative Idea #1

"Ideas generated in unexpected, unusual places are unexpected and unusual. when you operate within a process that imitates (or better yet, exaggerated) these circumstances, you significantly increase your creative capacity." from the book Holy Wow by Jeff White

How to get the creative juices flowing:

Ask hard questions. Why is this the best way? How do I know this is the way it should be? Why not? Relentlessly question everything.