Easter is the time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but this usually gets pushed aside by traditional Easter activities such as the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and new clothes.  Easter comes at springtime and some of our traditions at Easter are actually a part of the pagan springtime celebration.  But that’s ok . . .  we can use these tangible things to help children understand intangible ideas.

The bunny stays in a rabbit hole in the ground all winter.  When spring comes, the bunny comes out of  his hole.  We can relate this to Jesus being in the tomb for three days, but on Easter morning, He came out and is alive today.

Eggs remind us of new life.   Coloring them reminds us of how beautiful our world is as the earth comes back to life again with new flowers and new leaves and grass.  Relate this to Jesus coming back to life.

New chicks, bunnies, lambs, and ducks are  also reminders of new life.    Jesus gives us new life by what He did on the Cross for us.

Put Bible verses on the eggs you hide and then gather together to read them all.  Some suggested verses are:

Revelation 21:5 Jesus makes all things new.

Galatians 2:20  Jesus Christ lives.

Matthew 28:6  Jesus is risen.

Song of Solomon 2:12  The flowers appear on the earth.

2 Cor. 5:17 (Living)   When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!

Make a cross out of twigs or craft sticks and keep it in a prominent place during the Easter season.  Point out that it is empty because Jesus didn’t stay on the cross or in the tomb . . . He is alive!!

A great book to teach the real meaning of Easter is Easter Bunny, Are You For Real?

10-hooray This is a song that children really love about the empty tomb .  It is from Every Song a Bible Story from Maranatha Music.

Make Easter a family time of worshiping together and thinking about the risen Lord.  Read the Easter story together from Matthew 27-28, Mark 15 – 16, or Luke 23-24.

Happy Easter from my family to yours.

This is the week before Valentine’s Day. Here are some ideas to help you teach your children about showing love.

Creatively work together to display each day’s verse on the fridge. (cut, color, or paint a heart and put the verse on it)

Repeat the verse often during the day as you reinforce it as you go – here a little, there a little. (Deuteronomy 6:7), (Isaiah 28:10)

Read the Bible stories yourself and then tell them in your own words. Be animated and use visuals when possible.

Have fun establishing God’s Wird in your children this week!!!!

Day One

Bible Verse or Thought: Proverbs 17:17 – A friend loves at all times.

Story: David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18 1-4)

Activity for Baby to 3: Have a friend over to play with child. Tell story of David and Jonathan. Share toys. For infant, spend time talking about and thanking God for all the baby’s friends, after reading story.

Older Activity: Have child help make cookies and then invite a friend over to share them with. Talk about ways to show love to our friends.

Day Two

Bible Verse or Thought: 1 John 4:7 – Love one another.

Stories: Elisha’s Friends (2 Kings 4:8-11); Abraham and Lot (Genesis 13:1-18)

Activity for Baby to 3: Tell the story of Elisha and talk about how you prepared a room for baby to show your love for him. Point out things in baby’s room.

Older Activity: Read story. Draw a picture of the story.

Day Three

Bible Verse or Thought: Galatians 5:13 – Help one another
Story: Four Friends (Mark 2:1-12)

Activity for Baby to 3: Make a card for a friend and pray for for their friends.

Older Activity: Same as for Baby to 3

Day Four

Bible Verse or Thought: 2 Corinthians 1:24 – We are helpers.

Story: We Work Together – (Nehemiah 1:1-11, 2:1-20, 3:1-32, 6:15-16)

Activity for Baby to 3: Help fold laundry or pick up toys.

Older Activity: Play blocks together and pretend to build the wall as you tell the story. Dads, let child hammer some nails in some scrap wood while you supervise.

Day Five

Bible Verse or Thought: Ephesians 4:32 – Be kind to one another.

Stories: A Kind Man (The Good Samaritan) – (Luke 10:30-35); Philip’s New Friend – (Acts 8:1-39)

Activity for Baby to 3: Do something special for baby or child like making him cookies or getting him a new inexpensive toy. Give him a hug and lead child to give someone a hug. Talk about ways he can show kindness.

Older Activity: Read story. Say Philip showed kindness by reading the Bible to his friend and telling him about God. Let’s be kind to our friend ______ and tell him about God. Lead child to send a Bible verse or Bible story to one of his friends.

I think we would all agree that there are things going on in our culture today that need changing.  I recently heard it said that if you want to change the world, move to Hollywood.  Well, two of my sons heard the same quote and decided to take it literally.  They are now residing there and hoping to be light in the midst of a wicked and perverse industry. (Philip. 2:15  …so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them.)

Please read this blog post written by our son Jeremiah  http://www.andydarnell.com/?p=2293

If you want to help change the world, but can’t just up and move to Hollywood, consider encouraging other Christians who are willing to go.  When we were there last week, we met several Christians who felt called to the place that many Christians have given up on.  They were struggling to keep their cars running, pay their bills, and just survive as meagerly as possible in order to work in the industry.  Their desire through all of this is to live their lives in such a way that those who have no hope will see and come to know the hope and peace that passes understanding that is only found in Jesus Christ.

If you would like to give to help any of these ‘missionaries’, we have a 501c3 vehicle you can give through.  Just make the checks out to Refocus Ministry and we will send it to the one in greatest need at the time, or we can give you names if you would like to specifically support someone .  You may want to support Tinseltown Ministries which has a powerful weekly Bible study on the Fox backlot for people in the industry.

Refocus Ministry will keep track of your tax deductible gifts and will keep you informed as to how your support is helping to change the world.

Refocus Ministry
2955 Phillips Bend Crossing
Buford, Ga 30519

Today we are moving most of our children to California. We are a close family and are trusting God to keep us close even 2300 miles apart. I don’t like the changes but it makes me cling to the One who never changes.

Check out Josh and Jeremiah’s blog about why they are doing this at Adventures in Filmmaking

Susanna Wesley had 15 children and spent an hour a week with each child individually, helping he or she to be totally submitted to God.  When she was asked about her method of preparing her children for spiritual maturity she replied: “No one can, without renouncing the world, in the most literal sense, observe my method; and there are few, if any, that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hopes to save the souls of their children, which they think may be saved without so much ado; for that was my principal intention, however unskillfully and unsuccessfully managed.”  (Read more about Susanna in the book, Susanna: Mother of the Wesleys)

May you have a fulfilling year training up children!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

Luke 2:11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This was first announced to the shepherds, who were the lower class citizens of that day . . . Jesus was born for all mankind, rich and poor.

Have a birthday party for Jesus, complete with cupcakes and candles and singing happy birthday to Him.  Our family does this sometime during the season when we can give Jesus full attention apart from the gift giving to each other.  The present for Jesus is always the first to go under the tree, wrapped in gold or silver paper.  It is filled with papers from previous years where we have all drawn on one side pictures of several things we are thankful for through the last year.  On the other side we have written the things we want to give Jesus in the coming year such as more time with Him or showing more compassion for others, etc.  We open the gift at the birthday party and read what each wrote the previous year,  make the sheet for the present year,  and then wrap it back up.  We end the evening with singing Christmas carols by candle light.

Thank you for celebrating the birth of Jesus each day this month with us through this blog. We wish you a very Happy Christmas Day!

According to a Gallup poll, the average American expects to spend approximately $763 on Christmas this year. Those earning at least $75,000 a year plan to spend more than $1,100. There’s always something new to buy, from iPods to Xboxes to MP3 players. What kind of TV do you want? . . . plasma or LCD? . . . flat screen or projection? Your cell phone can take pictures or play music . . . hey, it can even make phone calls!

In an earlier era, the general store stocked about a thousand different products. But today, the typical Wal-Mart superstore stocks 130,000 items. Not long after the Halloween candy is eaten, the sounds of Jingle Bell Rock start to invade department stores and the “happy holidays” greetings begin to be heard. The rush is on! The traffic increases. People spend the night at Toys ‘R Us just to have a chance at buying a Nintendo Wii.

So how do we transform this to make it a reminder of the birth of Jesus Christ?

For a long time, we have incorporated an activity into our Christmas traditions, called ‘The Christmas Web’. Recently we visited the Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain and saw that this was done way back around the turn of the 19th century.

The idea is that the true message of Christmas has become lost in a ‘web of commercialism’. We tell our kids that it is their job to find the true meaning of Christmas. We put all of them in one bedroom with the door closed while we take 5 rolls of yarn (one for each child). We weave the rolls like a giant spider web all over the house into every room and out onto the patio. It is hard to even move when it is complete. At the end of the roll, we tie a small symbolic gift. The gift has been a small flashlight that symbolizes ‘turning the light on to dispel the darkness’ in our world, or a new cup that symbolizes ‘being the kind of vessel God can use’.

While the children follow their own web through the house, we talk about finding the true meaning of Christmas that is mysteriously hidden in all the hustle and bustle of the season. Mark 4:11 And Jesus said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables.” In Col. 1:26-27, Paul writes, “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is the real meaning of Christmas.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born March 2, 1904 in Springfield, MA. During WW II, Geisel joined the army and was sent to Hollywood. Captain Geisel wrote for Frank Capra’s Signal Corps Unit and won Oscars for Hitler Lives and Design for Death. He also created a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing which also won him an Oscar. In May of 1954, Life published a report concerning illiteracy among school children. The report said that children were having trouble reading because their books were boring. This inspired “Dr. Seuss”, as he became known, to write The Cat in the Hat, using 220 words. In 1960 someone bet him that he couldn’t write an entire book using only fifty words and the result was Green Eggs and Ham.

Dr. Seuss completed How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1957. The Grinch, a bitter, cave-dwelling creature with a heart “two sizes too small,” lives on snowy Mount Crumpit, a steep, 3,000 foot high mountaijn just north of Whoville, home of the merry and warm-hearted Whos. His only companion is Max, his faithful dog. From his perch high atop Mount Crumpit, the Grinch can hear the noisy Christmas festivities that take place in Whoville. Envious of the Whos’ happiness, he makes plans to descend on the town and steal their Christmas presents and decorations and thus “prevent Christmas from coming”. However, he learns in the end that despite his success in taking all the Christmas things from the Whos, Christmas comes just the same. He then realizes that Christmas is more than just gifts and presents. His heart grows three sizes larger, he returns all the presents and trimmings, and is warmly welcomed into the community of the Whos.

So how do we transform this to make it a reminder of the birth of Jesus Christ?

Christmas transcends gifts and trees and stockings and credit card purchases. A Christmas without presents or decorations is still Christmas, which is God’s awesome statement to the world that He loves us, and no one can take that away. Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is, for many, the quintessential American movie, and the perfect holiday film. “Of all the 80 films I’ve made, it’s my favorite,” Jimmy Stewart often said about the movie.

At the end of 1945, Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart had both just returned from World War II — and both returned sobered, with a darker view of humanity. Searching for a project to re-establish himself in Hollywood, Capra formed his own production company and optioned a property entitled “The Greatest Gift”: a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern, originally written on a Christmas card. This went through multiple rewrites before it became It’s a Wonderful Life.

Just like George Bailey began his life, Capra began the project with the highest of hopes. He had every expectation that the film would be a popular success, and perhaps even sweep the Oscars. But disappointment began the day of its release as generally favorable reviews were not enough to encourage more than mediocre box office returns. And of its five Oscar nominations, it won none, losing the “Big Three” — best picture, actor and director — to William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, a film which seemed to capture the spirit of post-war America more closely with its realism than Capra had managed with his fantasy. Capra was crushed.

Yet over the years people continued writing to him about the movie, emphasizing how much it had touched them. Capra wrote in his biography, “I woke up one Christmas morning, and the whole world was watching It’s A Wonderful Life.” Just as George Bailey’s local community came to his rescue when they discovered he was in trouble, so did the community of America rally around Life, elevating Capra’s forgotten classic to its current status as part of our Christmas ritual.

Frustrated in aspirations to have more, to do more, and to be somebody, George Bailey is a mirror of Americans, as we all strive to better our lot. However, even living the most idealist American dream life can somehow leave us unsatisfied. Over half a century later, George Bailey has become a legendary character in 20th century American culture. Through our identification with him and his trials, we can see a reflection of our own wonderful, horrible lives — and maybe gain some insight into the true American values.

So how do we transform this to make it a reminder of the birth of Jesus Christ?

When you watch the movie, realize that only Jesus can make it a wonderful life. John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Also, just as the movie showed how George Bailey touched so many lives, you were placed here by a sovereign God to touch lives that only you can touch. Always keep in mind that others are observing and being affected by your life. Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Hebrews 13:2 Don’t forget to be kind to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

Whatever our age, we all see Christmas as the time for writing letters to “Santa”, enumerating the things we have been wanting all year. Over the years, Santa has gotten more letters requesting the Red Ryder BB gun and the Easy Bake Oven than any other toys.

The Red Ryder BB Gun is a BB gun made by Daisy Outdoor Products and introduced in 1938, named for the comic strip cowboy character Red Ryder. The BB gun is still in production despite the fact that the comic strip was cancelled in 1963. The Red Ryder BB Gun is a lever-action, spring piston air gun with a smoothbore barrel, adjustable iron sights, and a gravity feed magazine with a 650 BB capacity. The Red Ryder BB gun was featured in the popular 1980’s film A Christmas Story, where the main character is desperate to get one, but is constantly thwarted with the warning “You’ll shoot your eye out”. The movie’s fictional BB gun, described as the “Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle BB gun with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time,” does not correspond to any actual production model.

America’s first working toy oven, was turquoise and had a carrying handle and fake stove top. It was invented by designers at Kenner Products (now a division of Hasbro). In its first year, 1963, over 500,000 lucky kids talked their parents into spending $15.95. By its fifth birthday, the EASY-BAKE Oven was a household name. In 1965, Hasbro introduced the Kid Dinners for the oven which were mini TV-dinner-like trays partitioned into three sections to hold beef and macaroni, peas and carrots. In 1968, General Mills created very cool miniature boxed versions of its Betty Crocker products for the EASY-BAKE Oven. The oven is still in production almost 50 years later.

Now it is 2009 and the hot items are the Wii, the Xbox, and the iphone. No matter what the item, we all have something we desire.

So how do we transform this to make it a reminder of the birth of Jesus Christ?

When you make your wish lists, just remember that all these things will never bring you complete fulfillment. But there is One who is the Desire of all people, whether they know it or not, who will bring fulfillment. Haggai 2:7 (NKJV) ‘…and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. The Christ Child is the “Desire of All Nations”!