Easter Cookies

I have not tried this recipe, but I saw it online and thought it sounded like a great family activity for Easter.

Resurrection Cookies
Source: BlessingsforLife.com

Ingredients:
You need to preheat the oven to 300 degrees (this is important--don't wait until you are half done with the recipe!)

3 egg whites
1 cup whole pecans
1 tsp. Vinegar
A pinch salt
1 cup sugar
A zipper baggie
A wooden spoon
tape
Bible

Directions:
Place pecans in zipper baggie and let children beat them with the wooden spoon to break into small pieces. Explain that after Jesus was arrested, He was beaten by the Roman soldiers.

Read John 19:1-3.

Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl. Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross, He was given vinegar to drink.

Read John 19:28-30.

Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life.

Read John 10:10-11.

Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers, and the bitterness of our own sin.

Read Luke 23:27.

So far, the ingredients are not very appetizing. Add 1cup sugar. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him.

Read Ps. 34:8 and John 3:16.

Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed. Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.

Read Isa. 1:18 and John 3:1-3.

Fold in broken nuts. Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper covered cookie sheet. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.

Read Matt. 27:57-60.

Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF.

Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Explain that Jesus' tomb was sealed.

Read Matt. 27:65-66.

GO TO BED! Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed.

Read John 16:20 and 22.

On Resurrection morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! On the first Resurrection, Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.

Read Matt. 28:1-9

Children's Church - Jan. 24

Scripture: Psalm 40:1-10
1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Theme: We are the body of Christ - together, we can make a difference

Today we read in Corinthians how we are all a part of the body of Christ. After the Scripture lesson, we read a poem about Starfish. It read;

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.
Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”

We talked about how that one little boy made a difference - but what if all of us in Children's Church were there, helping him throw starfish in the ocean. We would make a much bigger difference. Then we decided that if we all worked together, we could make a difference in the world. We decided that we would like to try to raise money for the earthquake victims in Haiti. We wrote that promise on a piece of posterboard, then we all drew starfish and wrote our names on it to glue to the posterboard. To remind ourselves of this promise, everyone took a piece of sea glass home.

Children's Church - 10.11.09 and 10.18.09

These two weeks went hand-in-hand with each other. On Oct. 11, we talked about being Christian and what it means that we are all Christians. We all traced our hands and put them on the sign that reads "I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together."

On Oct. 18 we expanded on what it means to be a Christian and talked about things we do that show we are Christians. We came up with a great list including worshiping God, loving God, serving others, loving others, and having a good attitude. Then we each drew a picture of ourselves being good Christians and put it on a cross. This will help remind us that we made a promise to God to try and be good Christians every day that we can.

Children's Church - 9.27.09

Today we talked about the Beatitudes and how we can think of them as the Be-Attitudes. First we talked about how Jesus gave us these Beatitudes and then we talked about what the eight Beatitudes are. We explained them like this:

You are REALLY happy when you:

1. Want to learn more about God.
2. When you are sad, don't take revenge.
3. Don't show off.
4. Do right instead of wrong.
5. Show mercy and forgive others.
6. Stay pure in all your thoughts and actions.
7. Make peace with others.
8. Stand up for what you believe, even when people might make fun of you.
   

Then we talked about attitudes. First we scribbled the word "attitude" on a piece of paper with a pencil. We wrote while thinking about having a bad attitude, so it was dark and had angry scribbles all over it. Then we rubbed our fingers over the word "attitude" and looked at our fingers - we had pencil all over them. Then we rubbed our dirty fingers on a paper with the word "Attitude" written on it. We talked about how bad attitudes can rub off on people, so we need to try and have good attitudes. Then we each got a smiley face sticker to put on the paper with "Attitude" to show that good attitudes stick! (We also each got a smiley face sticker to put on our shirts to show we had good attitudes.)


Then we each wrote one of the Beatitudes on a flower cut-out and created a field of Beatitudes. We each drew a bee and put our names on it to show that these are our Bee-Attitudes and we will try to follow them each day.

We ended by encouraging everyone to try and have a positive attitude this week.

Children's Church - 9.20.09

On Sept. 20, we had David Hosey, a Mission Intern with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, in the pulpit. He talked about Isreal and Palestine and his sermon topic was "Patient Windows: Searching for Justice and Peace in the Holy Land." Rather than trying to explain Israel and Palestine to our Children's Church, we talked about mission and why we serve others.

First we talked about helping versus serving and that as Christians, we serve each other with love because that is what Jesus taught us to do. We talked about the fact that Jesus is the most important person, but everyone in the world is important in someway. We each drew a picture of how we have served others and glued it on a piece of poster board that read "Serving others is a key to greatness!"

We ended by singing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Triple Amen." Hopefully we will learn "Triple Amen" over the year and all be able to sing together in church on Communion Sundays!

Family Movie Night

Join us on Saturday, September 19 for a G-rated movie in Fellowship Hall.

Please bring blankets or low lawn chairs to sit on. We will provide snacks and drinks.

We will also be taking a freewill offering to support our Shelter Committee.

We hope to see you there!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time at our Halloween Party on Saturday! Kids got to decorate trick-or-treating bags and make vampire, witch, or monster bags which were then filled with candy. There was a Halloween Trail for them to follow with prizes at the end! We played Spider Ring Toss and Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin.

All of the families also had a chance to have a picture taken with a backdrop and the pictures all turned out great.

Thanks to all who came - we hope you had as much fun as we did!

You can see pictures from our party here.