Category: Christianity
-
When Children Grieve: From Bethlehem to Newtown
Read More: When Children Grieve: From Bethlehem to NewtownOn a mild autumn morning twelve years ago, I found myself in front of a primary school class full of grieving children. I was their entertainment for the day – a juggler from halfway across the world, doing whatever I could to bring a little joy to their lives. The children were Palestinian kids from…
-
The Problem with Santa
Read More: The Problem with SantaI have a problem with Santa. I’m not hostile towards the jolly fellow. He’s actually a really nice guy. But I still have a really big problem with him. Santa is a legalist. He makes a list. He checks it twice. He finds out who is naughty or nice. And then he rewards the good…
-
How to Win at Heads or Tails
Read More: How to Win at Heads or TailsI can teach you a secret to winning at heads or tails – every single time. You can flip the coin a thousand times and call the heads or tails to your friends before you all look at the coin. And this is all using a real quarter. There are a few conditions: This works…
-
My Take: Dumb Ways to Die
Read More: My Take: Dumb Ways to DieThis catchy and artsy music video will either make you laugh or make you a little creeped out, depending on your sense of humor. I thought it was hilarious, especially the character who “sold both kidneys on the internet.” Would you believe that this is a public service announcement from the rail Metro in Melbourne,…
-
How to Save Three Dollars
Read More: How to Save Three DollarsSo you want to learn how to juggle but you don’t quite have the budget to go out and buy $5 balls, $7 rings, and $30 clubs. I have the answer for you. You could just use anything currently lying around the house, like balled-up socks, tomatoes, or kittens. But if you use socks, you…
-
The Most Misunderstood Concept about God
Read More: The Most Misunderstood Concept about GodGrace. I often ask groups of children when I teach them, “Will you go to heaven if you’re a good kid?” And I usually get the same resounding “yes!” from the crowd. Many adults in the Church would answer the same way. This is a big problem in the Church today, and it starts in…
-
Why It Helps for Children’s Church to Be Fun
Read More: Why It Helps for Children’s Church to Be FunLet me be clear: The message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need a circus of pizazz to penetrate the heart of a child (or anyone for that matter). The love and grace of Jesus stands fine on its own to regenerate the hearts of children. But it sure does help to present…
-
Captivating the Attention of Children
Read More: Captivating the Attention of ChildrenAnyone can captivate the attention of a child – or a group of children. All it takes is a smile and a little energy in your face. And those things come from a sincere heart to connect with the child/children. It helps to be able to perform some astonishing feat like a magic trick or…
-
Every Child is a Winner by McCaslin and Biehl
Read More: Every Child is a Winner by McCaslin and BiehlCaz McCaslin runs Upward Sports, a global youth sports organization that promotes Biblical values, equal play time, and ultimately, the person and work of Jesus Christ. He wrote what he considers a “parent playbook” called Every Child is a Winner (Broadman and Holman: Nashville, 2002). My family and I got to visit the main headquarters…
-
Faith Like a Child
Read More: Faith Like a ChildMy wife, Sarah, broke her pinky toe last week. Then she gouged the underside of her other foot on a broken piece of wood flooring (we have an old house – and I’m fixing the problem area today). So she’s limping around, ever-so-courageously, chasing our toddler and living normal life. Our toddler, Kezzie, has clearly…
-
Shamgar: The Relief Pitcher of the Bible
Read More: Shamgar: The Relief Pitcher of the BibleI just read an article over at ESPN about the relief pitchers for the Baltimore Orioles, who did a fantastic job putting down the Yankees last night in the playoffs. Brian Matusz spoke about how being a bullpen pitcher can be a “thankless job.” Yet they are some of the most key players of a…
-
Breakfast with Jesus
Read More: Breakfast with JesusWe can be pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t a vegetarian because he called his disciples over for a fish breakfast in one of his post-resurrection appearances. This was the original church fish fry. It doesn’t say that Jesus partook of the fish, but the meal was definitely his idea – so break out the tilapia!…
-
The Engage Children’s Ministry Conference
Read More: The Engage Children’s Ministry ConferenceI was just invited to teach a workshop at The Engage Conference up in Pennsylvania in November. If you work in Children’s Ministry in any capacity (pastor, leader, volunteer, etc.), please see if you can make this great one-day conference. Its only twenty bucks! Click Here for all the info.
-
Fall Festival Ideas
Read More: Fall Festival IdeasIf you’re a Children’s Pastor or leader of a community program for families, you’re probably somewhere on the spectrum of planning for your annual Fall Festival. If you haven’t started planning for one, its still not too late, but you only have about a month left, depending on when you hold it. Before I list…
-
Nine Reasons Why I Love My Wife
Read More: Nine Reasons Why I Love My WifeSarah and I celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary today. When we were engaged, we somehow came up with a joke that we would be married for 60 years before one of us died. But when you do the math, that leaves us dead at 82 or 83 and I’d like to live at least 20…
-
Including the Children
Read More: Including the ChildrenThe battle of Jericho has been immortalized in the Judeo-Christian conscience as the epic moment when “the walls came tumblin’ down.” So why don’t we remember the dramatic battle after Jericho? It is known as the battle of Ai. Ai was a city further into the Promised Land from Jericho. Joshua tried sending a small force…
-
God and Money
Read More: God and MoneyWhen I was in college, I remember having a cloud of worry parked over my psyche every single day because I knew that I was taking out a LOT of money for school and I was going to have to pay it back. And it was during college that I decided my life theme verse…
-
3,470 Hours Per Year
Read More: 3,470 Hours Per Year3,470 hours. If you’re a parent, that’s about how many hours per year that your children are awake and not in school or church. Church-going kids spend anywhere from an hour to five hours a week in church or doing church-related activities. Another 50-100 hours is spent sleeping, depending on the age of the child.…
-
The Princess Problem
Read More: The Princess ProblemCheck out this article written by a professor at my alma mater, Taylor University. Her name is Amy Lepine Peterson and she offers a critique of Karen Kingsbury’s children’s books about princes and princesses. Here is the link to the article: http://tinyurl.com/9nbmofh Now that you’ve read it, here’s my thought: The character of a princess in…
-
Living Up to Your Name
Read More: Living Up to Your NameThis past February, Sarah, Kezzie took a trip to Europe. We flew in and out of Barcelona. When we landed, we spent the day walking (a lot) around Barcelona. People told us we had to go see Sacrada Familia, so we wandered until we found it. Apparently, this is the big attraction in Barcelona, so…
-
Why Do Churches Make The Worst Shirts?
Read More: Why Do Churches Make The Worst Shirts?Frankly, I don’t know why. But I’m posting this to see if anyone out there has the answer. I have dozens of free t-shirts from all over the country from church outreaches, camp retreats, summer camps, and other events put on by churches. I have a few that I am willing to wear in public.…
-
The Bible is Rated R
Read More: The Bible is Rated RIf you’ve read the Bible, you will notice that if someone were to make an all-out accurate portrayal of it on the big screen, it would easily be rated R or worse. From the nakedness of Adam and Eve in the garden to the brutally violent crucifixion of Jesus, the Bible is one of the…
-
Kids in Church: Children’s Service or Adult Service?
Read More: Kids in Church: Children’s Service or Adult Service?Think of all the “all-ages” events we go to in this life: baseball games, community festivals, museums, parks, shopping, concerts, movies, zoos, many restaurants, and volunteering in the community. Then there’s church – and in most churches, the first thing parents do when they arrive is check their kids into a parallel universe of Sunday…
-
Free Puppet Show Skit for Children’s Church
Read More: Free Puppet Show Skit for Children’s ChurchThis kid-tested puppet show teaches kids how names have meanings, particularly the meaning of the name given to Jesus Christ. You may freely reproduce this skit. Just reference this website if you do…. “What’s In a Name?” (based on Matthew 1:21) by Jesse Joyner jessejoyner.com note: you may reproduce this skit freely so long as…
-
What is an Upward Sports™ Entertainer?
Read More: What is an Upward Sports™ Entertainer?Upward Sports™ Entertainer – an individual or group who performs and presents the Christian Gospel for the closing awards ceremony of a local Upward™ Sports league. That’s the basic definition. The goal of this outline is to be informative and helpful for Upward Sports™ league directors, Upward Sports™ parents/family members, Upward Sports™ participants, Upward Sports™…
-
Family Night Idea for Your Church: “Family Connect”
Read More: Family Night Idea for Your Church: “Family Connect”On a Sunday morning when I was the Children’s Pastor at our church, two dads of kids in our children’s ministry bumped into each other in the foyer. Now, before I go on, let me say that at the time we were a medium sized church (about 450 people), so not everybody knew everybody else.…
-
Children’s Ministry Stunt Lesson: The Human Table
Read More: Children’s Ministry Stunt Lesson: The Human TableThis human stunt is a crowd favorite – and anyone can do it. Its called “The Human Table”. You could also call it “The Levitating People” or come up with your own name. It’s called a “stunt” lesson rather than an object lesson because you need 4 adults about the same size as one another…
-
5 Prophecies Surrounding the Birth of Jesus
Read More: 5 Prophecies Surrounding the Birth of JesusThe story of Christ’s birth in Matthew contains 5 prophecies (between Matthew 1:18 and 2:23). It is easy to focus on the virgin conception as a stand-out miracle in the life of Christ (and it is), but it is also easy to overlook the miracle of multiple fulfilled prophecies surrounding the birth of Jesus. Here…
-
The Lord Gives and Roeder Takes Away
Read More: The Lord Gives and Roeder Takes AwayIn my hotel room in Columbus this weekend, I caught a glimpse of the televised trial for the murder of George Tiller, the abortion doctor from Kansas City. At the moment I was watching, Scott Roeder (the defendant who admittedly shot Tiller) was on the witness stand. Roeder attempted to justify his pulling of the…
-
Worms on the Earth
Read More: Worms on the Earth“The majesty of God is too high to be scaled up to by mortals, who creep like worms on the earth.” – John Calvin, 16th Century
-
The Juggler’s Prayer
Read More: The Juggler’s PrayerDear Lord, You are the great Juggler.From the celestial bodies to our human bodies, you toss and weave every planet and molecule in a pattern of indescribable beauty.We can manage only a handful of objects in the air at once.We can manage only a limited amount of schedules, relationships, and responsibilities on this earth.But you…
-
According to What Scriptures?
Read More: According to What Scriptures?Image: “The Burial of Christ” by Gustave Dore, woodcut (19th Century) This is the season of Lent, where Christians remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ during the 40 days (not counting Sundays) leading up to Easter. This morning, I read the first recorded Christian creed of the resurrection, which was written by…
-
Merry Christmas
Read More: Merry ChristmasHere is our Christmas tree in our small Richmond, VA apartment. We put it up on Saturday. I set it up while Sarah put the ornaments on. It’s a fake from Target. But it does the job. Merry Christmas.
-
The Disconnect Between the New Testament and Today
Read More: The Disconnect Between the New Testament and TodayIf we really read the stories of the New Testament and look around today…does anybody else see a completely different world, even a vastly different form of Christianity? Jesus and his followers administered physical healings, demon exorcisms, prophetic utterances, prayers in unknown languages, etc, etc. They lived communally – sharing their resources among themselves (at…
-
Book Review: Financial Peace, Revisited
Read More: Book Review: Financial Peace, RevisitedI just finished Financial Peace, Revisited by Dave Ramsey with thoughts by Sharon Ramsey (Viking, 2003). I blasted through this book, both because of its readability and since the subject matter is very practical. I have been listening to this guy’s podcasts recently and his conservative Puritan view towards money (hard work ethic, no borrowing,…
-
Book Review – No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green
Read More: Book Review – No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith GreenMelody Green and David Hazard, No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2000), 392 pgs. (Paperback) After graduating from seminary, I all of a sudden have time to read non-required reading. I started with No Compromise by Melody Green, the wife of the late Keith Green. Keith was one…
Search
Popular Posts
-
“Holy Fools”: Exploring the Journey of Calling for Christian Variety Performers
I am happy to announce that my PhD dissertation has been published to ProQuest, an academic database for published research. I have made the dissertation open source, which means anyone anywhere can access the full content free of charge. Here is the full dissertation: https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/holy-fools-exploring-journey-calling-christian/docview/2622316783/se-2 Please share far and wide. I am very much excited…
-
The Easiest Large Group Game Ever
This is probably the easiest large group game ever invented. If you can think of an easier one, please let me know in the comments. Heads or Tails! This game of heads or tails involves EVERYONE in your large group. It is actually better the larger the group gets. There is an elimination factor to…
-
Merry Christmas from the Joyners!
Greetings from our family in Richmond, Virginia! We are thankful for you, our friends and family. We are also thankful to the Lord for His gift of the love to us all this season. This past year has been a roller coaster of experiences and emotions, specifically regarding our spunky little Annie, who is now…
-
Book Release! Incredibly Bad Dad Jokes
I have been writing down my original Dad jokes for several years now, but recently they dramatically increased. While the past five months of my life have been the toughest for me as a Dad (with Annie’s medical crisis), the Dad jokes actually came out in full force during this season. You see, in my…
-
A Children’s Ministry Poem
From the mouths of children come questions galore about heaven and angels and Satan and more. They speak what their hearts say without holding back, so the wonder of God is something they never lack. Oh God, who are you? Who inspires the minds of little ones many, so that they may find this Jesus…