Last post I have. 5 Hours 2 at church. 3 at wednesday night church

Report #7- This was the last week of my practicum. It was really cool. We talked about how Jesus died on the cross for us, and we gave the salvation story. We stood up front with little crosses to give to the kids. It was cool because two kids came up to me and asked for prayer. This was like the coolest thing, I just felt deep down in my heart that this is why I was hear to pray with these kids and let them know how awesome God was. Then afterward we did a volunteer appreciation. The kids had to go hug their favorite volunteers. I got hugged a lot. It felt really good because when I first started going I thought the kids were like “he’s not cool” but they kept telling me to come back. It felt extremely good to here that.

1. What is a calling?

2. What is that feeling we get when we pray with someone and it just feels right?

Practicum 6. Joes. 2 hours working on lesson. 2 hours at sunday school. 3 hours wednesday night class

Report #6- This week again I went to help with the after school program. It was a little bit better this time. The kids were a whole lot nicer; they didn’t curse me out. It was really enjoyable. I have been getting to know the guy who is in charge of the program. His name is Brittan, who just recently got married to Dr. Lennox’s daughter. He graduated from IWU a couple years ago and has stuck to JC Body Shop.

This was the week to teach the class. I thought since I had written a lesson for the book that we have been writing in class I thought I would use it. I modified it of course.

Age Group- Junior High Kids

The Age Group- The scripture that they will study is Psalm 42.

The Topic- The topic is how when we are down and feel that we are out, all we need to do is remember how awesome God is.

The Objective- The objective in the class is to help the kids know that when they are having a hard time they can just look to God to feel better.

The Class Sequence

Charlie lets the kids play for about a half hour. Starting at 11AM. Have until 11:30AM. Expect at least 30 kids.

1. Arriving First 5 Minutes

a. I want them to run down to one end of the gym to the other 5 times. This way all the sugar they had before class will go away.

b. Then have them all split up into 5 groups. For what you are about to do.

2. The Game 10 Minutes

a. We will play a nice icebreaker game. A game you could play is the story sequence. I will get a short story and split it up into different parts and give a piece of paper with a part of the story on it to each individual. Then time them to see how long it takes them to put the story into chronological order. Whatever team wins gets a piece of candy.

3. The Lesson 15 Minutes

a. My main objective is to tell these kids that when they are down they just need to remember God and get in touch with Him. This is why we are doing Psalm 42.

b. Start off by reading Psalm 42 to the group with the New International Version.

c. Go around the group asking, when you are down what do you do to get over it, or make yourself feel better? Some will give you some answers like I listen to music, I go for a run, I go play with my kids. When they are done answering you tell them what you do, you can tell them whatever you do.

d. Then I will refer back to the passage Psalm 42. I will tell the kids that when these guys who wrote this passage they had God to look up to when they were having a hard time. Even their friends made fun of them, but they still followed Jesus. Then ask what they think happened to the men who wrote this passage? Tell them that they were happy.

e. After I’m done with this I will go around the circle and ask for prayer request.

The Teachers response.

Brittan actually was listening for me. I asked him to give my strengths and weaknesses. He said the presenting was well done. He said also getting rid of their energy was great as well. He said though that I needed to go a little bit deeper, He said I sounded like I was trying to teach little kids. He also said you need to work on theology a little bit better.

I think it went really well, and I think Brittan did too.

The 5th post 6 hours on wednesday, after school program and wednesday night church. 2 hours church. 8 hours.

This week was really tiring. I decided since I had no classes after 3 I would go dedicate my time with the after school program. It went from 3 till 6 then I had to stay till 9. I spent 6 hours at JC Body Shop, which shouldn’t be a problem. The kids that come in at three are rough kids. These are kids that come from the rough part of town and they know it. They really tried giving me a hard time today. One kid accused me of not giving him the ball because he was black. Yah I smartened him up quick. It was a really interesting set up. We had them play for an hour, then study for an hour, then play for an hour, then eat and then come back and play. There was hardly any learning. I was a little disappointed in it. The kids though eventually started warming up to me. We for some reason got onto the subject of hobos and how all the kids wanted to be one. I started laughing then they started laughing. It was really funny. Then we went back to JC Body Shop and the 6 o’clock thing started. It went from 20 kids to like 80 kids. I was going to go to the gym but Charlie stopped me and asked me to go and greet the kids at the door. I went and got to know the kids who always wrestled each other a lot better. The serious part of the service started and again we talked about Jesus. This week they showed a clip of the Passion and Jesus being flogged. I thought maybe it was a little to much. After that it was all over and the kids left and so did I.

Questions

1. Do you think it is too much to show a Junior High kid the Passion of Christ?

2. When do you think it is the right time to speak out and say I think this should be done better?

Joe's 4th week Practicum. 2 for sunday, 4 hours open gym

Report #4- We missed last week because of Spring break. So this week when we come back to school our kids leave for their spring break. Charlie and his assistant Julia Hurlow, decided to have a campfire for volunteer appreciation. Two friends of mine and I went over to check out the campfire in the middle of Marion. It was fun a lot of people showed up. My two friends and I stayed a little bit longer then everyone else, because we having too much fun burning the marshmallow stickers through our shoes. Eventually we went over to JC Body Shop to help out Charlie with his Open Gym night he had for kids who stayed home for Spring Break. It was a lot of fun, for a while Charlie, GJ and I were the only volunteers who stayed. It was an awesome time to get to know a lot of the kids. I got to know some of the senior high kids. One of the guys mother’s made us all hot enchiladas. Then some of the other guys decided to play a worship concert for me too show me how good they were. For how old they were they were pretty awesome. I really love working with Senior High, they just seem more fun, there easier for me to relate too and they actually listen more too. It was a great week.

Questions

1. Which is better to teach Senior High or Junior High?

2. Is it easier for anyone else to relate to senior high then junior high or the opposite and why?

Joes real third week of practicum.2 hours church, 3 hours wednesday night

Report #3- My time at JC Body shop is getting a whole lot better. This week again I went out into the gym as usual. I started playing with one of the other volunteers named Aimee. We were throwing around the football having a great old, and then two kids, you could tell they were brother and sister. We started throwing with them, because the other kids were kind of being greedy with the other balls. It was time to go and chill down for the serious part of the time. The guy who teaches most of the time is Chris. He is a real cool guy, who really likes to put a lot of effort into what he is saying. I don’t think the kids get it half the time, but at least he is trying. We have been talking about the story of Jesus for a while. Chris has split the story of Jesus up into different parts so he doesn’t run out of stuff to say before Easter. Since it is Easter we have been talking about Jesus with the kids. I think it would be awesome if we could have like a small group discussion with the kids asking them what they think about what Chris is saying. I should tell Charlie about that.

Questions

1. What if you have a problem with staff maybe picking favorites?

2. Should you have small groups with Junior High kids?

I have so far spent 9 hours at my practicum. Thats including the other two posts i had

Sunday School number 9

This weekend we went to Holland Michigan, so we went to a new church plant there. We were visiting a friend who is the worship leader there and he needed my help singing with the worship team. So, this week, I spent an hour at worship practice, an hour and a half at Sunday service, and an hour in Sunday school (three and a half hours in total). In Sunday school the lesson all about Noah. I was immediately interested because Noah is usually a lesson that you would hear in children’s church or something. The lesson was opened with a scriptural search for the reason for the flood. We read Genesis 7:1, where God tells Noah that he and his family are the only ones righteous enough to escape the flood. Noah was the only man who pleased God. This opened a discussion on the righteousness of Noah – people questioned what he had done, and what the earth had done to come to be destroyed. We found and discussed how Noah was the only one who was walking with God and how scripture says earth was filled with violence. After this we started talking about how Noah’s faith was strong through the process of building the arc. Three parts of Scripture tell about the faith of Noah – he spent over 100 years building the structure, he built the huge boat on land (obviously implying that he trusted God that the flood waters would reach it,) and he was the only person that listened to God and followed His instructions. From this evidence we concluded that Noah probably was made fun of quite frequently. He would have had many reasons to give up, but he stuck with it. This is the kind of faith we should have – we should walk with God, follow his instructions, and then stick with them, no matter what people think or say about us. This opened another discussion of how we should do this – obviously, first we have to be faithful, listening and following through, but most of the time, just thinking to ourselves that we are going to do something, it doesn’t actually happen. Therefore, we must not only surrender our lives to God, but also have an accountability system. We should have people in our lives that we can discuss such things with, so that they can also hold us tight to the promises we are making to God. After we discussed this for a while, we said a prayer of commitment to these ideas, and had a little bit of time to hang out before church started. What can we do to please God like Noah did? How can we have a faith as strong as Noah? Why does the church think that everyone went to church as a kid and knows all of the typical “kid stories” and what can we do to change that?

Last Practicum Post!

This week, we went to a church plant in Holland, Michigan because we were visiting a friend and he needed our help that Sunday. So, for this week, we spent 3.5 hours for our practicum at a different church. (1 hour for Sunday school, 1.5 hours for worship service, and 1 hour for worship band practice).

The Sunday school lesson was focused around Noah’s Ark. For the first point, we went right to Scripture to find out why the flood happened in the first place. Genesis 7:1 states that Noah was righteous in his generation in the NIV. Other translations went as far as to translate this passage as “you [Noah] alone are righteous” in the entire world. The earth was also said to be filled with violence, which triggered God’s judgment. After discussion about these points with the class, we started talking about the most important aspect of the story, Noah’s faith. There were three major things that stood out in the story that revealed the strong faith of Noah. 1) He built the ark for about 100 years, 2) he built his enormous boat on land, and 3) he was the only person on earth who listened to God, so we interpreted into the text that Noah must have been mocked and ridiculed by other people. Though a class discussion, we determined that we need to have faith like Noah’s and how we could obtain such faith in our lives. We can do this by being faithful to God and God’s will through persecution or ridicule. We can do this by listening to God even when his tasks seem as ridiculous as building a huge boat on dry land. We can do this by completely dying to ourselves and living for God, just like Noah did when he devoted his entire life to God’s will. However, such measures, as we discussed in class, can only be done if we let God change us, depend on others for accountability, and completely die to our will and self.

Questions:

1)    1) What is the meaning of “dying to self” in your opinion?

2)    2) What are some other life applications we can use through the story of Noah that you know?