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?

My 9th Practicum Post

This week for my practicum I spent 4.5 hours (1 hour worship practice for both services , 1 for Sunday school, 1.5 for Sunday morning worship, and 1 for Sunday evening service). 

In Sunday school this week, Kara, continued our lessons through the book of Ephesians. For this particular lesson, we looked at Ephesians 4:1-4. These verses outlined a formula for a person who is living out the "call". Those criteria were being completely gentle, completely humble, be patient, love one another, and make every effort to keep unity. After looking at this list, two big things jumped out at me. 1) This list all seemed to be leading towards the goal of unity. Love, patience, humility, gentle all lead to unity in mind and spirit if accomplished well. As a result, this is another passage within Ephesians that is focused on the unity of Christ's body. 2) Paul makes this statement "as a prisoner". What exactly does that mean? Could he not say this formula if he was not a prisoner for the lord. Through the discussion, I am convinced that the phrase "as a prisoner for the lord" makes Paul the example of living the life worthy of the "call". This is made evident because he was arrested for doing such a good job. Therefore, I think Paul is calling us to also be "prisoners for the Lord", Christians that strive for unity within the church and strive for evangelism to the point where are very lives could be in jeopardy.

Questions:

1) What do you think about the statement "as a prisoner of the Lord"? Does your view line up with mine?

2) What do you think "completely" means in that list? 

My Lesson Week!!

Kara Tomaszewski
Teaching Report I
Time Spent: 4.5 hrs (SS-1, Worship Practice-.5, SService-1, Lesson Preparation-2)
A. My Lesson
This week, we were continuing our series on Ephesians, and my lesson landed on chapter 4. I chose to select only a small portion – verses 1-15 – so we could really focus in on what it means to serve God and discuss how to live a life like Paul told us to: to be a prisoner for God.
9:30 – 9:40 Arrival: The 20s group is almost always right on time, so we leave the first ten minutes for fellowship so everyone can catch up with each other. Every week, someone from the group brings breakfast, so people are also gathering their food at this time. When everything was wrapping up, I had pastor Stephen list any announcements that he had for our group for the week

9:40 – 9:55 Prayer: At the beginning of this time, I asked for the group to provide any prayer requests they had, any praises, or what God was doing in their lives. For each prayer request, I asked if someone from the group would be willing to pray for each specific request at the end. When all prayers were covered, I closed the prayer.

9:55 – 10:30 Lesson: Our class is a very discussion oriented class, so after we read the scripture, I basically guided the group along with discussion questions. I began by asking someone to read Ephesians 4:1-15.
1. As we can see here, Paul is telling us we need to live lives “worthy of following Christ,” how do we do that?
-A life of total surrender.
-A life so full of Christ that each person is unified with God and eachother.

2. One thing that I found interesting was that Paul makes this statement “as a prisoner for the Lord”. What do you guys think that means. I’m not sure myself, but I just found it interesting. What do you think this means? Is Paul the example of living a life worthy of the call or is he just listing criteria needed to live a worthy life for the call?
-Giving up everything to follow God.
-Making a choice to be fully committed to Him.

3. There are 5 criteria listed, 5 applications for us, to be people who live a life worthy of the call. What are they?
-I wrote these 5 points on the whiteboard and we discussed their
meaning:
1.) Be completely humble
2.) Be completely gentle
3.) Be patient
4.) Bear one another in love
5.) Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the
bond of peace. (which is explained in verses 4-5)

4. What do you think completely means?

Keep the unity by every means possible. The first 4 points in the formula give us the means to be unified in Christ. If we are humble, patient, loving, gentle, we will be able to work together better and strive for Christ better. This is the main message. We need to be unified.

5. What is meant by unity?
-Being one in the 5 points made above.
-If we carry all these things out, we will be united as a body of Christians.

6. How do we do this?
-We must first carry out the 5 points of criteria within the church, and then take it out into the world.

7. Do we need to combine denominations or keep separate to love each other better?

8. How do we become more humble as Christians to other Christians?
-Put God above all things, we must treat each other as Paul described within the church and outside.
-People see how we treat each other as Christians.

B. Response: The 20s group usually has really great discussions. Here is what people said:
Being “worthy to follow Christ” means that we are all worthy to do so, but the way to do it well is to follow the guidelines of the verses. They saw a connection between this and being unified with and outside the church.

Michelle Mowat said that being a prisoner of God meant fully surrendering to God – Paul was a model of what this meant. Paul in a way was saying, I can do this, so can you. Nathan Strobel said that this was an encouragement from Paul and that we’re not in those terrible circumstances, what’s stopping us?

Pastor Steven made sure to note that the word “completely” in the list of criteria was a big word with a lot of depth. It is not something to be taken lightly, but means something like totally, or fully! Also, Zach was saying how the “5 criteria was not just to be carried out with the church but with the whole world. Mike Ferwerda said that unity is accomplished by doing the things in the list. I mentioned that it seems if we carried out each of the 5 things 100%, unity would come naturally.

Pastor Stephen said that many people are still debating if unity means under one authority, as in actually one church, or if it is fine if we remain separate. He did, however, say that if we all have the same goal, to serve God with our whole hearts, the church will still be united.

C. Supervising Teacher’s Evaluation
After class I met with Pastor Stephen and he said that overall things went well. He is always very encouraging, and said that for my first Sunday School lesson it went very well. He did want me to go deeper though, because even though our discussion lasted the whole class, he really likes to dig into things. He said it was age appropriate, and it was good that no one fell asleep this week. He did say that even though our group is very talkative, I should always be prepared for people not to talk.

D. Things I did well
1. I think I did well at preparing a lesson that was relevant to today.
2. I think I did well at bringing up questions that the group either also had questions about or could wrestle with the answers.
3. The lesson flowed well, there were really no awkward pauses, or times where I didn’t have anything to fill in.
4. I did my research as to the historical-cultural background of the passage.

E. Things I need to improve
1. I should prepare for a class where no one will respond.
2. I can work on going deeper into the text, relating it to other areas of the bible, maybe a word study as well.
3. I could transition better between topics.
4. I could share a story, mine, or someone else’s that relates to the lesson.

F. Questions:
1. How do you prepare a lesson as if no one will respond?
2. What do you do if no one is responding?
3. The people that usually sleep in our class weren’t there this week, what do you do with people that fall asleep in Sunday School?
4. How do you get people to respond with their lives after a lesson like this one?

#7!!!!!!

This week at Post Script after Exit 59 let out, we talked about 2 Timothy 3; In that passage there is a lot of talk about the end of days and different sorts of things going on in society and the church at the time. We talked a lot about what it means to live life even though it is very hard at times and we find hard times just as much if not more as easy times.

We kind of went off on a tangent of how to live a Godly life, where i kind of shared about the idea of there being tons of donts but that God wants us to do... he wants us to love, and to do the things that he tells us in the bible.

I really enjoy the sunday school class just because it is a way of having community time with people from the church. I love it and how we can be the body of christ to each other and edify each other towards Christ.

Some random questions:

- How are we supposed to live a Godly life?

- What is the role of the church as a community?