And the winner is...

Family Connection

10.30.2014

"Be like the Son of Man (Jesus), He did not come to be served.  Instead He came to serve others.  He came to give His life as the price of setting many people free."-Matthew 20:28 (NIrV)

I want to say "thank you" to all of the kids and families who sent in pictures of your serving together this month.  I hope this was fun for all of you, especially your kids as we have been encouraging them to serve.  As promised, we have drawn two names from the children who submitted pictures and those families will receive 2 family fun packs worth $100 each ($50 gift certificates to Harkins and In N Out).  The names we picked were Brody Johnston and Murphy Robinson.  The Johnston and Robinson families will receive these family packs!  Congratulations.  Even though the contest is over, keep on serving, it's what Jesus wants us to do.

Very often, Chad will say that we are never more like Jesus than when we give and when we serve.  This is true in so many ways.  While I never want to guilt people into serving, as a pastor it is important to me that I share the truth with children and families.  If we follow Jesus, He is our example and we should do what He did.  Jesus served.  He made it very clear that His followers should also serve others.  When we serve others, we take our eyes off of ourselves and look at them.  When we look at others, it can help us to see them the way God sees them, as individuals He loves and wants to have a relationship with.  When we model serving to our children, we are actually helping them to see Jesus and to grow closer to Him.

If you already have a place here at the church where you serve, I want to thank you and encourage you to keep going.  If you don’t currently serve somewhere at the church can I ask you why?  I’m not being critical, I really want to know.  We want to provide easy opportunities for people to serve in Children’s Ministry, but it is possible you may not know this.  You can help us identify where we can improve by sharing why you don’t serve.  Here’s something else you may not know, serving in Children’s Ministry is a blast!  I’m not sure who has more fun each weekend, the kids or the volunteers.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

This week in Kids’ Zone, we are continuing our Follow Jesus to the EXTREME series.  This weekend we will start a new virtue of Thankfulness-Showing God and others I appreciate what they do for me.  We will encourage kids to show their thankfulness all month.

If you would like to watch a video of the upcoming lesson, click here:  https://vimeo.com/109644057

In our Early Childhood ministry we will be looking at the basic truth of God made, all month, and will looking at the theme of being thankful.  This week we will be looking at Genesis 1:6-10 and how we can be thankful that God made the water.  The verse for this month is “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.”-Psalm 111.1 (ESV). 

Thank you for trusting us to help your children meet, know and follow Jesus.

Walking by your side,

Brett Humphrey-Pastor H

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Twitter - @BrettHumphrey11

   @SVKidsGilbert                              

Email - bhumphrey@sunvalleycc.com

Of Superheroes and Sports Teams

"But the fruit the Holy Spirit produces is love, joy and peace.  It is being patient, kind and good.  It is being faithful and gentle and having control of oneself.  There is no law against things of that kind."-Galatians 5:22-23 (NIrV)

My daughter Sofie and I love going to Comicon.  We love walking around and seeing all of the people dressed in costumes as their favorite superheroes.  The last time we went we spent a full day and took a lot of pictures with people identifying with their favorite characters.  On our way home, we drove past the Arizona Diamondback stadium and watched the people filing inside dressed in the jerseys of their favorite players, carrying signs with messages to the team and even saw a few people with painted faces.  It was interesting to see two different groups dressed up and identifying with superheroes and sports heroes just a few blocks away from each other.  It made me wonder how easy it is for others to identify me as a follower of Jesus.

As I look at the passage in Galatians, it seems pretty clear that people should be able to identify followers of Jesus by the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  However, sometimes followers of Jesus are more easily identified by what we stand against than what we stand for.

When our children were younger we would talk about the things we stand for as a family.  Jennifer and I would reinforce the things we wanted to be known for as a family.  We would say things like, “as a Humphrey we want to make sure we are honest”, “as a Humphrey we want to make sure we serve others”, etc.  Even though our children are older now we still use these terms.  The other day I was having a conversation with my 18 year old son about how we strive to follow Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 18 when we have a conflict, even if it isn't easy; it's what we do as Humphreys.  I can’t take any credit for this, I learned this from another parent I admired and Jennifer and I put it into practice in our lives.

I want to encourage you to spend some time thinking about the things you and your family stand for.  As you learn how to meet, know and follow Jesus talk about some of the best ways to follow Him and ask the following questions.  What are some things that you would like to use to define your family?  What are some things you want your kids to know that you do?  I would encourage you to start by following Galatians 5:22-23 and go from there.