You may have noticed it's been a really long time since the last website update. This is because our website host merged with another company and it caused some issues - namely we couldn't log in to the website editor at all!
Well I finally got the problem solved today, so July will be the month of updates for the site, check back to see new content! Like many churches around the world, the Riversdale-Waikaia Parish is closed while the COVID-19 virus is brought under control.
Unfortunately this has meant cancelling or postponing the fun events planned for the upcoming school holidays. BUT just because we can't meet together does not mean we can't still learn and grow in God! Here's what we still have going on: -Regular video devotions from our pastor, Foliaki (click HERE to be redirected to our church website to watch those [link coming soon]) -Lock-Down Sunday School - printable materials for families to use, either as a Sunday morning replacement, or as daily devos. Click HERE for those -A Pinterest Board full of fun ideas to do at home - click HERE -Isolation-Safe Easter Scavenger Hunt - while we can't meet together like last year for activities and crafts, anyone is welcome to download the scavenger hunt lists HERE and complete the challenge in their own time. We've got 4 hunts to choose from - a general photo-hunt around town (will work anywhere), and another photo-hunt themed around the Easter story from the Bible. We also have an easier, round-the-house hunt for younger kids, and a set of clues for an egg hunt around a home (for those wanting to hide eggs) -A Facebook Page where we can support each other & share ideas - click HERE We encourage you to make the most of this time together. Have fun, learn about each other, and stay safe. If you want advice, ideas, or just a listening ear, please don't hesitate to contact us @ [email protected] Once again time has quickly past between posts and we have 2 terms to catch up on!
We've continued to follow the amazing story of Jesus - learning about his miracles, teachings, and challenges. We've talked a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and how God can work in us and through us. We took a break from teaching to join with the Bright Sparks to put together an entire church service! Our kids lead the worship, notices, family time, & even gave the sermon (4 mini-sermons wrapped into one). We did our best to encourage and inspire the adults - especially the mothers in the congregation, as it was Mother's Day. We're hoping to finish up the gospels this term, so that we can get ready for our Christmas service in term 4. Then we can start next year with the birth of the Church in Acts! After spending a little time catching up on the intertestimental history, we jumped into the New Testament. Since the 4 Gospels tell four sides of one story we've woven our way through all four books at once, rather than doing them one at a time.
The obvious place to start was with the birth of....John the Baptist. He's such an important part of the story of Jesus. We spent a week or two journeying through his life, beginning to end, before back-tracking to the birth of Jesus. After the Christmas story and the story of young Jesus hanging out with the men at the temple, we cracked on with Jesus's ministry. Rather than taking the stories in order (which is no easy task, since the gospels don't always have the same order of events - which is not unusual for biographical writing at that time. Writers crafted biographies, not as a timeline of a person's life, but often with a theme or point to get across), anyway, rather than doing the stories in order of when they happened, we've taken the theme approach - miracles, healings, parables, etc. Along the way we've looked at the claims Jesus made about Himself and why they are important; as well as what it means to be a disciple of His. In term 4 we teamed up with the Bright Sparks to prepare our annual Christmas presentation. Since we actually did the birth of Jesus this year, we thought it was finally time to do a Christmas play. Modifying an old skit, the children showed how all the trappings of Christmas can drown out what's really important - the fact that Jesus had arrived on Earth to save us. The next few weeks, being the holidays, we'll take just the little ones out for playtime and a movie, while the primary kids stay in for the sermon (don't forget we have a bunch of sermon helps & worship tools for the kids (and adults) to use during the service. W did it, we finally finished the Old Testament and have begun looking a the life of Jesus!
But first, we had to address the 400 year gap known as the Intertestemental History. When you finish Malachi and move onto Matthew you soon notice that there is a huge difference in the story's context. What happened to the Persian Empire that had been in charge of Judah? When did the Romans gain such power? What's a synagogue, a Pharisee, a Sadducee? Why is everyone speaking Greek? At first glance the New Testament seems almost completely unrelated to the Old - the main characters even have a new name 'Jews' instead of 'Israelites'. So what happened? The prophets of the Old Testament warned that those from Israel and Judah would be carried off to exile if they didn't stop worshiping idols and turn back to God. And that's exactly what we see happen in Kings and Chronicles. Israel, the northern kingdom, is conquered and exiled by the Assyrian empire; and not too long after the southern kingdom of Judah is carried off by the next major world power - Babylon. But around 7 years later, as the prophet Isaiah foretold, a new empire is in charge - lead by King Cyrus - who lets the people of Judah return to Jerusalem. A new temple is built and though the people are not completely free to do as they like - still being under the rule of Cyrus - they are, at least, home. But the Persian Empire was not to last. Around 336BC, Greek conqueror Alexander the Great set out to destroy Persia. Within two years he had conquered a huge amount of the known world - including Judah and it's people. As he conquered he spread the Greek language - and he is to thank for the rapid spread of the gospel after Jesus rose from the dead. Because the entire empire spoke the same language the message about Jesus was able to be spread quickly and easily. But it's not the Greeks we see in charge during the Old Testament, but the Romans. When Alexander died in 323BC, the empire was divided by his generals, and for several hundred years Palestine (the region that included Israel) was the rope in a giant game of tug--o-war. The area was an important one for trade - being right in the middle of the old empire. One 'Team' was happy to let the Jewish (they were called Jews because they came from Judah) people continue with their religious practices. But when the other 'team' took over things got messy. Bribes were given to the government to let the wrong people become High Priests, temple items were stolen to pay for the bribes, a pig (an unclean animal) was sacrificed in the temple, parents could not circumcise their sons, the Sabbath was illegal, and many copies of the law were burned. Being Jewish was now illegal. This was a bad move on the part of those in charge. The Jews were not going to stand for such treatment. The idea of exile through disobedience was still fresh in their minds and they were not going to let anything get in the way of their worship. The Jews became strong in guerrilla warfare, and with the emperor concerned in other affairs elsewhere it only took three years for the Jews to overcome the relatively few troops in Palestine and for them to gain control of Jerusalem. The Jews cleaned and rededicated the temple - and it is this event that is celebrated during Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights or the Feast of Dedication - which Jesus celebrated (see John 10:22-24). Alexander's broken empire continued to fight amongst itself until around 63BC - when Rome came and took control. The Romans contributed two key things to the spread of the Gospel. They built roads everywhere throughout the empire, making travel vastly easier than it had ever been. And they enforced Pax Roma - the Roman Peace. For the first time it was safe to travel throughout the empire. Travelers would no longer face attack on the roads. With the arrival of the Romans also came freedom once again for the Jewish people to practice their religion without fear of punishment. King Herod even built a bigger and better temple for the Jews. It was during this time that the 4 main Jewish groups developed. The Pharisees were concerned about making sure they did everything right to fulfill God's law in hopes that God would once more free them from being ruled by other nations. While we mostly see them getting told off by Jesus, they did start out with good intentions, missing out the main point somewhere along the way. God's concerned with a person's heart, and no amount of obeying the law will fix a corrupt heart. The Sadducees wanted to stay on the Romans' good side, as they knew that they had a pretty good deal going on compared to earlier. By sucking up to the Romans the Sadducees found themselves with a decent amount of power, and they didn't want anything to jeopardize that - which is why they hated Jesus, as well as the third group. The Zealots wanted the Romans out and were going to do it their way. They were into guerrilla warfare and rioting. Finally are the Essenes, who aren't mentioned in the Bible, but who are the reason we have the Bible. They were a group of hermits or monks, who had withdrawn to the desert to worship God as they pleased. They preserved the scriptures -and in fact had kept them safe earlier when many copies were being burned. We can look at Malachi and Matthew and think, "Why did God wait so long to send Jesus?" But once we look at the Intertestamental history we see all the things God was doing to put in place what was needed to spread his blessing to the whole world. If He had acted in a hurry the spread of the Gospel would have been inhibited by language barriers, unsafe travel and the inability to get from place to place. With this understanding we can jump into the New Testament with fresh eyes. We made it through the majority of the prophets last year - stopping once we reached the post-exile guys. It's incredible to look through the prophet's messages and find all the clues about the coming Messiah. The kids enjoyed discovering these in time for Christmas - when some many of those prophecies came to pass. I was very impressed with the children's end-of-year 'show'. For weeks we made posters about each prophet, including a Messianic prophecy and where it is fulfilled in the New Testament. Then on the day the kids stood up and presented their posters, reading the scriptures and helping the adults to see the connection between the Old and New Testaments. This coming term we should finally manage to finish the Old Testament. Our original plan was for this journey through the Bible to take 5 years. Well it's been 5 years and we still haven't got to Jesus! The journey has been worthwhile, and the kids have picked up and kept so many gems along the way. We'll start with Ezekiel and Daniel - who prophesied during the first part of the exile - I'm looking forward to exploring the exciting stories in those books! Once through them we will head back to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther - who we bypassed between 2 Chronicles and Job. These guys lead the return to Jerusalem and were key in the rebuild stage. We'll also look at the prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi - who were prophets during while Ezra and Nehemiah were doing their stuff. Can we squeeze all that into one term? We'll certainly try! Term 2 will begin with a little inter-testamental history. It's a confusing jump from Old Testament to New, and it's helpful to know what happens in the few hundred years between Malachi and Matthew. It's set to be an interesting year! Term 2 has been all about the prophets. We've covered 6 so far - going in chronological order rather than the order you'll find them in the Bible. The prophets can seem a little depressing - Repent!, Turn Back!, Judgement is Coming! - it would be easy to see God as an angry guy who likes to send terrible consequences on everyone - even though He knew they were unable to do the right thing all the time. But there is much more to the prophets then that. Sure, God tended to send prophets as wake-up calls to Israel and Judah - when His people were disobeying rules they had promised to keep - and sure the prophets were warning the people of terrible disasters that God was going to send on them. But consider this - He was warning them, a warning means a second chance. Anyone with kids knows that you have to lay out the consequences now and then to remind your children that you can't get away with bad behaviour forever. God's people were doing terrible things, and in the Old Testament covenant of an eye for an eye God was telling the people "If you keep doing terrible things I will do to you what you are doing to others." God's punishments can look harsh to us these days, but actually they were pretty fair considering what the Israelites were doing to the people around them. But even in promising punishment God never stopped there. Look through the books of prophecy and you will always find tucked in there somewhere that punishment will not be the end. We put our kids in time-out because we love them and want them to stop unhealthy behaviours. God puts the Isrealites into exile - into whole-country time out - because He loves them and wants them to live in the way that is best for everybody. And just like we take kids out of time-out, give them a hug, and remind them they are still our children; God promises to bring His people back from exile and restore their damaged relationship with Him. Teaching the kids about the prophets hasn't been difficult, because they have an inbuilt sense of fairness and justice. Israel broke their promise and disobeyed, so God has every right to punish them. What has surprised and excited the kids is digging out the messianic prophecies - the things that foretell the arrival of Jesus. So far we've discovered God's special saviour will come from David's line, and that he will be born in Bethlehem. It's amazing to see all the clues that God planted hundreds of years before He sent His son. We'll be continuing studying the prophets for the next few terms, before moving on to the return from exile. It looks like we will finally hit the New Testament next year! This Easter we offered a family activity pack to help families explore Easter. If you missed out on a pack don't worry - here are all the activities (You will need to gather a few supplies)
Instructions: You can do these in any order; however I have put them in the order that make the most sense to me. I’ve suggested ways that you can complete these activities; but feel free to change them to fit your family. Included in each activity is a Bible verse that sums up the key point, you may like to read these before you do the activity. Remember to have fun – and to take photos to add to our Facebook page!
Scavenger Hunt Worksheet arabahjoy.com/easter-scavenger-hunt/ 2. God Loves Us And Wants To Help Us – Random Acts of Kindness God knew we couldn’t get ourselves out of sin, and that’s why He sent Jesus to die for us (John 3:16). We can help others too. You may want to choose one act of kindness each – either to do all together or as individuals, or if you have less time you may choose to do only one to do as a family. Random Act of Kindness Suggestion List: www.coffeecupsandcrayons.com/printable-random-acts-of-kindness-calendars/ 3. Jesus Died to Take Away Our Sins – The List Our sins come with a punishment (Romans 3:23), but Jesus let himself be punished so we wouldn’t have to be. Each person should write or draw something they have done that they knew wasn’t right. Write your names at the tops of your paper (on the tape) with a felt pen. As a family pray and ask God to forgive you for what is on your papers. Wipe off your name (use a damp cloth) and write Jesus in its place. Now you can destroy your ‘sin lists’ in whatever way you chose – those sins have been forgiven! The Sin List PDF 4. God’s Forgiveness is a Free Gift YOU WILL NEED CHOCOLATE EGGS FOR THIS ACTIVITY We don’t have to do or pay anything to receive God’s forgiveness – it’s a gift (Romans 6:23). Talk about the best gifts each of you have ever received, and why they were so special, as you enjoy eating your chocolate eggs. 5. We Have Hope Because of Jesus – Flower Seeds YOU WILL NEED FLOWER SEEDS FOR THIS ACTIVITY Because of what Jesus did for us we have been given the hope of eternal life with God (Acts 2:25-27). We matter, and what we do matters, we are not just a bit of dust floating through space, we are God’s children. Plant the flower seeds in your garden or in a pot – just like we can’t see the result of our faith in God right now, but we have hope that we will be with him one day, we also can’t see the flowers yet, but we have faith that these little seeds will grow into beautiful flowers one day. This term we've decided to leave Israel and Judah in 'Time Out' - aka in exile; and take a trip through the poetry books - Job-Song of Solomon.
It's really important to be able to recognize that their are different writing genres within the Bible - because while a historical book will give facts and true stories, poems can get a little confusing and weird...and we might just start thinking that God has feathers (see Psalm 91:4). It may seem obvious to us grown-ups that there are different kinds of writing, but kids may not see it. So the first thing we did with this topic was explain the difference between history and poems. This came in handy when we got to Job and saw God having meetings with Satan in Heaven. It's easy to forget that the story of Job is a poem - something based on a real person, with a few imaginative/inspired details mixed in (I mean who really argues with people in poetry form?). The important thing to learn in Job is that God is in control, no matter what's going on. He has the big picture, while we can only see a tiny part of what's happening, so we need to trust Him. We quickly moved on to Psalms and Proverbs. Which was the perfect opportunity to change up a couple of things. In worship, instead of singing a couple of songs we read through Psalm 150 - adding in the right noises and actions. Proverbs provided short, snappy bits of wisdom for us to memorize (we're on a break from our usual memory verse system). We read through a few different psalms, learning basic exegesis - how to draw out meaning from a passage, to identify what kind of psalm it is and what all the parts are about. Ecclesiastes gives us insight into life from an old king's perspective. It's easy to chase money and fame, but in the end you have no more than what the poor beggar has. Really the only things of true worth are friends and God. With just a couple weeks left of term we have time to squeeze in Song of Solomon (!)...that's going to be interesting. Watch out, your kids might start coming out with compliments like "your teeth are like sheep that are fresh from the dip". Once we get past that crazy book, we'll jump forward to Easter and remember what God has done for us in Christ. What a great term! |