Blog | Harvest Community Church, Mesa Arizona

For the last month the Children’s Ministry team has been working on a new experience for families. Tomorrow morning, on Sunday January 30th we are going to launch our first ever Great Family Experience and we invite you as a family to participate! The Great Family experience is just that, an experience and it is designed for you as a family to interact in a fun way and begin to create a “Rhythm” with them.

One of the books that I have been reading called Parenting Beyond Your Capacity talks about 5 core family values. One of them being Creating a Rhythm, increasing the quantity of quality time you spend together. That’s what this experience is based on. If we all look at our lives we can see that it consists of a lot of Rhythm, a series of repeated patterns. You see, whether you recognize it or not we tend to be creatures of habit, we like to do things a certain way and often times we continue to repeat those things creating a rhythm. It begins to be tough to change our habits or to break the rhythm we’ve created.

The time we have with our kids is limited. Soon our 2 year olds will be 5. Our 2nd graders will be going into 6th grade and our 8th graders will be graduating from high school and it can all happen in a blink of an eye. Before we know it the time we thought we had is gone. So there it is, we have a certain amount of time with our kids before they grow up and become adults. So the question is not “how do we get more time”, it is “how do we become more intentional with the time we have?” How can we create a Rhythm that includes a consistent amount of quality time with our family.

The Great Family Experience, is designed to help jump start that process. It’s an experience designed for the whole family from birth through teenagers! This Sunday be sure to stop by the Clubhouse Kids Check-In table and pick up your packet. The experience is designed to be done over a meal and should last at least 90 min, so you can start right after Church or anytime these next few weeks. I am excited to see how God uses this to create a healthy Rhythm for your family.

Club252 – Uniqueness

Good Morning Families! I can’t believe that it is already November, it still seems that at times we just opened up our doors not too long ago. I guess it’s true what they say, “Time flies when you are having fun!” We have truly been having fun in all areas of Clubhouse Kids for the past 14 months and I know we are are going to continue having fun for a long time to come.

November also brings us into a new month of learning a new virtue in our Elementary grades! Club252 is embarking on a month long journey into Uniqueness! I am so excited to see where this goes and hope that as parents you will make some time to talk to your kids about our virtue, Uniqueness.

Uniqueness is learning more about others so you can know more about yourself.

There is truth to the fact that as we learn more about our friends and family and what makes them who they are, we in turn find out what is unique about ourselves. This month we are going be learning that God has created each and everyone of us different.  In that process even discover that it’s ok to be different, to be unique because God made us that way for a very important reason!

So to help kick off this months virtue, we thought it would be fun for parents to show their kids how unique they really are. Here are 5 ways to show your child how unique they are:

• Look in the mirror with your child and make a list of all the differences you see
• Help your child make a list of some different things they want to do in their life
• Do a talent show with your family (letting everyone show off their unique talents)
• Take an ink pad and have everyone in the family put their finger prints on paper (compare and show them that no two fingerprints are ever alike)
• Go on a family scavenger hunt and find some unique things that God made

Don’t feel like you have to do all of these but try to pick at least one! Your kids are unique, let’s partner this month and help them see how amazing and unique God made them.

How did it go? If you did one or all of these things, let us know how it went! What did they learn, what did you learn? Sharing these stories helps us celebrate what God is doing in His church and in the lives of His people.

some of these unique ideas came from a great parenting website: www.orangeparents.org