Week 6

2-27-08

1. This week I spent an hour and fifteen minutes observing the splash program, and an hour and forty-five minutes sound checking and participating in the service.
2. This week the attendance seemed to be down compared to the other weeks that I have been observing in splash. I think this was due to the weather. The students came in and like they always do, they played games and were crazy before the service actually started. Then, the service started with worship, and as I say every week, the students are crazy when it comes to worship. I still really wonder if the children know what worship is. The words to the songs have some really good material such as scripture and universal truths, but as for a worship experience that is a connection to God, I sometimes doubt that is happening. I’m not saying that is bad, I just think that there can sometimes be too much of an emphasis on the knowledge and not on the relational connection that can come through worship.

After the time of worship, Richele reminded the kids of the message from the week before by asking them as a group what the theme from the week before was, to which most replied with transformation. This was the theme for this week as well. They then had an activity where the children had to go around the room and ask each other questions and fill out a card saying with those peoples names that answered yes to those questions. The questions were mostly like “do you like…” and if they did, then they would write their names in the square. This message seemed to goo of of the message of transformation from last week. Richele did a great job talking to the students and explaining the message that she had prepared. The students always seem to understand and add into the discussion. The kids always seem attentive and interested at what they are hearing. The students are engaged and I find that they are very smart and actually have an interest in the Bible and what is taking place in the lesson.

3. What do you think is more important for kids to learn, sentimental songs that allow the kids to have a feeling, or have informational songs that allow the kids to learn scripture?

How would you respond to students that are not engaging in discussion? Especially kids who are young, as in first and second grade?

Week #5

2-20-08

1. This week I spent an hour and a half in the splash and an hour and a half attending the 747 service.
2. The class this week went pretty well. When I showed up, a young boy named Christian kind of latched onto me and spent about the first ten minutes of the game time with me as we would take turns throwing a single dice and guessing which number it would land on. Pretty much this whole time Christian was being completely ridiculous. He was going places in the room that he wasn’t suppose to, throwing other things; he was crazy. After the game time, we went into a time of worship. Worshipping with the splash kids is quite the experience. We sing songs that I recognize, and some that I don’t, either way, most have motions or they do some sing language to keep them involved.

The message this week was about transformation. This is a great idea, the church as a whole, is teaching on the transformation that comes through Christ. Richele got up and talked about a passage, I think it came out of 1 Corinthians, which talked a lot about being made new in the image of Christ. She then showed a video which I thought related to the message rather well, about butterflies. The video explained in detail about how butterflies begin as eggs, hatch and become caterpillars, then finish their transformation by making a cocoon and transforming into the final, beautiful product of a butterfly. This is a difficult process, which takes a good period of time, but has the best effects in the end.

Richele then talked about how our growth in Christ is just like how the butterfly changes and grows. Then she read through the new transformation in Christ verse and while she was reading, a boy named Bradley got very excited because he had this whole passage memorized so he got up and recited this verse. He was able to relate this teaching to his own life because he had been working on memorizing this verse. They then discussed how we change to become like Christ, and how we should be looking for this transformation. One way that Richele was helping the students was by having them repeat the word “transformation” over and over throughout the morning, trying to get them to remember the word and what means to us as Christians.

3. How should we as teachers respond when it seems like the students are just not understanding what we are trying to teach?

Should we have students be working on memorizing scripture during the week while they are at home?

Week #4

Week #4 – 2/10/08

Teaching Lesson #1

A. For this lesson, I taught on the Great Commission to the students. This was nice because we normally have a large group of kids, but this week we split them up into three groups and taught a different lesson in each group. The lesson began with about seven pictures, spread on the floor, of modes of communication, such as a cell phone, books, pens, TV and a computer. Then I had the kids look at the pictures and tell what the similarities were between all of the pictures. And what I was looking for was that they all were modes of communication. One student named Morgan was quick to say that they all were ways to give information. When Then discussed how information is passed from one person to another and that lead into how information is passed to others about Christ.

I then asked the question how they heard about Christ. They were quick to answer with the typical, “my parents told me,” “church,” and “pastors.” We then read the great commission and discussed what Jesus commanded us to do with sharing about him to others and discipling them. And we also talked about Jesus’ promise in the Great Commission to be with and what that meant to them.

To finish it up, we talked about ways we can communicate the promise of Jesus to others outside of our words.

B. For this lesson, I taught it twice on this morning, to two groups of students, from first grade to fifth grade. These kids seemed like they were regulars who came. They seem to be made up of mostly professor and staff students from IWU.

The students seemed to understand the point of my message. As I asked questions, they always had an answer. A young girl named Hannah said that we should communicate Jesus with others by the way we live, in our actions. The students gave some specific examples of how they could share Jesus with others, some of those were; be nice to people, be nice to their parents and give to people.

Evaluation for Joel Stone

February 12, 2008

Ministry:

SPLASH morning worship

Age of Children:

K-5

Number of Children Present:

40

Task Given:

Teach a lesson

Interact with the kids

Help with classroom management

Teaching material used:

We write our own that follows the teaching of Pastor Steve

Expectations:

1. Prepare a Bible lesson and tell the story of the Great Commission
2. Manage a very active classroom.

Evaluation:

Joel was well prepared for his lesson. I had a child that I had to deal with so I was not able to be completely attentive to his presentation. I was impressed with what I observed. Joel was well prepared and the kids were listening very attentively to the lesson. Joel’s tasks were to use pictures demonstrating different ways that people communicate with each other and to also compare and contrast ways that we can communicate the Great Commission to others. He was responsible for explaining the concept and then preparing questions that would encourage deeper thinking of the passage. Joel encouraged the kids to share with others about the hope of Jesus Christ!

He is at ease and very natural with the kids. He is doing a great job!

D. I think that I was able to get the kids to understand the main idea that was to be communicated in the lesson. I believe that I was able to bring the meaning from the first idea of communication to how they communicate Jesus to others.

E. Things I need to improve on. I think that I could be better at keeping the attention of the students. Although there are young, I feel that I could have been more ingaging with the words and tones that I used to keep those who were being loud, quiet and those who were paying attention more engaged. The students seemed like the didn’t really take me serious. So I think that one thing that I need to do is to build better relationships with them in order to build credibility.

F. Questions:

What would you do in a situation when the students don’t seem to be paying attention?

How should I approach the students when trying to build a relationship? They are young kids, mostly 1^st through 5^th grade.

Week 3

Week #3 – 2/3/08

This week I observed and helped with the splash service for the children and I also attended the worship service. This was my three hours for the week.

This week in the splash service, the normal teacher was there, Richele Miller. She had a message about missions. As the children came into the service time, they were instructed to take twelve pieces of paper, punch a whole in them all, tie them together and to write one word on each page of a Bible verse that they were working on memorizing. After that, they started with a time of worship. This was an interesting time where the students either jump around, talk with there friends and on rare instances, sing along. But when they started singing the last song, How Great is Our God, the majority of the students stopped what they were doing and sang along. I was touched with how the kids sang. I could tell that most of them were engaged and were understanding what was happening.

We then went into the teaching part of the class. As I said before, this week was focused on missions. Richele shared a story from the Congo in Africa about a farmer that was not a Christian. A pastor wrote the farmer a letter and told him that he had a dream and that God wanted a church built on his farm. The pastor got angry and was not going to build the church. Although a couple days latter, as the farmer was trying to fall asleep, he heard a voice saying to build the church. This happened every night until the farmer relented and built the church and had the pastor that had written him the letter come and teach them how to worship.

This story seemed to have a great impact on the students. They were attentive and showed great interest into the story. Along with the story, the students were given an activity to have the kids engage and understand a little of what missionaries are about. For this, I had to help the kids translate some directions for a treat from French into English. This was to help the kids understand how missionaries have a hard job of taking the gospel message to a native people. This was difficult because my group was made up of mostly kindergarten kids who weren’t able to read, so I had to do most of the work. I could tell that the kids were learning because they were able to relate the message to what there own lives.

Do you think that children should have times of serious worship or just do songs that keep them engaged?

What is the best way to portray a missionaries lifestyle to children?