Second Church Steps

  Friends, it is a little TOO easy to relate to the familiar Noah’s Ark story of Genesis.   However, teaching it to a multi-aged class this Sunday taught me something new.   Noah put his reminder on the ground where he would be able to touch it and to remember that even a seemingly forever-flood comes to an end.    Faithfulness means remembering that God is with us.   God put a reminder in the sky where we can remember to look up, to look around, and to remember that God’s love cannot be overcome by any kind of flood, fears, or sorrow.   It had not occurred to me, until today, that we need to build a reminder for ourselves, too. Like Noah, we know that these days will seem far away by next year.   However, we need to remember that isolation, fear, and tiredness do not last forever; God has set a promise in the sky.    So, I encourage our families to build a touchstone in your house or garden to remind us that God’s hope floats.   You might read the God’s Hope Floats story of Noah f

Butterfly Days The Children's Circle Preschool year end rituals are among the things that I have missed the most in these difficult days of sheltering at home.   One of my favorites involves butterflies and waiting.   Classrooms of children watch for butterflies to open –in their classroom!   It is a momentous occasion.   We pray with the teachers that the butterflies will emerge.   We watch and wait with the impatient children.   The children learn words of waiting, hope, and anticipation to go with those feelings. The butterfly is also a metaphor for the impending end of the school year, when the children will go forth to new places, new people, and new experiences…taking their early learning and stories of becoming with them. Then, it struck me that these are butterfly days , and how we talk about them with and NEAR our children matters. Words matter, and stories are memory forming. Parents, we are all aware, acutely aware, of the difficulties of these days. N

I sat in the sanctuary Sunday, and it felt VAST.   Some might think of it as “empty…” but there was a huge sense of space and a connection to beyond the walls.   I realized that Our Church circle is SO WIDE! We were gathered, in our own homes, but each of us was there standing, kneeling, sitting,and  praying together before our God.   Your home is a “room” in the House of God if we gather in the name of Jesus Christ.   Kid’s club has been talking a lot about how we do not do “random” acts of kindness.   We do them on purpose!   We do INTENTIONAL acts of kindness in the name of Jesus Christ.   We do them because Jesus asked us to do them! God helps us to do them! It is part of who we are and WHOSE we are as God’s beloved children. One activity from Kids Club is the “I CAN” cube .   It helps to remind us that, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).  You can do this at home.   Take an empty square box, or make one, or take an old

Do you remember that everything looks bigger as a child?   My grandfather’s house was on the top of a large hill.  It had a garden when I was growing up; it seemed HUGE to me . He had pear and apple trees.  He grew corn, green beans, lima beans, tomatoes (of course), black eyed peas, and potatoes among other things.   Even though my grandfather was blind, he had been gardening for so long that he knew the plants by touch and how to sow by heart.  My grandfather grew food for his household, our family of 5, the neighbors, and plenty for the freezer .   Gardeners know it’s important to grow a “cover crop,” too.   These crops, like clover and soy beans, replenish the soil with vitamins so that vegetables will grow healthy and strong.   I do not remember my Grandfather growing a “cover crop,” but since he rotated his plants, he may have accomplished the same thing.   Nurturing and replenishing soil, planting seeds and on and on it goes.   Second Presbyterian Children’s Sunday Sc