Memories of Crossroads Church Children and Youth
Submitted By Fred R
There were many wonderful children at Crossroads Church. It was a privilege to be their teacher. Following are some memories:
Sarah organized a trip to play laser tag. Adam went and was glad to see me. I made a large, slow moving target and he got high scores that night.
Their daughter, Allison wore an Egyptian looking headdress and played Joseph in a storytelling and role play. When we got to the part where Joseph revealed who he was to his brothers, several people had tears in their eyes.
It was a joy to have Pastor Bobbyjon youngest son, in the third and fourth grade class. We were talking about being in the Kingdom of God. He popped up to say he is in the Kingdom of Bobbyjon
One young boy had a short attention span, so I let him play with a toy during class time. We were discussing, “How do you know God is real?” The children had no idea. I was co-teaching with Lori, so I asked, “How do you know Lori is real?” He stopped playing with his truck and said “I can see Lori. She’s right there.” We talked about what Lori does. A good answer for a fourth grade student. Another said someone had told her about Lori. Lori’s son, Sam knows a lot of history and got excited when we talked about Bible history.
Matayla and Mikendra were in the sixth-grade class. We were talking about the importance of resisting evil. When we see evil, we need to be proactive and resist it. For life action, we had a story about a girl who went to a friend’s birthday party. Her parents took her to the party and arranged for another parent to bring her home. When she got to the car, she saw her friend’s father was staggering drunk. What would you do? They got very excited, talked over each other and brainstormed what to do. The consensus was they would shout, “I need to go to the bathroom” and run back to the house. From there they would call their parents or 911. They continued talking about the predicament after Sunday School.
I accompanied a group of children to snow camp. Matayla was amazing in the way she would invite others and include them. I stood back to watch them play and she would call, “Come on Fred. You can go sledding with us.” So, I got to go sledding!
We had a story time about Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were captured and taken to Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar asked that they help administer the kingdom, so they were sent to school to learn the Babylonian language and administrative skills. We got to the part where the young men protested the food they were expected to eat, and they proposed an experiment. Jamie’s oldest daughter explained what an experiment is. I was impressed by her knowledge and insight.
I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with Justin and Addie. They are a wonderful couple who helped with the youth. Justin showed fantastic craftsmanship when he built a ‘theater’ area for the youth group.
I taught the youth group about the meaning of love by reading the verses from Corinthians 13 and sharing how the words might be realized. Things happened before and after the lesson that indicated the teens were not supposed to hear those verses. Young people hear many wrong messages through media, school, family and friends. These can be outlined as “I love you, but this is about me, my selfishness and my dysfunctions.” Please tell young people about the wonderful gift the Bible teaches us.