there's no place like gnome.

I have a new friend. We’ll call him C. and he is three – maybe four – years old.

When I invited the children forward on Christmas Eve, C. was the buddy who sat next to me at the second service. As part of the sermon, we hid under a sheet and read a story with a flashlight. (Thank you to Karen G.’s ideation for that one.) As I was reading under the sheet, I would glance over at C., he would look up at me with a huge grin on his face, and just nod his head over and over. He was totally eating it up.

At the end of the children’s sermon, I handed out glow sticks to the kids, we said a glow stick prayer, and I sent them back to their parents. After the service, as we were greeting people on their way out, C. ran up to me, said merry Christmas, and thanked me for the glow stick. Then we gave each other a fist bump. The beginning of our friendship.

Today, after church, I stopped to talk to C. in fellowship hall. He yabbered and gabbered on and on about his new helicopter and how he slept with the glow stick and how now the glow stick has ran out of energy. “And what’s that?” pointing to a picture on the wall. “And what are you doing? Are you going to have a treat? You can have a treat like my treat. I’m jumping.”

As his parents insisted it was time for him to leave, C. followed me about fellowship hall for a few minutes, jumping and running and trying to convince me that the cinnamon rolls were really good. I’m glad to have a new friend.

Each of us have a unique design, created to be especially us by God. The third graders I teach on Wednesday afternoon for release time are no exception. (Here in Dawson, first through fourth graders get out of school for an hour to walk across the street to the church for religious education. Small town.) I have a class of 14 third graders, a rambunctious crew who don’t like to sit still or really listen at all but I love my time with them nonetheless.

As we talk about how each of us is special and loved by God, we decided that we would make paper replicas of ourselves which express who God has created us to be, with our talents, personality traits, and skills. Here are the beginnings of the project; some are quite hilarious and resemble alien-like creatures instead of third graders …

Each intern is required to have a project – some kind of ministry or such that he/she dreams, develops, and carries out.  My project for the year is to create opportunities for families to gather together in church, to talk about faith, and to equip them to carry on the conversations at home. (Impossible for only one person to do – especially a 26 year old with no children herself – but I hope to plant seeds; even the smallest conversation and take-home tidbit can grow in the years to come.)  The season of Advent created opportunity number one for families to gather and together prepare for the birth of Jesus on Christmas day.  

Today after our second service – the second service at which Pastor Kendall announced my upcoming birthday to the entire congregation at the beginning of his sermon and asked me, “So what are you?  19?” – a lunch was served.  The lunch was then followed by a number of activities in which families and all members of Grace were invited to participate.  There were sugar cookies to decorate, a scavenger hunt (which caused a herd of elephants, err, children to tear across the sanctuary), a story teller with costumes, and crafts galore to keep families busy and entertained together.