Kids with Talent

At Wednesday Club, First Presbyterian Church’s outreach program for children in kindergarten through 4^th grade, the focus is on Luke 6:13 to guide our behavior while we are together and throughout the week. In this passage Jesus tells his followers to “do to others as you would have them do to you” (NIV throughout) as part of a longer discourse on loving our enemies. You know this verse as the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule – treating others the way we want to be treated – is a great way to live. In fact, it is our main rule at Wednesday Club! Each child is asked to sign a covenant to respect themselves and others by following the Golden Rule at Wednesday Club. We start each gathering by reviewing this verse and talking about one way we can practice it throughout the upcoming week. Greeting people by name and remembering to thank others for helping us are two simple ways children can begin to make thinking about others and their feelings a habit.

Children signing the Wednesday Club Covenant to follow Luke 6:31

This fall our theme verse flowed from this. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12) Loving one another is the essence of treating others the way we’d like to be treated!

It was so nice to see the children use polite words and say thank you at snack time. They also worked hard to push in their chairs and help others who forgot. The older children also were good at helping the younger ones. They helped them feel welcome and with the some of the harder activities.

Our fall theme was the parables of Jesus. We were able to learn four of them: the parable of the sower, the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the good Samaritan, and the parable of the talents. By hearing these tricky stories we learned that we need to ask God to make our hearts good soil to hear his word and bear good fruit. God loves us so much that he will come to find us wherever we are. We can never be so bad that he stops loving us. Sometimes people who we may think of as enemies will actually treat us the way we want to be treated when people who we think of as friendly do not. The Good Samaritan reminds us that everyone is our neighbor.

These excited boys just received their Bibles!

One of the neatest things was learning that God created us each with special gifts or talents. He wants us to use these special gifts to tell others about him and to make the world a better place. Wednesday Club kids have a lot of God-given gifts, including being good at soccer and basketball, drawing, singing, and being good friends. They have also been blessed with being funny and caring! Some are good writers and good listeners. A few are fast or good at football and games. Others are kind and good at following the Golden Rule and spreading kindness. What an amazing God to give us such good gifts!

As noted in a previous blog post, we see Wednesday Club as an opportunity to plant the seeds of faith and water them as long as the children are with us. We trust that God will provide others to continue to tend that garden as they grow. We also pray that the children will share what they’ve learned with their friends and families and that lives will be transformed. Many of our Wednesday Club kids do not have a church home. Many of the children speak a language other than English at home, and for those families their church home may be in a different community. It is a blessing to be able to offer them some time with Jesus in the middle of the week.

These children received their Bibles at their program where they shared what they learned with their families.

You can help with this ministry by praying for the children and volunteers, providing snacks, riding the bus, or helping on Wednesday afternoons. Contact the church office for more information: (641)753-5929.

Wednesday Club fun: