COVID19 - Summer 2020
Children’s Ministries CHALLENGE
June 2020
Dear Parents:
As the Shelter In Place order and other Coronavirus restrictions are beginning to lift, there are new guidelines for churches within the state of California. These guidelines state that Children should remain in the care of those in their household unit and not interact with children of other parties at any time while visiting [church] facilities. So sadly, if/when WCPres opens our campus for Sunday morning (or any other) worship services, there will still be NO Children’s Ministries or Childcare offered on site throughout the Summer.
BUT... we do have a special COVID19 Children’s Ministries CHALLENGE to offer children and families while you are at home together this summer. We want to CHALLENGE you to make Sunday (or if you have to, another day of the week) a Family Funday. We are preparing Summer Sunday Family Funday Devotionals that will help you to Play & Pray together as a family. Each devotion is based on a classic Children’s Game that you can play at home and it will have a Bible Lesson and a Prayer Exercise that goes with each game. Some of the games are ones that don’t require supplies, like Mother May I? or Hide and Seek. Others are common board or card games that you likely already have at home, like UNO or Twister. If you don’t have some of the games, you could order them online or for many of them we will provide Do It Yourself instructions so you can create your own version of the game at home.
There will be 10 different Summer Sunday Family Funday Devotional PDFs posted here on the children’s COVID19 web page, that you can view online or print at home. You may choose anyone any week. You might choose to first play the games that you already have while you order and wait for other games to arrive or while you create your own DIY versions.
Additionally, on the first Sunday of each month at 7 p.m. we will host a Zoom Summer Sunday Family Funday so that you can Play virtually with other WCPres Families and Pray for them. Each Zoom Summer Sunday Family Funday will be something different. The first one will be a Knock, Knock Open Mic Night NEXT Sunday, June 7th. So, each family or child should be prepared to tell their favorite family friendly, Knock, Knock Joke.
The Summer Sunday Family Funday Devotionals will be posted online and ready for your use the following Sunday, June 14th through the end of Aug. And the last Zoom Summer Sunday Family Funday will be Sunday, Sept. 6th.
As part of the different Prayer experiences in each Summer Sunday Family Funday Devotional, family members will share Highs & Lows from their day or week. I encourage you to have a Sunday Family Funday Prayer Journal in which to take notes and write your family prayers. This can be a nice purchased journal, spiral notebook, binder or folder with loose leaf pages or just some blank paper stapled together. Whatever it is, keep it somewhere that you can find and use it each week.
In addition to Summer Sunday Family Funday Devotionals, we will also have two different weekly video stories that will be posted on the church web site each week for different age children.
For Younger Children (recommended for Kindergarten and younger), there will be a weekly God Loves Me Bible Story video and a corresponding coloring/story page that you can print at home for your child(ren) to color. If you have a second device, you might choose to have your younger child(ren) watch the weekly video and color the coloring page while you watch the weekly sermon.
For Elementary Children (recommended for children who have completed 1st grade and older), there will be a weekly Scripture Sleuth Story video. Each story is an exciting mystery ending with a Bible Verse that is the final clue to solving the puzzle, cracking the case or catching the villain. After viewing the video and hearing the story, the children will have to open their own Bibles, find the verse and decipher the clue to solve the case. Again, if you have a second device, you might choose to have your child(ren) watch the weekly Scripture Sleuth video while you watch the weekly sermon, or you might choose to wait so that you can view and work to solve the mystery together with your child(ren).
Each week, children may, with their parent’s permission/assistance, email their solution to guess@wcpres.org by NOON on Friday. All children who correctly solve the mystery will be included in a drawing that week for a $5 gift card for places like Chick Fill-A, Fro Yo, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. The solution, the first names of the children who correctly crack the case and the chosen Scripture Sleuth winner will all be posted Friday night. Gift cards will be mailed to the winning Scripture Sleuth the following week.
I continue to pray that you and your families stay safe and stay healthy and I hope that your summer will be filled with Sunday Family Fundays as you Play & Pray together while we are apart. I also hope your family will join me on the first Sundays of the June, July, August and September for Zoom Summer Sunday Family Fundays.
Summer Sunday Funday Blessings,
Luv Lou
Lou Pennebaker
Director of Children’s Ministry
Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church
Call/text: 702 303 2153
Email: lpennebaker@wcpres.org
