Santino 9 pounds 1 ounce 21 1/2 inches

Generation Conference is our annual youth conference, this year it will be July 25th through July 27th. Guest speakers will be Ed Young, Joyce Meyer, and Actor Stephen Baldwin. Check it out.

We’re going old school, baby!

Back
to what it’s all really about. We live in an age of information. We’re
bombarded with it. More information than any of us have the capacity to
filter and as a result we so often do nothing; MySpace, You Tube,
iPods, Podcasts, blogs, school, text messaging, advertising the list
goes on… Even within the church there’s more information than many of
us have the opportunity to process, much less apply.

The
many messages can be overwhelming…we see how far from perfect we are.
To onlookers it appears we Christians have a list of do’s and don’ts to
follow. It’s not how it should be.

What
if, for three day this summer, we went old school – RETRO – back to the
way Jesus lived it out, and apply the filter that He used to define His
followers – Simply: Love God, love people!

Are you in? Join us for three incredible days this summer and we’ll get back to all that Jesus had in mind for you…

Here are some links to check out:

Children’s Theming:

Worlds of Wow
Wacky World
Shane Grammer
Little Mountain Productions
Real Fake Buildings
Jonathan Martin Creative
Starry Hoast Design

Indoor Playgrounds:

Orca Coast Playground
Prime Play
Soft Play
Kids Are Kool

Cool Extras:

Yvett Helin Studio
Maydwell Mascots
KidzPace

Moving my Blog.

I have weighed the pros and cons and have decided to move my blog. I wanted to make a decision before it became a very combersome task. I have used both Typepad and WordPress. They both have their advantages and disadvantages . The one thing that was going to keep me from WordPress was the writing had to be done in html. Of which I know nothing. Lucky for me Zoho offers a wonderful online wordprocessor that publishes directly to your blog fully wrapped in html.

Advantages of WordPress – flexablity, freedom, better internal stats and it’s free99.

Disadvantages of WordPress – somewhat of a learning curve

Advantages of Typepad – Ease of use

Disadvantages of Typepad – Price, not as flexable

I will be moving my blog to samluce.wordpress.com

Customized spaces and themed environments for children has become quite popular lately. But is it worth the time, money and energy.

I say YES, YES, and YES.

"Barry notes the enjoyment of the experience that theming helps create
leads to steep increases in attendance. "We see 35-percent to
120-percent increases in attendance after themed environments are put
into place," he says."

Again it is not all about numbers but numbers represent people and life change. Which is why we do what we do. We want to engage children and families.

There are always detractors who will say that church should be a somber
affair and that theming is too garish in such a setting. Yet Greg L.
Barron, CEO and president of G.L. Barron Co. Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas,
says theming is nothing more than a design approach that involves the
human senses.

"Ministry is about people. People of this generation are affected by
their senses more than any other time. Utilizing sound, taste, smell
and sight increases a ministry’s opportunity to connect and affect
people for Christ," Barron says.

We want to follow the example of the greatest teacher of all times, Jesus. He engaged his audience through non conventional means. We MUST do the same. We as a church are in the beginning process of Theming our children’s wing not because we are tying to do the vogue thing in children’s ministry but because we care about reaching every child and every family live in our region.

The rest of the article on Themed Environments from Worship Facilities magazine

(More tomorrow)