During November every preschooler at Trinity Church is going to hear “God loves me.”  Everyone needs to know that God loves them!!

Who can help you?  Children will learn GOD MADE PEOPLE TO HELP ME.  This month’s memory verse is: “Be kind and loving to each other.” Ephesians 4:32

We are doing a special food sorting activity at the end of November in our preschool environments, and we would love you to help!  Can you send in non-perishable food items (cans and boxes preferred) during the month of November for us to use on that last Sunday?  All the items we collect will be donated to the Trinity Outreach Center.  Not only will you be helping your child learn to sort, but you will be helping them learn to help others!

To catch this month’s vision video, watch the video below.

FL Preview : Happy Helpers (November 2011) from Orange on Vimeo.

Every Sunday afternoon, an email goes out with our weekly ParentCUE.  If you aren’t signed up, the time has come!  Register at parents.trinitykidsplace.com.  ParentCUE's include our monthly themes and memory verse from the preschool environment, the weekly Bible story, and a prompt for incorporating this into your everyday rhythms at home.  This card provides potential for fantastic conversations between you and your preschooler.  And, it allows us to partner together to impact your child.

Honoring Noel Short

Over the weekend we lost a faithful and loving volunteer, Noel Short.  For nearly a decade, Noel oversaw our Special Needs class on Sundays.  He was a caring and gentle man who loved his class.  He was dependable and dedicated, serving with a relentless passion for his kids and their families.

Noel was a friend to many and will be greatly missed.  There will be a memorial service held in his honor this Friday, October 21^st at 2:00pm in the Trinity Chapel.  We hope to see all of his church family and friends there.  

In lieu of flowers, support can be directed to Trinity Church Children’s Ministry.

During the month of October, we will be teaching our preschool kids that God loves us so much and that He takes care of us.

We want our preschoolers to learn that they can help people too! Starting on October 9^th and continuing through the entire month, we are going to be talking to our kids about a very specific way that they can help someone else. Your child will learn that there are children who need a nice, warm coat.

The need to be warm when it is cold outside is a physical need to which your preschooler can relate. As you are finding coats to send in with your preschooler, please talk with him about how he is helping to take care of someone who is cold and needs a nice, warm coat. Let him know that he is helping to take care of someone and giving them a very special gift!

Beginning on October 9^th, there will be several Coats for Kids drop off boxes located through out our preschool area. We will collect coats for 4 Sundays, ending on October 30^th. All donations will be given to the Trinity Outreach Center to benefit families in need within our community.

This is a great way for your preschoolers to grow up knowing that they can help someone who needs them!

Something out of Nothing = CREATIVITY

Growing up, I was drawn to anything that involved my imagination. My childhood consisted of making my brothers and sisters play pretend games like “post office”, “house”, and “doctor” (I even wrote out bills and charged for my services), but it wasn’t until we created our own world and TV show: “Time Cop, Time Travel” that our imaginations really got moving! We had a theme song with beginning credits and dramatic poses, “To Be Continued”’s with cliff hanger endings, action, “good guys”, and “bad guys” all acted out by us kids. We created time travel devices that connected to our bikes, special communicator/computer/media player in one handheld device (sound familiar? If only we knew…), and a machine that would shrink the “bad guys” into bottles for imprisonment. We created it all from cardboard, paper, and our imaginations! These were some of the best, most fun times I had as an elementary student, which got me thinking…

I Wonder…Did God have that much fun creating us? And where did my imagination come from? Are their different kinds of creativity? These questions have incredible answers!

That’s why I’m so excited about Kidsplace in October and our journey to explore where true creativity comes from. First, we’re going back to the beginning and it’s no surprise that we discover a very imaginative God. He literally spoke something into nothing! Our bottom line this week: “You were created so you can be creative.”

We will learn what our friend Paul says (in what will be our monthly memory verse): “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV). We are created by a creative God! Everyone has unique abilities and talents that make them different from everyone else! Can you imagine the thought and excitement that went into creating ALL of us?

In the following weeks, we’ll expand our definition of creativity to include the fact that God can empower us to solve problems and lead in “out-of-the-box” ways. We’ll learn about how we can creatively express ourselves through our words, music, art and more with the intention to point people to God. We’ll study the life of David, who is one of the most creative examples in God’s big story. As my friend said, “Did you know that in one Biblical translation David is described as living his life as a poem back to God? (2 Samuel 23:1-2) David was more than an artist- he used not only his natural creative gifts, but his learned skills and other life experiences to lead others and show God’s goodness.”

But there’s more! God’s main goal was to create us to reflect Him, to be the type of light that helps others see Him more clearly. (Matthew 5:14-16) Remember God promises that He has big plans for us in the world! (Jeremiah 29:11-12)

In fact, we will take it a step further, and learn that we can make more of an impact when we get creative and share our resources (Acts 2:1-47). We will learn: “Imagine what could happen if everyone used their gifts together.” Finally, the last week of October, we will focus on what worshipping God with your life really looks like.

God created a whole world from His imagination, just for us to interact with Him and live out His adventures! With His own theme songs, characters, action and drama; we were made to share in His love and His stories. We have a creative God! He made us a part of something that once was nothing, and He did it with a smile on His face the whole time.