AWANA Kick Off!

Our AWANA Kick Off last night was awesome!

The Cove was packed with over 50 kindergarten through 3rd graders, who were loved and guided by 28 fearless AWANA leaders! In addition, we had 31 clubbers joining us for the very first time! It was so great to be able to share with them what AWANA is all about and what we get to do together every Wednesday night.

Ms. Betsy explained a lot about AWANA during Counsel Time (the time that we are all together as one group in between the other rotations). We started off learning the “Awana shout out”; this is what we do to cheer, congratulate or encourage our other clubbers. See if your clubber can do it for you! Then we went over the AWANA rules (Respect property/each other, Unity, Listen to others, Every question is okay, Speak with kindness). Next we learned what “AWANA” actually means?! It is an acronym and it stands for: “Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed” and it comes from 2 Timothy 2:15 in the New Testament. It refers to the apostle Paul, when he was writing to his friend Timothy to encourage him in his faith and in spreading the gospel. It reminds us that we are to be bold in our belief and in sharing Jesus with others.

Lastly, Ms. Betsy introduced the lesson series for this session…..CANDY! Boy were the clubbers excited to hear that! A different type of candy will be featured each week which will correspond with the Bible passage/story. To introduce the series, we watched a few videos: the first showed kids reactions when their parents told them they had eaten all their Halloween candy (when they really hadn’t). Some were disappointed, some were very upset and others were quite sweet about it (believe it or not!). Then we watched a video of a little boy that had cupcake frosting all over his face; his dad repeatedly asked him if he ate the cupcake and he said “no”?! It was pretty funny – but Ms. Betsy used these examples to talk about lying. We discussed reasons that we lie – to not get in trouble, to tease others, to hide something. But then we talked about the consequences of lying – losing people’s trust, hurting others’ feelings, creating a bad habit and, of course, disobeying God. The Bible is very clear about God’s desire for us to tell the truth. Ms. Betsy shared these verses: 1 Peter 3:10 “If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies.” and Zechariah 8:16 “This is what you must do; tell the truth to each other.”

The new clubbers quickly learned the schedule of our Wednesday nights: The Hikers (Kindergarten & 1st graders) do their table time at the beginning while the Climbers go outside to play games. Then we all come together for a group for Counsel Time where Ms. Betsy shares a lesson and we sing songs. After that, everyone rotates – the Hikers go outside to play games and the Climbers go to their tables. At the end, we all come back together as a group and announce the color team winner for the week; the winning team then gets to come up on stage and do the Victory Dance!! We did not calculate points this week; instead we had all our 3rd graders come on stage to do the Victory Dance! :) We learned both the AWANA song and the Victory Dance song this week – a lot for our new clubbers, but we will do those EVERY week so they will know them very well!

Parents should have gone home with several handouts:

TWO calendars: one for for the AWANA fall session and one for the Canyon Springs Children’s Ministry events.
Program Information (for new families) – a rundown of our AWANA program, everything you ever wanted to know!

Next week is CRAZY SOCK NIGHT! Also, the following week (9/27) is BARF Night (Bring a Real Friend); we encouraged your clubbers to start inviting now because people are busy and have to plan ahead!

We cannot wait to spend another Wednesday evening with your amazing kids! See you next week!

Blessings,

The Awana Team