Kid's Announcements 2022-09-01
This Sunday is Serve Your Neighbor! This week or weekend, try to set aside some time to serve your community as a family. Invite your kids into the decision by asking them if they have any ideas, or if they prefer one of your suggestions over the other.
If your extended family is coming to visit, include them too! What an opportunity to show others who may not know Jesus how God calls us to love and serve people as His children.
Remember that how you talk about the project with your kids and your heart posture is just as important as the project itself. Talk about serving in a positive way and tone, talk about how this can show God's love to those around us. Don't imply that you're doing the project out of obligation or guilt.
Here are some ideas of how to serve your community alongside your kids:
- Take some gloves and a garbage bag with you on a walk around your neighborhood, and pick up any trash you see.
- Bake cookies, brownies, or another sweet treat and deliver it to your neighbors together. Kids could write cards or make drawings to include with the sweets!
- Paint rocks together, adding encouraging words or Bible verses, and place them around the neighborhood.
- If your kids have neighborhood friends, invite them to come over for ice cream or another treat. Emphasize with your kids how giving our treats to others is a sacrifice (now we don't get to eat them), but one we make because we want to love and care for others.
- Invite your neighbors to your Labor Day barbeque, pool party, or other celebration.
- Offer free babysitting to another family who may need a date night (don't just volunteer your kids' time, but participate and make it a family activity).
- Cook dinner together, but make twice as much as you usually would. Give the extra food to a neighbor! You can invite kids to help you chop vegetables, stir ingredients together, pour things into bowls or containers, etc. They can also help write a card or make a drawing to go with dinner.
We are excited to celebrate the stories of what God does this weekend when we are together again on September 11th!