1.Goliath toss- one of our church members built a five foot tall wooden Goliath whose head could fall back easily with the use of hinges when hit with a ball. If you do not have someone who can build such an elaborate Goliath, build the figure and just have children throw beanbags at it.

2.Creation Station- have sugar cookies, various colors of icing, sprinkles, and candies available for contestants to decorate and eat.

3.Adam and Eve Bobbing for Apples Booth-Fill a wading pond with apples or apple fourths and have contestants try to get as many out only using their mouths.

4.Desert Treasure Hunt-use a sandbox or other container filled with sand. Hide several favors such as miniature bibles and favors in the sand for contestants to dig out. 

5.Snake Straw Relay-Have two plates with shredded lettuce and plenty of gummy worms on each. Have pairs of children try to get as many snakes out of Eden by picking up the gummy worms by sucking through a straw. 

6.Noah’s ball toss- set up three big plastic containers in a row. If you would like create three big clouds made from wood or plywood and set up on a stand behind the containers. Have children try to toss a ball into the containers and give stuffed animals for treats. 

7. Puppet Show-Tell a bible story with puppets every half our.

8. Noah’s Arc Race-fill long plastic containers with water and place 1 plastic boat in each.Have either two children or two groups of children race to blow their arcs to the other end of the container.

9. Jonah’s  or Jesus story time-using large appliance boxes either create a whale or a tomb. Have Jonah or Jesus sit inside of the whale or tomb (with a lantern) and tell a story. 

10. Lost in the Desert Maze-use bales of hay, a rope course, sprinklers, wading pools with balls in them and anything else you can imagine for an obstacle course.

11. Pin Crown on Esther Booth- Create several crowns from paper and draw one big image of Esther and secure to a board. Blind fold contestants, spin them around, and give them a crown to pin on Esther.

12. Eden Pumpkin Toss- Assemble many pumpkins with stems in rows. Have contestants try to throw a ring over the stem of a pumpkin from a distance.

Other Fun Ideas:

Have your church choir or vocalists sing for entertainment. 

Have a craft corner.

Have a raffle.

Have an auction (cake auction, rent a worker for a day, etc.)

Have a pinata

Have a meal after the festival

The spirit of DI-VISION can destroy great visions. The spirit is all around. Watch out and beware!

The Real — would stay a short while, then leave, and David would again be pressed into service
as the Fill In –.

What David decided to do was that the next time there was a Real — brought in at incredible
expense, he would be out of town and stay there until the Real — left.

If I were David I would leave for good, because the insult of treating him as a clown was a bit
too much.  But David, more concerned about insuring the congregation continued, remained.

The last time there was a Real — he left abruptly in disgust.

The Real — left in disgust because he couldn’t deal with the group.  For this was a group of the
most vicious backbiters that could be gotten under one roof without bloodshed.

Firstly there was Norma and her clique.  She was not merely obnoxious, offensive and all around
disgusting, she made sure everyone around her was barrelled out of the way. 

Newbies would not merely be ignored but obviously ignored, and if they were in her ambit she would
bounce them out of the way and keep walking as if they didn’t exist.

Then there was Jennifer. She believed she was entitled to perform a particular function. If anyone
else was accidentally called upon to do it she became livid. 

Ray and Carl were the male versions of Jennifer, they both believed in their entitlement and would
complain bitterly if the other was selected. 

The only time there was peace was when Norma was absent and either Carl or Ray joined her.

Sandra was the ‘martyr’.  She always would appear to do the dog’s body work, complain and complain
and when others tried to help make them feel interlopers. Since Sandra had to do everything and
complain about it, only Newbies offered to help, and then for a short while.

David knew this and was able to balance the sense of entitlement with the martyrdom, so that things
actually functioned.

A Real — wouldn’t know this. He or She might call upon the most qualified person, or someone whom
it was felt should get a chance.

This led to loud grumblings, criticisms of the most vicious kind, telephone calls, involvement in gossip
so that the Real — would say; “Later for This.”

Further, the group had developed its own ‘liturgy’ which was not acceptable and attempts to change
it to the more universal or standard was met by resistence.

So the Real — would come with all kinds of expectations, slowly but surely wonder what exactly was
going on, and decide sanity was worth more than he or she was being paid.

And David would be brought back as a Fill-In.

If you think you are perfect and live a perfect life you live in a fantasy world. Not one person on this planet is perfect. Just because you make less mistakes than others doesn’t make you a better person or a better Christian, you may be wiser than others and therefore you should help others with your wisdom. But you are no better than anyone else on this planet.

Who is at fault for the degradation of the churches and Christians today? When did the faith start falling apart? Probably about the same time as respect, obedience, and the true love for family and life itself began falling apart in the early nineteen hundreds. About the time when self expression meant total disobedience and disrespect for the parents, family, values, and high morals. Women wanted the freedom to marry for love not security. Women wanted to enjoy sex without regard for the consequences of their acts. Many placed blame everywhere but where the blame really belonged, their own poor choices placed them in the position of having children they weren’t ready for. Their decisions to disregard their parent’s warnings and teachings about sexual promiscuity, sex before marriage and the importance of a good solid marriage.

Oh men were just as bad! They loved the wiles of women’s new found freedoms never once taking into consideration what kind of women these would turn out to be. All they could think about is the ability to have sex without having to pay someone anymore every time they had an itch to scratch. Men have changed too over the years, fat, lazy, non mannered, and either overly arrogant abusers or weak sniveling led by their unmentionables.

Why not? After all no one likes to see a parent sad, crying, complaining, hurting, in pain, etc. all through their childhood. They were the children that decided they weren’t going to end up like their parents no matter the cost. No one has yet to see the problems with what happened back then. If they did see the problems no one was willing to help make things right. Many of these young people went to drugs and sex for release or to forget the life they were leaving behind. No one could have envisioned the vast problems that would come out of all of that “expressing themselves” we have today. Those were children who grew up with parents who went through the great depression in the early nineteen hundreds and survived it. Many of them didn’t have an education because they had to work to help the family make ends meet. Many came from large families so only a select few in the family got the chance to go to school and college. Because of their own hardship they wanted the best for their “expressing themselves” children, which meant a good education and a chance to make something out of them that the parents felt themselves robbed of. And if anyone thinks there were no bitterness in the parents that went through the great depression you are very wrong.

Here we have parents that did whatever was necessary for the family as a whole unit, even if it meant they lost out on something themselves to selflessly give so others, usually younger could have the greater opportunity; who’s own children can only see others with better lives than they have deciding to not only disrespect, but to put an end to family units as we knew it then. If that wasn’t bad enough many of those “expressing themselves” children wouldn’t accept responsibility for their own poor choices in life, blaming others including unwanted, unborn children they conceived during one of their moments of poor choices.

Unfortunately many of these “expressing themselves” children took out their anger, frustrations, self disappointments, etc. on their own children for things that wasn’t their own fault. Mother’s blaming their sons for perceived sins of their fathers; father’s blaming their daughters for the mother’s desertions of the family to seek some other mans bed and leaving him to raise their child alone, and so forth.

If you think those children weren’t bitter from the mental, emotional and in many cases physical abuses they sustained at the hands of their own parent you are really living in your own fantasy world. And so began a new pattern for those that never realized that they had the power to end the cycle right there.

In the beginning the family units would attend church and church functions together, during the great depression the churches tried to help their congregations as much as possible but even they weren’t as prepared as they should have been, so many closed their doors permanently.

Over the many years since not only have those churches reopened their doors under new leadership but now we have so many offshoots of the parent churches because people became offended by the teachings or something within the church. Instead of working together to right the wrongs of the churches now we have partially filled churches teaching only bits and pieces of the Bible; and we have many versions of the same Bible!

Confusing? You better believe it! What’s even worse is the Headship of the parent churches isn’t even screening the applicants of many of the new churches so now we have churches full of abominations! Just last night I was informed that Gays and Lesbians can actually get married in any church and could actually get married in a local Catholic church (but cautioned me not to tell the Pope.) Where is the church leadership? This isn’t the first I’d heard this, and while not all of them will do it; but the fact is they will do it for what, money? So long as no one can prove it? God knows or are you out there preaching God’s word without believing what you are saying? I would call that hypocrisy wouldn’t you? How can we the believers be called upon to speak with conviction when even the leaders of the congregations won’t?

If there was any time for God’s true Christian people to speak up and speak out it’s now! We need to put an end to all of this madness before it truly is too late! I don’t care what denomination you are! “Let he who has ears let him hear.” God needs His arms, legs and voice to do His work and to ring through the world. It is time to stand together and be accountable. Come out of your comfort zones and strike down the demons of fear, greed and any number of other demons you have residing in your temple and let God’s light shine forth.

We as God’s people have had ample time to prove our positions through the various fields, such as pro life issues; prove a fetus can sense, feel and has enough cause to make a believable case irrefutable that a fetus is in fact a living being and from what stage as a fetus is this factual? Not to prove to me, I believe from time of conception but the non believers and those who would destroy life because they made mistakes need to see factual irrefutable proof. Remember non-believers believe in nothing that can’t be factually proven and will always wage war against us believers and push for everything against us and our beliefs to continue that war.

I think it’s funny that every time non-believers go out of their way to prove us wrong they only succeed in proving us right, even then with the proof they’d uncovered they refuse the facts making them look petty and combative. So why do people believe them? Simply because they scream louder in their indignation of the proof they can’t accept; Christian believers remain silent.

Now we are in another Recession where the churches need to provide for their congregation and community and again the churches are ill-prepared, so what’s going to happen when this Recession turns into another Depression similar to the one in the nineteen thirties or worse? You can’t say God didn’t warn us! How many Believers have: 1. their own gardens? 2. The knowledge and ability to can home grown products? 3. The materials and ability to create sheets, blankets and clothing? 4. The knowledge and materials to create crude shelters without the use of electricity, nails, etc. today? 5. The ability to create candles from raw wax to see by at night when there may be no electricity available? 6. Modified diesel generators to run various necessary machines like breathing machines for people having to use them or to operate a communications device to keep in contact with the outside world for information? I know the Mormon’s do but they aren’t known for helping anyone but their own believers. So where does that leave the rest of us? Just what have God’s people been doing with all this time for preparation?

If you think the times are hard now it’s not going to get any easier real soon here. We need to do the things God told us all to do and that is to be prepared, are we? Are any of us in a position to help others when push comes to shove? How many of us will be there to help others not just ourselves when that time does come? This is one of the biggest tests coming how many will pass it?

I can hear the questions and the scoffers as you all read this and question my term test. Yes it is a test! A test of preparedness, a test of faith, a test of walking the walk as well as talking the talk, a test of honesty and truth, a test of selfless giving, etc. In other words will doctors, nurses and pharmacies be willing to heal and help for little or no money to insure the health of others during this time? Will contractors and supply houses be willing to build temporary shelters for little or no money during this time? Will those with gardens share their food during this time? Will those with the knowledge to can foods be willing to work with the growers to can foods for others to use? If for some reason the schools should shut down will those with teaching credentials be willing to teach in a make shift facility to continue children’s educations for little to no money during this time? Morale will undoubtedly be low so all who can supply uplifting performances teach faith and so on must all do their parts as well. Many things may have to be done on a barter system or just in a giving spirit because it’s something needed. Survival as a community is the name of the test, how well do you think you will fair?

You don’t have to proclaim yourself or even be a Christian to do the right things, but it is something commonly known as Christian acts to do the right things. In this day and age it is pretty well inconceivable that there are those that do not know right from wrong, therefore those willing to do what is right stand a better chance of survival and is at least closer to the Christian belief than those willing to do wrong which can be evil. Christianity is hope where there is little or no hope. Christianity is where once we as individuals or as a group do all we can do standing in faith that the Higher Power, Creator, Jesus or God as many of us call Him, will pull us through the rest of the way.

God never intended His people to sit on their bums and complain about all that is wrong in their lives but to act, getting out there and helping your neighbors through their problems. The old saying of the Old Testament is true even to this day, “Give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar,” meaning give to the government that which belongs to the government because God will take care of and take back anything belonging to Him! Complainers will remain in the wilderness until their faith is complete or they turn from God, which will you be?

Again I ask, with so many Christian’s in the United States of America, where are God’s arms, hands, legs, feet and voice? Why are Christian’s standing silent instead of proclaiming (singing) God’s love and grace through the rafters of the highest roof tops to be heard by all people everywhere?