Practice Your Gifts

+  Grow in your Gifts  After taking an inventory of all of your spiritual gifts, make a plan to grow in your gift.  For example, if you are good at teaching, maybe you will go into a classroom and observe a teacher and help out.  Maybe you are good at basketball and have the gift of leadership.  Find a team that you can help a coach teach younger students to play basketball.  Maybe you love to serve others and make them feel welcome.  Plan a babysitting night for several families or serve at a homeless shelter.

+  Practice the Gift of Intercession  Pray specifically for the gifts God has given each one of you. For example, “Thank you God for the wonderful ways You have made us. God please build-up the gift of ___ in my friend ___.  We confess that we don’t always use our gifts for You or others in our lives. Please help us to always use our gifts to help others. Let his/her gifts combine with the gifts of others to bring You glory and to show others what you are really like.  Amen.”

+  Practicing the Gift of Generosity  Clean out your toy boxes, book shelves, and closets.  Do the 27 Fling Boogie (idea from www.FlyLady.net) and take the items to a children’s home, Good Will, Salvation Army or local pre-school.

+  Practice the Gift of Teaching  Find a younger person to invest time teaching them either subject material or biblical lessons.  Maybe this is a brother or sister.  Maybe this is helping in a Sunday school class.  Maybe this is someone from school.

+  Practice the Gift of Hospitality Make others feel welcome in your home by taking their coat or taking them on a tour of your home.  Make others feel welcome in your neighborhood by taking them a meal when they move-in, are sick or just need to be reached out to.  Make others feel welcome in your church or school by showing new kids how things work, where to go or even introduce them to others.

+  Practice the Gift of Leadership  Lead others by giving them a good example to follow.  Find a talent that you have that you can help lead others in.  Maybe you are good at singing; start a singing group.  Maybe you like sports; help coach a team. Maybe you like organizing things; ask a parent an area of the house that you can help organize and then show the rest of the family how to keep it organized.  Maybe you like to plan events; help plan a party for your family, friends or even your neighborhood. Maybe you could even start a fundraiser to help someone who is sick. Make sure to plan how others can help you accomplish your goal (delegating).

+  Practice the Gift of Prophecy  If you like to speak boldly about what you believe, pray about who you can tell God’s message to.  This could be anything from salvation to character that should be in someone’s life.  Make sure to practice humility and sensitivity when you speak to others.  Make sure you have worked out what may be sin in your life before you talk to them.

+  Practice the Gift of Mercy or Service  Pray for who God would have you to show compassion or kindness to that are around you.  This could be someone in your family, school or neighborhood.  It could be someone you know or someone you need to get to know.  Maybe you could take a trip to a Nursing Home to encourage the elderly.  Maybe you could help at an animal shelter.  Maybe someone in your family or church is not well and you can go and help them for a couple of hours.

+  Practice the Gift of Encouragement  Think of someone who may need encouraged and make a card for them.  Tell them specifically what you admire about them or what gifts you see in them.  Encourage them in any areas they might be struggling in.  Make sure to find some scripture that may speak to their heart as well.

Exploring Your Gifts

+  Make a Uniqueness List. Make a list of talents and spiritual gifts that God has given each one of you. Using a highlighter, highlight the gifts that you feel are the strongest. Discuss ways that you can use those gifts to serve others and bring glory to God.

+  Spiritual Gift Boxes.  Discuss all of the different spiritual gifts: teaching, leadership, service, hospitality, intercession (prayer), mercy (compassion), encouragement, prophecy (speak boldly about what you believe), and generosity (giving). God wants you to discover and use the gifts He has given you. Decorate a box with different pictures or drawings of things God has gifted each one of you.  Discuss how you can use those gifts and talents for God’s glory.

+  Body Outline Using large paper, trace each one of you.  Decorate the head to look like yourself.  Decorate the body showing special qualities that you have been given by God. (ie: holding an instrument, kicking a soccer ball)

JELL-O Teaches Patience

Show the difference of waiting. Prepare the JELL-O mixture & pour it onto a cookie sheet. The sloshy, unset JELL-O cookie sheet represents an impatient person.  Try to cut it with a cookie cutter.  You can't do anything with it.  Impatience is ugly & easily broken.

Place the tray into the fridge or freezer to allow it to harden.

The well hardened JELL-O represents a patient person. Start making JELL-O jigglers. When we are patient, God can use us, mold us & form us more into His image. 

http://brands.kraftfoods.com/jello/recipe.aspx?s=recipe&m=recipe/knet_recipe_display&wf=9&recipe_id=53920

If you are dong an object lesson in front of a group:
Prepare 2 cookie sheets of JELL-O.  One cookie sheet will be sloshy & not set.  The other should be fully set. Use the same discussion as above.

Saving Jar Patience

Saving money is another lesson of patience & responsibility. 

Find an empty can or jar to save change in. Cut a piece of 2" construction paper. Pre-measure around your can.  Write a verse about patience on it & attach it around the can/jar.  If you have a smooth jar, you can also paint the words onto it with acrylic paint & then seal it.  I chose Ecclesiastes 7:8 because it is hard to begin savings, but in the end it is worth it.

Plan with your child what they want to save $$ for.  Make a plan with them on how long they plan to save & how much they will need weekly to add to their jar to succeed with their plan.  This is also a good time to talk about tithing to the Lord & the importance of giving a portion to the church.

I saw this jar on a website & thought this was a great idea for a family project too. 

http://www.takethemonorail.com/2009/08/vacation-saving-jars.html

Pottery Patience

Craft & sewing projects are a great way to teach patience.  I suggest painting a family project at a local pottery place like Pottery Schmottery.  One year all of my students painted pieces of the Nativity Scene. 

When you are doing a painting project, you have to be patient with planning your piece's colors, waiting for each color to dry, cleaning your brush, carefully painting each part & then allowing it to go through the kilning process.

There are some great object lessons associated with the kiln too!  Sometimes we encounter tough situations that test our patience, but they are like a kiln.  The more times we practice patience, the better we get at exhibiting it. The situations make us tougher & refine us into Christ's image! 

kids collage picture from The Pottery House in Matawan, NJ
kids pottery class picture from The Sawmill Pottery in Putnam, CT
plate picture/logo for Pottery Schmottery in Elkhart, IN

Planned Teaching Moments

Often times the Holy Spirit uses either situations or gives you little glimpses into the heart of a child to allow you to teach a child about God, His Word or how to act out His character!  But part of the training has to be planned. 

As a teacher, if I don't plan out exactly what I want to accomplish for a week or month, it'll never got done, or half of my objectives will get left out.  I encourage you to make a monthly theme & plan out week by week what you would like to accomplish.  I am going to start a monthly theme with ideas & resources, starting in September.  I am going to go along with the Chapel theme that I will be working on.  In September we will be doing Respect & in October we will do Patience. 

Some of you may be thinking that your son/daughter is not old enough to start something like this with them.  I urge you to think otherwise.  My daughter is 14 months old.  I will be planning several things with her...from children's literature to DVD's to music!  I will try to include some simple ideas for others of you that are in the same boat.

Here are some planning tips:
1. Make a visual for your virtue & its definition for the month.
2. Find a main bible verse to memorize for that virtue.
3. Make a visual for the bible verse.
4. Read the visuals whenever the subject comes up, even if they can't read it.
5. Find 1 or 2 bible stories that go with that virtue to tell your child.
6. Find 1 or 2 object lessons (lessons based on a simple object in your house).
7. Plan a weekly theme that goes with that virtue.
8. Plan 2-5 times a week that you will do a lesson on the virtue.
9. Plan a daily time that you will go over the virtue & memory verse.
10. Plan a daily time to be in prayer asking the Lord to help your family grow in that virtue.
11. Establish an area to have your lesson & visuals.  I suggest having a bulletin board, white board or wall space to display them on.
12. Create a binder or file foler to keep any ideas & lessons in for a quick resource.  There is nothing like needing an idea & having to go searching for it!
13. Take time on a site like Bible Gateway or Blue Letter Bible to search for verses or references to the monthly virtue.  Keep a list of things you are learning about the virtue.

If you have any other ideas that will help a parent or teacher, please leave a comment!  If you are using a resource from someone else's site or from a book, please list it as well.