EDIT: Congratulations to Dori Jones from Heartland Church in Southhaven, MS! She was the winner of the random drawing for the free OC17 ticket! Thank you to everyone who participated!! We wish we could give everyone a ticket!!
In just six short weeks, #OC17 will be underway! Here in the First Look world, that is simply hard to imagine! It doesn’t seem like it has been an entire year since we were with so many of our First Look Friends at #OC16! Last year, our theme was “Monday is Coming”! And, it has! 46 times! Now, #OC17 is just around the corner, and we are so excited!
This year’s theme is “For Our Neighbors: See What Love Can Do.” Just last week, our preschoolers heard the Bible story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus taught that we should love everyone; our families, our friends and the people in our neighborhood—even those we don’t know! The First Look team is sure that preschoolers are the best at loving, so we can’t wait to see how your teams are encouraged and inspired to spread that love that flows so easily from little hearts to those neighbors around you. We want to hear how you love your neighbors at your church.
And, we want to show some LOVE to you, our First Look Partners.
We would LOVE to give away a free ticket to #OC17!
To enter, simply comment below with your answer to both of these questions.
- How do you and your preschoolers love your neighbors?
- How has First Look impacted your ministry this past year? We love to hear your stories.
Details: One entry per person (so everyone gets a fair chance). Enter by midnight ET, March 22, 2017. Winner will be drawn randomly from all entries answering both questions.
1. We love our neighbors by inviting our friends to church. Inwould love to learn some new ideas for how to better engage our preschoolers in being a good neighbor.
2. First Look has been HUGE this last year. We just started using First Look in September of this year, and the change has been remarkable. No longer are lessons going over the heads of our youngest children. They are learning, really learning, and loving every minute, as are our volunteers. Thank you SO very much!!!
Love to hear this! We are all praying for you and your preschoolers!
I have a young two year old at home, and one way that we love our neighbors is just to invest time in them. One of my sons favorite questions when we hear a knock at our door is “Friends?”
I love this response because it shows an expectation and anticipation that is easily lost with age.
First Look has greatly changed the way my family looks at faith and continuing the conversation at home. I have seen families discussing Jesus at an earlier age, and preschoolers thy are transitioning into older age groups are ready to participate in small group conversations about faith in a different way than before.
Grateful for First Look and your impact on the next generation through the local church!!
What an awesome neighbor-minded 2 year old you have! Keep up the great work!
1. One way we love our neighbors by making cards for the local nursing home around Christmas time, and cards for our church widows around Valentine’s Day.
2. This is our very first year using Orange/First Look! We just started in December. Our leaders are so excited about it after struggling with a few other curriculum options in the past. So much simpler, more engaging, and more age-appropriate for our preschoolers. I love seeing posts on Facebook from our families of our kids quoting verses and telling what they learned at church!
Your community must feel so loved by your little ones! I am so glad to hear that First Look has had such a positive impact on your families!
1. We love our neighbors by always looking for ways our preschoolers can share what they learned on Sunday with their friends throughout the week.
2. This was our first full year with First Look! We have seen so much growth at our church through this curriculum. One thing that really stands out are the resources we can so easily provide parents!
So glad to see you are connecting with your parents! Keep up the great work!
1. We share love with our neighbors by having “popsicle play dates” where we show up at a local park with a cooler full of popsicles…one for each of our preschoolers and one for a new friend they meet while playing on the playground. It motivates our little ones to make new friends and encourages moms to look outside their circle to begin a conversation with someone they don’t know as well.
2. First Look is amazing! It’s like opening a present on Christmas Day every time a new month is posted! It’s stocked full of amazing, age appropriate activities so that lessons are a cinch to put together while also providing so many ways to equip leaders and connect with parents. I couldn’t ask for anything more in a curriculum! Ultimately, it makes the administrative side of my job so easy and allows for more time for the important things…relationships!
Wow! I love love your “popsicle play date” idea! Pure Genius!
1 – Our church has monthly mission days where our children’s ministry, and our families, goes to a local shelter to love on and play with the children while their parents takes self-imorovement classes. This is a family friendly event and reached our children to love others while teaching the other families about the love of Jesus.
2 – First Look has made an amazing impact on our volunteers and our children. It’s easy to use, very engaging for the children, and easy for them to follow. We often hear stories of the preschoolers recalling the songs, stories, or activities. A couple weeks ago, a young girl saw an elderly lady with a walker and gave her a bandaid from her pocket she made in class.
Oh my goodness! I LOVE how your little ones are learning and caring for others!
Since we recently moved cross country and I am just transitioning into my new role as Children’s Director at our new church I am going to speak mostly of my previous church. I hope to implement Orange strategy in my new role, focus on partnering with parents, and implementing First Look in our Sunday programming.
1) Some ways we show love to our neighbors is my outreach events such as VBS, Parents Night Out, and Christmas Family Festival. These are great opportunities for our neighbors to attend in a low key, fun environment. Bigger picture, the preschoolers reach out to their neighbors across the world at Cherish Uganda by bringing their offering to help support the mission and special fundraising projects like buying them a motorcycle, buying them a chicken coop, buying them a playground. During these special projects we get the kids fired up about helping their neighbors across the world and they love having something tangible they are raising money for. The first year I was shocked by how much our preschoolers alone raised!
2) First Look impacted our ministry in so many ways! The easy, fun, and repetitive themes really drive the bible lessons and bottom line home for the preschool kids. A huge impact that seems simple but really is transformative is the memory verses for the 3 and 4 year olds. Since they are fun and easy and have motions that go with them we get essentially all 4 and 5 year olds saying them and most 3 year olds by the end of the month. It is so great to see these little kids hiding God’s word in their hearts. Hearing the spiritual truths repeated at home by my preschooler has been priceless as well!
Keep up the good work! Love what you do!
So excited for you to implement Orange at another church! Praying for you and your new endeavors!
1. We love our neighbors by finding ways to serve others. Just like Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, we learned that we can love others by serving. Even helping mom with household chores or helping our friends clean up after a play date is a great way to worship the Lord and love others through serving!
2. FirstLook has impacted our ministry by focusing on small groups and personal connections with leaders. We get to hear from each child when we circle up and ask them the weekly questions. Every child knows they are heard and prayed for. Even our 3 year olds know that someone has prayed for them by name. It is so important to build trust and connection with someone so that they can learn that they can have their own trusting and connected relationship with God.
It is so very important that our preschoolers know that God knows their name! Great work!
1. We love our neighbors by teaching our little ones practical ways they can show Jesus’ love, whether it’s helping someone tie his shoe, sharing the extra or the little we have, our kids are learning and sharing with their parents too.
2. Orange curriculum has facilitated an increase in the quality in our preschool services. Our 4 and 5 year olds are learning and retaining what we teach in class. And our small group leaders have really embraced the curriculum and implemented it in ways I never thought of before.
1.) We love our neighbors in practical ways. Preschoolers can learn to love their neighbors in each and every aspect of a Sunday morning lesson- even during play time! Our church takes 3 Sunday’s off a year to go out into the community as an entire church, kids, teens, and parents, and shows love to our neighbors and community in practical ways such as picking up trash, passing out free water bottles, helping widows in their homes, and more. We as parents and teachers are setting the example, but we also know the little ones are teaching US!
2.) I was the k-5th children’s ministry director and recently became the director of 0-5th. I was amazing to see just HOW much more the preschoolers and toddlers were capable of doing and learning. First Look has given our teachers tools to better understand this as well and we’ve seen so much growth in our ministry!
It is so awesome to hear that your preschoolers are learning and growing! Keep up the amazing work!
1. We try to encourage them to practice at home what we learn at church each week. For example last week the story was about the boy who shared his lunch. We encouraged them to love one another by sharing something with a friend.
2. The postcard art that is provided in the curriculum makes it easy for me to contact my little people. It is also another way for the parents to see our verse and bottom line each month. AND the kids love it!
I love that you connect with your kiddos through postcards! What kid doesn’t love to get mail!?!?
We love our neighbors by partnering with 2 local agencies (Milestones House is a rehab house for mom’s who are far enough in their recovery to have their kids back in their custody. Our church bus picks up these women and children every Sunday. We love them, love their kiddos and provide much needed morning coffee :). The 2nd is Old Mill Center which provided counseling and wrap around services for families in need due to behavior issues, family trauma, etc. Our annual Trunk or Treat event requires a donation of diapers/wipes for the Old Mill Respite Center so they can provide them to families in need for free. The last 2 years our tiny church has been able to provide enough diapers/wipes for their needs for an entire year!
First Look has impacted our ministry in the following ways this year:
#1 We are a church of about 150-200 on a good day. On January 1, 2017 we dedicated 18 babies, toddlers, elementary students to the Lord…enough said.
First Look provides us a scholarship to be able to use a meaningful, user friendly tool to equip our SGLs to win! We have 1 Sunday service and in the last 3 months we have had 2 couple groups and 2 single females come to me begging for more connection with families/kids. They understand “owners not renters” and “partnering with parents”. They are now serving 2 Sundays a month instead of 1, even though there is no service for them to attend during their serve weeks. I do not have the knowledge or leadership skills to make this happen. I give all credit to God and the amazing ideas of First Look (252) staff, volunteers, and other churches around the world.
WOW! I am so impressed by the growth of kids and students at your church!
I am so impressed by the growth of kids and students at your church! And I love that your church embraces such wonderful values such as being an owner and partnering with parents!!
1. St. Andrew UMC loves our neighbors in many ways. We have an in house food pantry at our church and our preschoolers have a food drive each fall to help meet the needs of families in our neighborhood. In addition we have our annual Easter Egg Hunt and Fall Festival both hosted by the Children’a Ministry which is free to all of our neighbors and gives us a way to share the love of Christ through pony rides, face painting and, of course, jump houses. The. children invite their friends avd both events are huge community outreach. 2. First Look impacts our preschool Ministry every week with their videos, scripts, thoughtful activities, and more. Thanks to the First Look team our small group leaders and myself can bring Bible stories to life each week for our preschoolers. My favorite story was trying to teach the children the story of Peter in jail and how God helped him right where he was. One of our preschoolers raised his hand and as I called on him he replied “Oh I know the story of Peter…Peter Cottontail.” As a leader you never know what your children will say but in the end you pray they remember God made me, God loves me and Jesus wants to be my friend forever!