FAMJAM Family Festival!

Join us tomorrow as we do something we have talked about for a long time, but never done before:

We’re partnering with East Lake Community Church to put on the FamJam Family Festival!

Starting at 3:30 there will be preshow exhibits, inflatables, games, concessions, and prizes. Then at 5:00 the BIG, Family Show begins!!! You won’t want to miss this fun and exciting event.

The Family Show will delight both adults and children with humor, drama, and songs. We’ll learn the new virtue for May and what it means in our lives.

FamJam Family Festival starts at 3:30 and is on our church property – 220 N. Royal Tower, Irmo.

THANK YOU!!!

THANK YOU to our wonderful volunteers who came our for the Friarsgate Egg Hunt on Saturday. You guys were awesome!!! Our team of workers were there to start setting up at 7:30 am. We had everything set up on time and all 10,000 Easter eggs spread on the baseball fields.

We had 225 registered children at the Egg Hunt and estimate somewhere between 500-600 people showed up for the day. The best part was that some of these families returned on Sunday for church! The time you spent DEMONSTRATING LOVE and INVESTING in others was well spent. THANK YOU!!!

Exciting things coming up!

A few exciting Children’s Ministry happenings:

(1) This past Sunday, the boys turned in 16 pounds of offering money, but the girls won with 19 pounds! We’re excited as we’re trying to reach our $75.00 goal to provide dinner for an evening for The 153 Project.

(2) The BIGGEST egg hunt Friarsgate has ever seen is only 5 days away! If you live in the Irmo area, you need to be inviting everyone on your street! We got approval from the school board today to send flyers home with kiddos at two of the local elementary schools in our immediate area.

(3) Pray for this Sunday as we talk to your children about the COURAGE Jesus had when He died on the cross. Because of what Jesus did, we can know that “we don’t have to be afraid of anything because Jesus can do anything.” We are praying for the Holy Spirit to speak to the children through the powerful message we are working on.

(4) Starting April 6th we will be offering the “Now That I Am A Christian” class during first hour to children in 3rd & 4th grade. This class walks children through what it means to be a Christian, how you become a Christian, and how you live your life as a Christian. The class will run for 6 weeks from 9-10 am on Sundays. Parents should receive more information within the upcoming week. If your child is younger than 3rd grade and may be interested, please contact me.

Less than 2 weeks away!

We’re less than 2 weeks away from the Friarsgate Egg Hunt! Join us on March 22 at 10am as we let the children lose to find 10,000 filled Easter eggs. Some eggs will even hold tokens for special prizes! We will have games, bounce house, food, and fun all for FREE!!! Invite your friends, neighbors, family, and classmates to this fun event for the family. We’re excited and hope you’ll be excited too!

Offering challenge!

Okay, calling all Clubhouse kids!

Next week we will have an offering challenge. Boys and girls will compete to see who brings in the heaviest offering. We will collect both boys offering and girls offering in separate containers then weight them to determine whose is the heaviest. The winning team will get a prize!

Our offering money this time is going to support the 153 Project, the homeless ministry in downtown Columbia. The kids are aiming to raise $75.00 to provide 120 pieces of fried chicken for the meal. This will feed the participants for one night.

The kids are excited about the opportunity to serve others and the practical application to their own lives. Who doesn’t love fried chicken?

“the 56″

If you are in 5th or 6th grade there is a new small group for you! Come Sundays at 9:00am to the youth room and join together with others in 5th and 6th grade. You’ll find a place just for you where you fit in and can ask some of life’s most difficult questions — “what if Jesus is a liar?”, “why can’t I go to PG-13 movies?”, etc.  This new group will let you dig into God’s Word as your tackle real life issues and thoughts, you’ll also get to know new friends and join in on youth trips like Jr. High Believe. Mrs. Gina and Mr. Blake are awesome at leading it and hope to see you Sunday!

Eating Jesus

In case your toddler tells you about eating Jesus today, let me clarify. The toddlers and preschoolers are learning this month that Jesus can do anything. Today’s story centered on Jesus walking on water. The toddlers had blue pudding for part of their lesson to signify the water, but “Jesus” was graham cracker sticks. I know my little boy ate a lot of Jesus this morning, he came home talking about it.

Hmmm… I know there’s a spiritual application there somewhere!

10,000 Easter Eggs!

10,000 Easter eggs should arrive to the church office this week. Where am I going to put them?

 Publicity will start this week as well for Friarsgate’s largest Egg Hunt! We’ll start volunteer sign-ups on Sunday. We’ll need people to run games, serve food, and help spread out eggs. We want our community to feel loved and to know we care about them and know how to have a good time.

Spring Thing update

Let’s see who reads this blog — I’m going to give out our Spring Thing spoiler here first. For Spring Thing this year we’re mixing it up. We will be hoting the “Friarsgate Egg Hunt” at Friarsgate Park. I ordered 10,000 filled Easter eggs this past week. We will have access to the pavilions, playground, and two baseball fields. The baseball fields will be used to divide younger children from older children for the egg hunt. There will be prizes for special eggs, games to enjoy, cotton candy, popcorn, and inflatables. It should be a great event that our church is able to provide for our community. Be looking out for more details we we are getting close!

Dutch Fork Preschool

If you want more information about our Mom’s Morning Out Program that is expanding into a 5 day Preschool next school year, you can go to Dutch Fork Preschool for details. We will be doing a 2 day a week summer program and then next year our 1-4 year olds can attend eith 2 day, 3 day, or 5 day. Check it out for our philosophy of education, fees, hours, and details.