We will celebrate Super Bowl Sunday on February 5 by a canned food drive for our annual “Souper” Bowl Sunday! We will join more than a quarter of a million young people around the country who use Super Bowl Sunday as a way to raise awareness of local hunger relief charities. The food we collect will go to Tree of Life Food Pantry right here in Purcellville. Urgent food needs include: canned vegetables, canned fruits, canned meats, canned beans, canned soups and chili, 100% juices, peanut butter & jelly, honey, rice & pasta, spaghetti and tomato sauce, macaroni & cheese, baking items such as flour, sugar, vegetable oil, pancake mix and syrup, cake mixes and frosting, condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise), breakfast cereal, ground coffee and tea.

Thank You Night is a chance for clubbers to express gratitude for those who influence and serve for Christ. We want to instill an attitude for gratitude.

On Heart Night we will examine the condition of our hearts. There will be a special council time message and some awesome treats!

Leap Day is only celebrated every four years. We will leap between activities all night long! Join us for some high flying adventure!

Just an administration note: When we have to cancel Awana due to weather, we will make every effort to call all our clubbers to inform them. The church website will have up-to-the-minute information as well. And don’t forget to follow the church on Twitter for all the latest information.

February 5 – Souper Bowl Sunday!

February 12 – Thank You Night

February 19 – Heart Night

February 26 – Leap Night

By Geni Hall

Today your Savior is born in the city of David. He is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:11

Christmas Eve, 6 pm

Come remember the reason for the season this Christmas Eve at “Let There Be Light,” a special service at Blue Ridge Bible Church on December 24 from 6 to 6:45 p.m. Enjoy singing many familiar carols along with the Blue Ridge Children’s Choir as we light the candles of advent and retell the Christmas story.

Christmas Day, 11 am

Childcare through age five will be provided during this service. There will be no 8:30 am service and no Sunday school at 9:45 am.

Homepage photo by Jeff Weese.

816 children logging 2,172 clubber-years and 143,000+ Bible verse recitations
315 families
600+ parents
1,300+ visitors
288 directors and leaders logging 700 leader-years including:
53 Leaders-In-Training (older teens groomed to become leaders)
86 Patrick Henry College students
63 young adults
Hundreds of Romanian children and adults through our sister Awana Club run by missionaries, Adrian & Lavinia Dreana
1,500+ third-world children through our annual participation in Operation Christmas Child

Thousands of children and adults have been impacted by God’s work in and through Awana at Blue Ridge since it began 15 years ago. It plays a vitally effective part in our church’s outreach, discipleship, family ministry, volunteer training and leadership development efforts, aligning directly with Blue Ridge’s Mission, Values, and Vision.

What is Awana?

Spawned in Chicago 60 years ago, Awana is a fully integrated evangelism and discipleship program that appeals to both churched and non-churched kids, leading them to trust Christ for salvation and grow them in enduring faith and service to God.* Fun games, engaging materials and methods, and involved parents and leaders all come together for an exciting experience that helps shape kids for God’s eternal purposes.

Awana blends biblical instruction, evangelism, scripture memorization and tons of fun for kids ages 2 to 18 along with their families and entire communities while helping instruct parents, train volunteers and making a life-defining, long-lasting spiritual impact.

Today more than 1.5 million children and youth, 250,000 volunteers and 170+ field staff take part in Awana in over 22,000 churches from 100 different denominations in the U.S. and internationally each week.*

Its Philosophy

God intends parents to be the primary spiritual nurturers of their children. He designed the home to be the center of discipleship where kids are molded into spiritually-mature Christ followers and where parents and children grow together in faith, building stronger families and churches along the way.* Awana helps parents fulfill this calling.

The ages of 4 to 14 are the golden hour of evangelism. Research, anecdotal evidence and even common sense all clearly identify the childhood years as the window of opportunity for the greatest life-saving impact for eternity. For a large majority of people, if they do not respond to the gospel as a child, they likely will not do so later in life. All the ages of youth form the silver day. The teenage years as well provide a prime opportunity to evangelize. - Rock-Solid Kids, Larry Fowler

When parents and churches work together to teach God’s Word across kids’ formative years, they produce young adults marked by steadfast biblical faith and character.*

Its Impact

Today’s church is in crisis. The trends are troubling:

• Over half of all church-going teens abandon their faith after high school.
• As few as one in 10 possesses a biblical view of God and the world.
• Bible knowledge among college students has plummeted to all-time lows.
• The majority of children from Christian homes leave the church by age 19.*

Unfortunately, these are more than mere statistics. They represent millions of young people around the country. The crisis they face—and that churches and parents must confront—is all too real.*

By contrast, most kids trained in Awana continue to faithfully follow Jesus as adults.* Independent research demonstrates that young adults with 6 or more years of previous Awana experience are dramatically different from their peers:

• Church attendance – 92.7 percent of Awana alumni continue to regularly attend church as adults, and only 1.8 percent said they had dropped out of church since high school. By comparison, 36 percent of Americans surveyed by Baylor who attended church at age 12 said they are now unchurched as adults.*
• Belief in God – 93.7 percent of Awana alumni said they wholeheartedly believe in God as opposed to 65.8 percent of Baylor respondents.*
• Jesus and salvation – 98.6 percent of Awana alumni believe Jesus is God’s Son compared to 70 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Protestants. 93 percent of Awana alumni believe Christ is the only way to salvation. 69.6 percent of Americans believe many roads lead to salvation or do not believe in salvation.*
• Belief about the Bible – 94 percent of Awana alumni believe the Bible is God’s Word compared to 58 percent of Americans and 73 percent of Protestants. Awana alumni are also 3.6 times more likely than other churchgoers and Americans to read in virtually every case the Bible several times a week.*
• Church service – At 74 percent, Awana alumni were five times more likely than Americans polled by Baylor to serve their church 11 hours or more each month.*
• Personal evangelism – 70 percent of Awana alumni said they share their faith with friends at least once a month compared to 35.7 percent of the national average, 48.7 percent of Protestants and 59 percent of the most devoted churchgoers.*

Awana alumni were found to be more devoted to God, His Word and their local church than even the nation’s most committed churchgoers.* Why? The evidence indicates that consistent, long-term participation in Awana—accompanied by spiritual training from parents—reaps long-lasting results.*

By Earl Hall

* Content reprinted from material available on the Awana website at www.awana.org

In addition, clubbers often struggle with inviting friends and neighbors to join us at Awana. Our focus is outreach. We do want to reach our neighbors for Christ. Our goal is to lovingly open our doors and share the Good News about Christ to the lost. Because of that, we plan to do a literature drop in Purcellville neighborhoods advertising our Awana program with doorknob hangers. For the Awana clubbers in uniform who join us to help, this will count as one visitor requirement in their book. The outreach event is planned for Labor Day, Monday, September 5th. Watch the bulletin for further details.

Leadership training will take place the end of August! Be praying how God can use you in this dynamic ministry. Positions fill up fast so contact us today!

Contact Earl and Geni Hall for further information (earlwmhall@aol.com, genihall@aol.com)

As the children help Mr. MacDonald with his harvest, he teaches them the parable of the seed and the sower. When they’re visited by some mischievous crows and rumor weeds, they begin to understand that the best way to produce the fruit God desires in their lives is to plant their roots firmly in God’s Word.

All children ages 7 to 13 (as of January 1, 2011) are welcome to join the choir for this production. The musical contains 10 songs which the entire choir will be performing together with no auditions necessary. There will be auditions for speaking roles and solos, tentatively scheduled for March 30 and April 3. Every child in choir is welcome to audition.

Keep reading for complete details and how to participate!

To join this production, simply fill out the form below which includes an order for CDs and choral books. Each family should order at least 1 CD and choral book (you may choose to order more if you desire for each child in your family to have their own book or CD). CDs cost $6 each and choral books cost $8 each. Please submit your order form by Tuesday, March 8. Payment will be collected at a later date at choir, when the order arrives. (We will also be purchasing t-shirts for this production which will be ordered at a later date and should cost no more than $10 per child.)

Our rehearsal schedule will involve our regular Wednesday night rehearsals from 7 to 8 pm. In addition, the whole choir will need to be at two extra rehearsals during the week of the musical (technical and dress rehearsals). Choir members who receive speaking roles will have additional acting rehearsals either before or after choir on Wednesday nights (for example, either from 6 to 7 pm or 8 to 9 pm).

Acorns to Oaks is an excellent opportunity for your children to learn more about growing in Christ, advance their musical and artistic skills, and hide God’s Word in their heart through memorable songs they will love to sing!

One of the ideas they shared was for parents to encourage their children to take notes during the sermon.  My first thought was how hard this would be for my kids  (who are ages seven, nine, and ten) because it’s hard enough for me! But I decided to give it a try. I gave them some basic instructions and encouragement and we tried it out.

The first Sunday of note taking was a little rough. I had to remind them a few times to keep it up during the sermon, and they had trouble knowing what to write. Like I said, note‐taking isn’t easy. But one thing I did notice was that for the most part, they were paying attention during the whole sermon.  It felt like a small but significant step forward.

The next thing I did that really helped was create a one-page, note-taking form for them to use. The form  includes boxes that hopefully get them thinking about what to look for in the sermon. The boxes give  them  special places to write down the main verse, other verses, big  idea or main point, what I should do, words I don’t know, and extra lines for additional notes.

As an Easter gift to our kids, Christy made them each a decorated three-ring binder in which they can keep their sermon notes. They loved the binders and are excited about writing down things on the form each week.

We’ve been using this form for a couple months now, and I’ve been really impressed with the results. It is incredible to me how quickly they’ve been able to learn this skill and how much they are able to write down. The other significant thing is they are doing their best to pay attention to the sermon now. Some weeks are better than others, and sometimes they give up or get frustrated, but we’ve found that they are really growing in it and making progress. They are learning important life skills in listening and note taking, and I want to deliberately help them grow in these areas.

Another great benefit we’ve found from the note taking is it gives us an opportunity to talk about the sermon as a family. At dinner on Mondays, we all get out our notes and walk through the sermon. Christy and I help the kids fill in parts that they missed, and we explain the parts that were hard for them to understand. This also reinforces the big ideas for Christy and me too!

In the May newsletter, Jack talked about worship “preflight” and how important it is to get ready in advance to worship. That pre-worship preparation is important for success in teaching your children to take notes.

Ultimately, our family goal is to teach our children about the incredible value of worship and learning in a community of believers. As a parent, I also need to teach my kids through my actions about the exciting opportunity we  have  on  Sunday mornings  to  corporately worship our God and Savior. My kids need to see me truly excited about worshiping God in order to fully incorporate this lesson into their lives.

Download the pdf here:

As you consider joining children’s choir this year, there are some changes that will be important to note. First, the age eligibility has changed slightly from previous years. Children should be between the ages of 7 and 13 on January 1, 2009. Children who are currently 6 years old but will be turning 7 by January 1, 2009 are eligible. Please note, however, that the music the choir performs is geared toward children ages 8 and up. Many 7-year-olds do a great job; some find the rehearsals and music a little daunting. Parents are always welcome to sit in on rehearsals with their children and see whether or not the choir will work for their family.

Second, there will be a small charge for the music this year. For the fall quarter, each family will be required to buy a $5 CD that you will get to keep. You may also be asked to buy a red long-sleeved t-shirt for performances, which cost $10 / shirt. If you have your shirt from last year, you will not have to buy another shirt.

Finally, rehearsals will be structured differently than last year. The entire choir will remain together during the 7:00 hour–there will be no division into Junior and Senior Choirs during that hour. The Seniors will have a separate rehearsal from 8:00 – 8:30 p.m., but there will be no special division of the Junior Choir this year. Instead, the entire choir will work together during regular rehearsal on several musicals and special concerts that we will perform together throughout the year.

For Emancipation Day, we are planning to perform a collection of spirituals. In October, we will perform a mini-musical titled “Heaven’s Kitchen”–a take-off on the many popular cooking shows of today. We are also excited to be a part of the Christmas Play. In the winter, we will be putting on another mini-musical and then a full-length musical show at the end of the school year. As usual, there will be plenty of solos and speaking roles available in all of these performances!

The Senior Choir will continue to rehearse and perform specials in the worship service in addition to being a part of all of the general performances noted above. However, since we are not splitting up the choir during the main 7:00 p.m. rehearsal time, the Seniors will now be rehearsing on Wednesdays from 8:00 – 8:30 p.m.–immediately following regular rehearsal. This additional rehearsal will allow the Seniors to work on more challenging music with additional parts. The Seniors will first be working on a special for the Emancipation Day event that they will perform in addition to the songs sung by the entire choir.

This new schedule will provide a good mix of both fun and challenging music for the entire age-range in the choir. Younger children will enjoy staying together with the older children during the main rehearsal as we all work together on more special performances than ever. Older children will get to stretch their wings with the additional challenge of Senior Choir, and children of all ages will love the musical dramas we have planned for this year! Your children won’t want to miss our kick-off on August 27!