by Catherine Slocum
What does Jonah's Call look like when you are in between three feet to four and half feet tall? The first thing you do when you come to Jonah’s Call is decorate your name tag with colorful markers. Then, you may be in a family that is helping get ready for church which means you might help "pull chicken", fill water pitchers, push huge carts full of food into the church, hand out bulletins or run freely until your parents tell you to sit down for worship. Then you get to sing praises to God, walk to the front of the church and hear a message just for you that usually includes something to see, smell, taste or touch and then you run to Jonah's Call Kids' Club where you sit down on the whale beach towel and are reminded of who you are: God loves you, He made you, we have an amazing history and you are part of the story. All hands go up for being an actor or actress in the Bible story of the night. We “laugh,” we “cry,” we “stand tall,” we “die”....all in full costume. We are then divided into two groups by age (3 to 7 and 8 to 11) and have a craft or crossword to help us understand our lesson further. We then play games that have included— water guns, ping pong balls, sand pails and silly string. We end with a yummy snack and go back into church for communion with our families. One of us will help close the service by holding the cross for everyone to put their "stuff" on for Jesus to take care of. We are then met at eye-level by a feast of food at the back of the church where we pile our plates high! After eating it is usually tag, hide and seek or turtle games until our parents say it is time to say good-bye to our friends... until next week. I just love church.
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