Hero Central – 2017

At Hero Central Vacation Bible Camp (VBC) at FUMC the week is flying past. But we’ve been learning plenty and…

Discovering Our Strength in God!

Here’s a slide show of photos from our most recent activities! You can visit other posts on our Hero Central VBC, to see more pictures.

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Every morning, the first thing we do when we gather at Opening Assembly is to engage in some rowdy singing and dancing. Among the songs we’ve been singing are Leap of Faith and Everlasting God and Superheroes. Based on the level of participation I do believe that singing is the favorite activity of the day.

Each day during VBC we are learning a character quality that helps all of us be God’s heroes. Wednesday we learned that:

God’s Heroes Have Wisdom!

What was the Bible story that went with our day about wisdom? It was about an experience Jesus had as a young boy. Read about it in Luke 2:41-52. This was a time in Jesus’ life when he grew strong and wise. (Kind of like our kids are doing!) He was also growing in other ways: he was exploring his calling; he was delving into his spiritual self.

Do we allow our kids the chance to grow spiritually?.

Thursday’s hero character attribute was:

God’s Heroes Have Hope!

Our story from the Bible that illustrates this Hero Code is from The Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5. The Beatitudes tell us about God’s priorities: being humble and compassionate; working with our community to provide hope for others.

This year we have such a large Grad Group, that they have been able to divide (and conquer) lots of different service projects.

• Cleaning up the grounds around our Green Wood campus, and tending the veggie garden that is there. (Everything that comes out of this garden gets donated to the Food Gatherers Faith and Food program.)
• Help distribute food from the pantry at Bryant Community Center.
• Working with young kids during academic rotations at one of Community Action Network (CAN)’s summer camps.
• Making and delivering lots of healthy snacks for the CAN summer camps. These camps are designed to prevent summer loss of learning. Having great snacks to eat helps learning!
• Collecting, counting, and delivering our VBC service project items. Everyday at the closing time they report on our progress towards our goal.

Continue the learning at home!

Here are a couple of questions to talk about around the family dinner table. (Or wherever your family is gathered together – perhaps in the car?)

• When we say God values wisdom, what is “wisdom”? What are some ways that we can grow in wisdom? (Jesus calls all of us to be his “disciples” – and what is a disciple but a student!)
• When was the last time you hoped for something? Did you have to wait for what you were hoping for? What are ways we can bring hope to others? How can bringing hope to someone else, end up blessing us?
• How can being kind (merciful) or working as a peace-maker bring hope? Which of the other Beatitudes can empower us to offer hope?

~~ Carol, on behalf of the VBC Team

Photo credits:
Hero Central images used by permission of Cokesbury.
Rest of photos courtesy of various volunteers at VBC!

Welcome to Hero Central Vacation Bible Camp (VBC) at FUMC where we are…

Discovering Our Strength in God!

Yes, we are ALL heroes; we’re God’s heroes! That is why we are gathering at Hero Central.

Here’s a slide show of photos from our activities! Have your kids tell you more about what they did by sitting down together to watch. You can pause it or go backwards or forwards, if you want to.

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Come back to visit, as more photos will be added as we engage in more activity!
 

And here’s a quick video:

If reading this in an email, you may need to watch the video at this link.

On the first day (Monday) we met our leader for the week, Captain Shield, who has piano-playing super powers!

Most super heroes have a sidekick — Batman has Robin! Well, we have one too and her name is Flame.

Flame is a Red Panda, which means with her masked face, she comes already dressed as a super hero.

Awesome!
 

 
Captain Shield and Flame will navigate us through our week together, as we discover our strength in God!

 
We learned that every superhero has special words — a motto, or a call to action. Ours is a Bible verse:

Do good! Seek peace and go after it!   Psalm 34:14b

Great words to live by. Ask your child to show you the hand-motions that go with this Bible verse.

Each day during VBC we are learning a different way in which we are truly heroes for God. Monday we learned that:

God’s Heroes Have Heart!

But wait a minute, doesn’t everybody have a heart?

Yes, everyone does have a “heart” in the pumping-your-blood sort of way. But when we say: “God’s heroes have heart,” we are describing the good character qualities they possess; the hidden-inside-you traits. God wants us to look beyond exterior appearances and see the hero inside of other people! Our Bible story for today taught us this; it’s found in 1 Samuel 16:1-12. God choose the next king of Israel – what a surprise choice! A mere shepherd boy as king? God saw what a big heart young David had for God.

How can we combat our culture where the focus is on “appearances”?
Try teaching your child to look inside.
 

After our opening time of music, preschoolers go off to their stations…

And elementary kids go to their stations (and in-between, on the first few days, they posed for crew photos).

Our “older” elementary kids in our Grad Group are working every day this week on various service projects – both local and global. After some ice breaker games, today they learned more about these projects: a camp for kids in Liberia, and projects at Community Action Network (CAN), including making snack mix for CAN’s summer camp for kids.

They are going to be reporting on our collection progress. Let’s bring them something to count!

Continue the learning at home!

Your kids will enjoy telling you about their day if you ask open-ended questions. Here are a couple of questions to talk about around the family dinner table or in the family vehicle, or wherever:

• Regarding our story on God choosing David as king… Have you ever been fooled by looking only at the outside of something and found out it wasn’t quite what you expected? Tell about it. (Ever opened a rotten egg?)
• Why do you suppose God choose David (the youngest son of Jesse) to be the next king? (Need the answer?)
• God doesn’t look at outside qualities — muscles or money — he looks at our inside, at our heart. Talk about the meaning of this type of “heart.” (The Bible uses “heart” meaning our inner thoughts and feelings; the part of us where we wrestle with life, where we check it out inside.)
• God values a kind and caring heart. (God’s Heroes Have Heart!) What kind, caring behavior have you noticed in others? What can we do to grow our hearts to be heroes for God — to be more kind and caring?
• God sees other valuable traits in each one of us. Name some heart qualities you see in other family members. Name at least one heart quality you see in yourself.

~~ Carol, on behalf of the VBC Team

Photo credits:
Hero Central images used by permission of Cokesbury.
Video created by Jeff Wason. Music by one of our grad group members!
Rest of photos courtesy of various volunteers at VBC!

Vacation Bible Camp (VBC) is coming soon!  has arrived!

See our activity from Monday or all of the days we’ve been through so far, of our hanging out at VBC.

Get ready for Hero Central at FUMC where we will…

Discover Our Strength in God!

Each day, during VBC (July 10-14) we will embark on adventures alongside some well-known Bible heroes and discover the qualities that make us truly heroic in God. We will learn about how we have Heart, Courage, Wisdom, Hope, and Power.

Along the way we will also meet some cool characters including Flame, who is a Red Panda.

Perhaps you’d like to prepare for VBC?

Start off by listening to our theme song, Leap of Faith.   (To watch this video you may need to go here.)

Ask your adults to download the app that goes along with Hero Central. On Monday at VBC we’ll receive a set of five Hero Cards. Scan the day’s Hero Card with the app, and receive a message from Flame! You’ll also be able to play the trivia game to review each day’s Bible story. Or, create your own superhero, for epic adventures around the world of the Hero Central App. Sounds like fun.

 
One other way to get ready is to learn about the service projects we’ve chosen this year for kids to support.

In either case, have your kids bring their donation(s) to the collection at the front of the Sanctuary.

Are you ready to discover your strength in God?

See you soon!
~~ Carol, on behalf of the VBC Team

Parents and caregivers and everyone who is interested (grandma want to see what the grands are doing?) can sign up to receive an email each day during VBC. Just enter an address over on the right, up-above, and click on the big, blue button. (Or scroll down if you are reading this on your phone.)

Photo credits:
Hero Central images used by permission of Cokesbury.
Mailbox by Danil Polshin, is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0).