fx...week four...jesus commands us to build his kingdom

this past sunday was our last week of FX (sadly), at least for this series. we talked about how jesus commands us to build his kingdom in the great commission. here are some photo highlights. and yes hans and franz made an appearance!

fx...week three...jesus is the king we need!

this past week in fx we talked about how jesus is the king we need! we learned that no matter how great a king was (like david) he was still going to fail. so no man could help us with our biggest problem, sin. that is until jesus came along. mrs. judy did a great job teaching us the gospel in a timeline! here are some pictures! thanks for praying.

fx...week two...

sorry i have not updated about fx. things have continued to go great! thank you for all of your prayers and support. last week we talked about king david. we talked about how even though he was a man after god's own heart, he still was not the perfect king. our bottom line was: we will always fail, but god is always faithful. my highlight from this week was watching all of the parents come down front and get in the aisles and dance with their kids to spin! i think that was just a glimpse of what heaven will be like. here are some pictures to help you see what has been going on.

its a full house!




god's love it big!


john teaching the word.


sam, gordo and vinny.


cammie gettin' after marshall.

sam shovel is interviewing king david.

the kids LOVE sam shovel.


i love our band!


parents and kids all dancing to spin!!

fx...week one...how great is our god!!!

so today was our first sunday of fx and it went well... INCREDIBLE! i mean production and program ran smoothly, but something way bigger was happening in that room. you could feel it! i had goosebumps and tears in my eyes many times as i watched kids dance with joy in the aisles and parents jump and do motions to songs with their kids. kids and parents raised their voices to the king together today and his name was lifted high!!

our bottom line today was, "when we think we know better than God, we reject him as king." we talked about how Israel so desired a king because they did not think God was enough and then we talked about how when saul did not wait for samuel (and the lord and his timing) he thought he knew better than god. next week, we will talk about king david, and then on to jesus as king. our hope is to build to the climax about what it looks like to live as a part fo god's kingdom.

thank you for your prayers! please keep praying for families, in our church or yours. one of the coolest moments for me today was when we were singing God of this City together. how cool for parents and leaders to be singing that with and over the kids. as we were singing “greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city,” it hit me. these kids, this next generation will be the ones that these greater things will be done through. these kids are part of the future of a redeemed and renewed austin, and we are getting to sing about it now!!! can’t wait to see what these guys are like in 10 years!

please pray for parents this week, even right now that they will continue to talk about what they learned today. that they will apply it to their family's lives. pray that the Lord surrounds them with his word and truth so much that they cannot help but talk about it! pray against feelings of inadequacy or defeat! the enemy would want nothing more than for parents to feel that they are no good at discipling their kids so that will quit. or to feel so uncomfortable that they give up. pray that God will ignite something in these families these next few weeks!!

and if you are in austin, come join us for fx!! you don't want to miss what God is doing!

the family experience...a catalyst

for those of you not in austin, you may not have heard, but for the next four sundays at church, we are having a family worship service called KidStuff FX. this has been a long time in the making and we are excited!! sure there is a huge castle in our foyer, some characters and lots of bright colorful shirts running around, but our excitement for fx is bigger than that. i am excited for parents to see exactly what we do in kidstuff so they can know what in the world their kids are talking about, but that still is not the driving force. i am more excited about the possibility of creating an environment where the family can encounter christ together. i recently returned from a mission trip to the dominican republic. i led a team of 2 families with elementary school kids. one of my favorite things about the trip was seeing the family serve together, struggle together and spur one another on. the bonds built on that trip between the families run deep! i am actually a little jealous of it, and wish my family had the opportunity to do the same. conversations happened that would not have otherwise. parents got to coach their kids through teachable moments, discuss highs and lows and even REAP through scripture together. it was incredible!

the longer i do children’s ministry, the more i want to foster situations like this. that is what we are most excited about for fx. the whole family can come together to worship. they can sing songs of praise to God together (and even talk more about what they mean afterward). How cool for kids to see their parents worship and vice versa! What an incredible opportunity they have to use that to teach them more about how and why we worship. they will also get to enter into the kids world and see the skits they talk about each week. This might help some things make sense! And then they all get to enter into a Bible story time that everyone understands. And how great to be able to talk about that for the rest of the week. Imagine families later talking more about their favorite part of the skit with thier kids, or the hardest part of the Bible story. Or even being able to hold each other accountable for what they have learned and apply the scripture. oh I get excited just thinking about it!

my prayer is that during these next four weeks of fx, the Lord will change some families lives for eternity! that a culture to discuss and experience spiritual things will be created or enhanced in each family. that fx will be a catalyst for families on mission. a family that worships together becomes a family that lives on mission together. can you imagine the future of the church if your kids start thinking and living missionally in elementary school? greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city…

please join me in praying for fx and in fighting for our families!! we will be doing fx, july 26th, august 2nd, august 9th, and august 16th.

more info can be found on our website as well! here is a video we made for church a few weeks ago about fx:

KidStuff FX from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.