Soldiers of God Decorations Photos Part Five

Continued from part 4

Up in the auditorium, where the elementary group has their Bible lessons, we put up the armor of God posters. We also put up this big wooden shield one of the women in the church found at a garage sale, a couple of weeks before we started decorating. (I think she said she paid a dollar for it, something like that. The smaller piece on the wall in the teen room came from the same source, as I understand it.) We chose this spot for the big wooden shield partly because this was a good place to put it up high, where nobody was likely to knock it down on someone. Also, there was already a nail there.

As usual, we also put up the flags for our missions-field countries. (Next year, we hope to add a new one.)

Soldiers of God Decoration Photos Part Four

Back to Part Three

For the preschool bulletin board, we did representation of the five items from the Shapes Lessons.

We also put some soldier-related posters on the preschool-room walls...

And on the door.

Continued in Part Five

Soldiers of God Decoration Photos Part Three

Back to Part Two

We put these two posters on the walls in the teen room.

We also hung this item in there, up near the ceiling. we were a bit careful where we put this one. Those aren't real weapons on it, and they aren't actually sharp or heavy, but we still didn't want any children swinging them around hitting people in the face with them. One of our Bible School workers found this item at a garage sale, along with a much larger one that we hung in the auditorium. (I'll include a photo of that one in another post.)

If you can ignore the workday mess for a moment, you'll see here a foam sword, shield, and helmet hanging from the ceiling.

Continued in Part Four

Soldiers of God Decoration Photos Part Two

Back to Part One

We put these two in the stairwell...

These two in the hallway...

These two at the end of the hallway, and this other one over on the other side of the kitchen serving window. (At this point you may be noticing some power tools and other things that seem out of place for a Vacation Bible School. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. As we were decorating, some of the men in the church were also holding a workday, doing maintenance and improvements to the building that aren't directly related to VBS. Those things were picked up before Bible School actually started.)

Continued in Part Three

Soldiers of God Decorations Photos: Part One

For anyone who has not read the decoration posts from other years, the basic jist of what we do is this: we take line art that we find in coloring books or on the internet (most of it this year came from the Open Clip Art Library), and we trace it onto overhead transparencies with wet-erase markers. Then we project it onto a bulletin board, thumbtack up some posterboards, and trace the lines onto the posterboards with pencil. Then we hold a Paint Day, which anyone can help with starting from about age 8 or so, wherein we color in the images with poster paints. It's not necessary to stay completely within the lines, because any deviation less than a marker-width gets covered up in the next step, when after the paints dry we outline them with black marker. Also, even if a little gets slopped too far outside the lines for the markers to cover, honestly, we're our own worst critics. (Once hung, the decorations don't typically get scrutinized that closely.) Anyway, after we outline them, we cut them out and stick them up on the walls with Sticky Tack, or one of the various off-brand versions thereof.

Although, we put this one in the big front window up with clear packing tape.

This one was mounted above the stairs, where you see it on the way down...

Continued in Part Two

Lesson Visuals: Prayer Warrior

Here are the lesson visuals for Prayer Warrior (Peter in Prison):

Prison

Prayer

Jailbreak

At the Door

Images are Copyright 2014, Mary Beth Frey. Permission is granted to use them in your local church to illustrate the Bible lesson. See licensing for information about additional rights and permissions.

Lesson Visuals: Good Soldier (Jeremiah and the Cistern)

Here are the lesson visuals for Good Soldier (Jeremiah and the Cistern):

Idolatry

Cistern

Ebed Melech

Rescue

Images are Copyright 2014, Mary Beth Frey. Permission is granted to use them in your local church to illustrate the Bible lesson. See licensing for information about additional rights and permissions.

Lesson Visuals: Armor of God

Here are the lesson visuals for Armor of God:

Armor

Temptation

Discernment

Images are Copyright 2014, Mary Beth Frey. Permission is granted to use them in your local church to illustrate the Bible lesson. See licensing for information about additional rights and permissions.

Lesson Visuals: Obey Your Commander

Here are the lesson visuals for Obey Your Commander:

100

Sick Servant

Meeting Jesus on the Road

No Need to Come

Arriving at the House

Images are Copyright 2014, Mary Beth Frey. Permission is granted to use them in your local church to illustrate the Bible lesson. See licensing for information about additional rights and permissions.

Lesson Visuals: Red Cord of Salvation

Here are the lesson visuals for Red Cord of Salvation:

The City of Jericho

Rahab

Marching Around the City

Jericho with the Wall Down

Images are Copyright 2014, Mary Beth Frey. Permission is granted to use them in your local church to illustrate the Bible lesson. See licensing for information about additional rights and permissions.

Prison Cupcakes

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Friday:	Snack
Elementary Bible Lesson:	Prayer Warrior
Memory Verse:	1st Thessalonians 5:16-18
Preschool Bible Lesson:	Peter in Prison

Key Item:

cupcakes, frosted white with dark stripes

Snack Lesson:

What do the decorations on the top of this cupcake remind you of? Stripes? Hmm... what if we imagine that the dark parts are solid, and the white parts are empty space? What would it be then? Bars?

Where would there be bars? On a gate, perhaps, to keep animals out? Maybe on a prison, to keep the prisoners in? Does that work? Do prison bars always keep the prisoners in jail?

Tonight's Bible lesson is about a man who was in prison, but an angel came and let him out.

Additional Snack Items:

To make the snack more substantial, we served chips and sloppy joe alongside the cupcakes. We also provided Kool-Aid to drink.

Mud Pudding

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Thursday:	Snack
Elementary Bible Lesson:	Good Soldier: Jeremiah and the Cistern (non-interactive version)
Memory Verse:	Romans 1:16
Preschool Bible Lesson:	The Blind Army

Key Item:

Dirt Pudding (e.g., this recipe will work fine, or this one)

Snack Lesson:

What does this pudding remind you of? Dirt? Mud? Would you find something like this maybe in the bottom of a pit, where there used to be water?

Our Bible lesson tonight is about a man named Jeremiah, who was thrown into a pit like that, because people didn't like what he was saying. But he was telling them what God told him to say.

Additional Snack Items:

To make the snack more substantial, we served nachos and hot dogs alongside the pudding. We also provided Kool-Aid to drink.

Shield Cookies

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Wednesday:	Snack
Elementary Bible Lesson:	Armor of God
Memory Verse:	Ephesians 6:11
Preschool Bible Lesson:	David and Goliath

Key Item:

Shield cookies (cut-out cookies decorated to look like shields)

Snack Lesson:

What's this cookie shaped like? And what kind of person might use something that looks like this? What are shields used for anyway?

A shield protects a soldier, but a shield is just one piece of a soldier's armor. A real soldier has other pieces of armor besides just the shield: boots, a helmet, body armor, ...

Tonight's Bible lesson talks about what kinds of armor we can have to protect us in life.

Additional Snack Items:

To make the snack more substantial, we served fruit and pizza alongside the cookies. We also provided Kool-Aid to drink.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: bread overtop, and bread underneath.

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Tuesday:	Snack
Elementary Bible Lesson:	Obey Your Commander
Memory Verse:	1st John 5:3-4
Preschool Bible Lesson:	The Centurion's Servant

Key Item:

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Snack Lesson:

Did you notice that the cheese on these sandwiches has bread above it and also bread under it? It's kind of in layers, with a top, a middle, and a bottom. That's what makes it a sandwich.

Tonight your Bible teacher is going to tell you a story about a man who was like the cheese in this sandwich: he had other people who were above him (his bosses, like the bread on top), and people who were under him, like the bread on bottom – he had to tell them what to do.

Because he was in the middle, this man knew how authority works. He believed Jesus could make something happen just by saying it.

Additional Snack Items:

To make the snack more substantial, we served Jell-O and carrot sticks alongside the sandwiches. We also provided Kool-Aid to drink.

Twizzlers: The Red Rope

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Monday:	Snack
Elementary Bible Lesson:	Red Cord of Salvation
Memory Verse:	Ephesians 2:8-9
Preschool Bible Lesson:	Joshua and the Walls

Key Item:

Twizzlers

Snack Lesson:

Hey, have you ever noticed the way these Twizzlers are shaped? They're not just straight on the sides, like a pencil. Actually, they kind of look braided, almost like a rope.

But they're red. Have you ever seen a red rope?

Did you know there's a red rope in the Bible? There sure is. Rahab hung a rope from her window, on the wall of Jericho, to let the Israelite spies down to safety, and later she hung a red rope from her window so that God would save her family when the wall fell down.

Additional Snack Items:

To make the snack more substantial, we served popcorn and mini-burgers alongside the Twizzlers. We also provided Kool-Aid to drink.