Updated: Little Lamb Lessons, God's Sheep Snacks

The Little Lamb auxiliary lessons for preschool have been significantly improved and updated:

• Day 1: We All Sin
• Day 2: Thanking the Creator
• Day 3: Obey the Shepherd
• Day 4: The Shepherd Knows His Sheep
• Day 5: Jesus Wants to Be Your Shepherd

We've also enhanced and updated the God's Sheep snacks. All five days now have a scripted lesson tie-in:

• Day 1: Popcorn
• Day 2: Cross/Sheep Cookies
• Day 3: Donuts
• Day 4: Jell-O Jigglers
• Day 5: Salad

Following in the Foosteps progress

I know updates were a little thin on the ground through February and March, but we are still chugging along. The last of the elementary memory verse lessons will be posted this morning, and most of the games will also be forthcoming shortly. In addition, planning for crafts is well underway, though we haven't quite finalized them all yet. Meanwhile, here's draft 1 for the logo, which is tentative and subject to change at this point. (At minimum, I need to adjust the kerning. But it is possible we will decide to make larger changes.)

Posting up some existing materials out of order.

While we're waiting for the Following the Footsteps memory verse lessons to be approved, I'm going to go ahead and post up some of the existing materials for the two themes that aren't online yet (Running the Race and Back to the Beginning), starting with the Bible lessons for the elementary age group. These were already completed, and approved by our Pastor (Russ Simpson at the time), back when we used them in Galion (in 2005 and 2006), so they're basically ready to go; I just hadn't gotten around to posting them here until now. So I'm going to start doing that in the next few days. Watch this space.

Footsteps Lessons Planned

Okay, it's been a bit of a long haul, but we now have a pretty good idea where we're going with the sixth theme. Some of the lessons that we were thinking of doing turned out not to be workable for most of the age groups, so we ended up scrapping the idea of sticking with the patriarchs and have instead broadened it to Biblical role models in general, renaming the theme from "Footsteps of the Fathers" to the more general "Following the Footsteps". We have three of the elementary lessons basically written (and memory verses picked out for them), know for sure what the fourth one is going to be, and have several reasonable ideas for the fifth. So we should be finishing up the lessons soon now and start posting things. Thanks for your patience.

Update (November 16): All five lessons are now essentially complete and have been presented to our Pastor for review. (We always run the Bible lessons by the Pastor to have them checked for Biblical accuracy.) So we should have something to post here soon.

Fish Gack Recipe Updated

I've updated the Fish Gack Recipe with more precise measurements.

Fishing for Christ lessons complete

Okay, that was the last set of discussion questions I just put up, so I believe the bible lessons for all three age groups, for the Fishing for Christ theme, are now more or less complete and online. More materials (crafts, games, and so forth) will hopefully follow soon.

Footsteps Pushed Back, Fishing to be reworked in 2009

After the organizational meeting Sunday, we've determined to revamp the Fishing For Christ materials this year, pushing Footsteps of the Fathers onto the back burner for now.

So I'll be starting to post Fishing For Christ materials soon. For now, here's a lightly reworked version of the logo, in color this time. This time I did the logo as an SVG document, so it will scale to any size. I was fortunate to be able to find exactly the same font that I used before, so the overall look has not changed much (except for the color).

2007 Complete -- more or less

VBS finished up tonight, so the God's Sheep materials are just about as complete as they're likely to get this time around the rotation. There may be a few things that didn't get posted here, but unless someone points them out to me I will at this point focus mostly on putting up the Soldiers of God materials as we develop them. (Soldiers of God is the theme we are planning to use in 2008 in Galion.) We will probably start posting preliminary Bible lesson drafts for that set in early July.

Meanwhile if anybody knows either how to put SVG documents up on blogspot or another good place for hosting them, I'm open to suggestions. There are a number of bits and pieces from God's Sheep, including some of the craft patterns, that really cannot be converted to HTML. For now, they are available upon request.

SVG Documents

A number of the materials, such as craft patterns, decorations, and so on, are in SVG format. We've created them using Inkscape, which can also be used to view or print them. (Inkscape is freely available, so you can download and install it at no cost. I can also convert the documents to other formats (such as eps or PDF) upon request.)

At the time of this writing, I haven't got them all online yet. For a long time we didn't really have a place to put them (online). Update (spring of 2011): Now that we finally do have a place to host them, I still have to get around to putting most of them up. So for now they are available upon request.

I will eventually try to get them all online, at which point I will link to them here, as well as to each of them from the appropriate place (e.g., craft patterns from the instruction pages for each respective craft). But for now, people who need them will need to contact us and request them. If you need a format other than SVG, please specify in your message what format you want (e.g., PDF). To be sure I see your message promptly, include the words Bible School in the Subject.

Not bad for one day's free time...

Okay, most of the general info is up. I'll try to put the themes and lessons up this week, and go from there.

Overview

What Is This?

We're working on a six-year set of freely-redistributable Vacation Bible School materials. Recent updates are shown on the main page. To see all of the materials we have online so far, use the links in the sidebar under Complete Themes and Bits & Pieces.

Why Are We Doing This?

Several years ago, I got roped into helping with Vacation Bible School at my church. The person who was organizing VBS that year had purchased a fancy Bible School kit that cost the church a significant chunk of change, but it came, supposedly, with everything ready to go. The presentation of the materials was great: shiny visuals, nice-looking handouts and decorations, video segments, crafts and snacks coordinated with the lessons, and so on and so forth. There was even a video to show to potential helpers, to convince them to get involved. The problem, we discovered, was that the lessons themselves were apparently written by one of those people who doesn't actually believe in teaching children anything. Each day's Bible Lesson, and I use the term loosely, contained only a single point from the Bible, along the lines of God Helps Us, God Loves Us, and so on. These things are true as far as they go, but they do not, to our way of thinking, constitute a Bible lesson. Not even the basic truth of the gospel was included, much less anything beyond that to hold the interest and help the growth of children who are already believers. The person who was presenting the lessons ended up rewriting them entirely, so as to include actual Biblical content. I was presenting the similarly deficient video segments, and I ended up rewriting the commentary that went along with them, again so as to include actual Biblical content. I am given to understand that the person presenting the missions lessons did significant rewriting as well.

The end result was that nothing coordinated. With the Bible lessons rewritten, all those fancy visuals and crafts and games and snacks and video segments no longer really went with them in any meaningful way. There was nothing to reinforce the Bible lessons. It was not the experience we really had in mind when we set out to have a Bible School.

The next year we were more careful in selecting materials, and we purchased ones that were produced by CEF in conjunction with FotF. These were rather a lot better than the others, but we found ourselves still disappointed with the quality of the Bible lessons. Yes, the gospel was present, but we still wanted more. We wanted more Bible in our Bible School. It is Bible School, after all.

So we decided to write our own. It's not that much more work than rewriting existing materials to bring them up to our standards. And since we are writing them, we figured we may as well share them as well. At first it was pretty overwhelming, and not everything got done as well as it should have done, but we're getting better at it as we go. Our plan is to create a six-year set initially and then after six years to rotate back through the same ones and improve them.

You can use the links in the sidebar to see what we've got so far.

Licensing

Note: Please don't let the complex wording below frighten you too much. It's mostly there to keep publishers honest. If all you want to do is use the materials in your local church, this license gives you permission to do that.

Negotiability

The terms of this license are negotiable. If you would like to negotiate different terms or obtain special permissions, contact the authors.

Purpose

These materials were created for our own use, within our own local church. We have chosen to make them available here, under the terms presented below, with the hope that they may prove useful to someone else. Nonetheless, the materials are provided as they were created, in a form suitable for our own use. Only you may determine whether they are also suitable for your use. If you have questions about the terms of this license, please contact the authors or copyright holders in order to clarify what you may do with these materials.

Authorship

Except as noted, the materials on each page (i.e., each HTML file) were created by the persons or organizations listed in the copyright notice near the bottom of that page. All rights under copyright law are retained exclusively by the creators of the content, except inasmuch as this license, if accepted, grants rights to persons who accept this license. Nothing requires anyone to accept this license; however, nothing else grants you the right to use, modify, or distribute these materials, unless you obtain special permission from the authors or copyright holders.

Granting of Permissions

Upon receipt of these materials by you, the recipient (hereinafter, the licensee), a non-exclusive license is hereby granted by the copyright holders to the licensee which, if accepted by the licensee, permits the licensee to perform (only) the specific actions listed in this license, provided that the conditions listed together with each action are observed by the licensee. If at any time the licensee is dissatisfied with the materials or with the terms or conditions of this license, the sole remedy available to the licensee shall be to discontinue any and all use and distribution of the materials so licensed.

Coverage

This license only covers materials that are received by the licensee together with this license. Some materials may be received under this license that are, alternatively, also available under different terms from another source. (For example, some images may be included here which are also in the public domain and available from the Open Clip Art Library or a similar source.) Since the authors or copyright holders of the work retain exclusive rights to the work, it is the exclusive prerogative of the authors or copyright holders to distribute the materials to which they hold copyright in any manner that they choose under any terms that they choose, and their choosing to distribute the materials under the terms detailed here does not preclude that they might also, separately, distribute them in another fashion under different terms, if they choose to do so. This license therefore does not cover materials obtained from another source. This license only covers materials received together from the same source with this license. Materials obtained elsewhere are covered by the respective terms under which they are received.

Some of the materials may contain scripture quotations taken from the New International Version translation of the Bible. (This is noted, where applicable, in the copyright footer at the bottom.) These usages of the NIV text are believed by the authors to be acceptable under Zondervan's usage policy, but the New International Version remains covered by the International Bible Society's copyright and Zondervan's usage policy, not by the copyright on these materials, nor by this license. For permission to use the NIV text, please consult Zondervan.

Definitions

For the purpose of this license, a local church shall be defined as a group of persons who profess to believe, in all seriousness, that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, and gather together on a regular basis, at least once per week, together in one location, for the purpose of worship.

For the purpose of this license, a fellowship of churches shall be defined as a group of local churches (as defined above) that communicate and cooperate with one another on a regular basis (at least once per year), share materials, hold a single statement of faith in common, and cooperate in some fashion to train pastors and teachers (whether by maintaining one or more seminaries or practoria or by some equivalent means).

Permission to Distribute

Permission is granted to the licensee to redistribute copies of the materials that have not been modified in terms of content (i.e., copies wherein the words themselves, and any images, have not been altered; the form or format MAY be altered by the licensee as necessary to accomodate the method of distribution, e.g., the content may be formatted for printing in book form for distribution rather than distributing the content electronically) provided this license and the copyright notices are neither removed nor altered. Copies distributed in this fashion (not modified in terms of content) may be distributed to anyone to whom the licensee wishes to distribute them, with the understanding that the copyright holders retain all rights exclusively, and that those who receive copies are only permitted to do the things permitted by this license.

Permission to Use

Permission is granted to the licensee to use and present these materials in the context of a single local church to which the licensee belongs and with which the licensee regularly meets (at least once per week). In the course of using the materials in the local church, the licensee may make modifications to the materials as necessary to accomodate the needs of the local church, and may distribute copies of the materials, with or without modification, to other persons in the local church. However, modified versions of the materials shall constitute derived works and must not be distributed outside the local church except as expressly permitted by this license or by special permission from the copyright holders.

Derived Work Permission for a Fellowship of Churches

Permission is granted to the licensee to create derived works based on the materials and to distribute the derived works to a single fellowship of churches to which the licensee belongs, provided that the following conditions are ALL met:

1. Prominent and clear notice must be given to all persons receiving the derived works, to the effect that what they are receiving are, in fact, derived works. A synopsis of the nature of the changes made must be included in this notice.
2. The copyright notices must be retained and must not be altered except by the addition of the names of any and all persons and organizations who contributed additional materials that are included in the derived works, or made changes to the materials that are reflected in the derived works.
3. The derived works MUST NOT be distributed outside the fellowship of churches to which the licensee who created the derived works belongs, unless special permission is granted by the copyright holders. (Changes MAY, if desired, be submitted to the original copyright holders for inclusion in the materials, provided that the person submitting the changes is the author of the changes and agrees to allow them to be distributed under the terms of this license; the copyright holders of the original materials reserve the right to approve or reject any such contributions; if they are approved, the name(s) of the contributor(s) who submitted them will be added to the copyright notice(s) of the relevant portions of the materials. Submitting changes for inclusion in the main distribution of materials is strictly optional and does not in any way alter the permissions granted by this license.)
4. The licensee MUST make a concerted effort to rigorously examine all modifications and additions made to the materials in the course of producing any derived works and to ensure that they are, as best as the licensee is able to determine, consistent with everything written in the Holy Bible. Derived works MUST NOT be distributed by a licensee who believes there may be inconsistencies between the derived works and teachings set forth in the Bible.
5. The licensee MUST make a concerted effort to rigorously examine all modifications and additions made to the materials in the course of producing any derived works to ensure that they, as best as the licensee is able to determine, do not mishandle any text from the Bible, either by drawing from the text a meaning that is inconsistent with the context of the text, or by reading information into the text that is not actually implied by the text itself, or in any other way. Derived works MUST NOT be distributed by a licensee who believes that the derived works are careless or irresponsible in their handling of the scripture.

Disclaimer of Warrantee

These materials are provided as is with absolutely no warrantee. Any and all warranties, express or implied, are expressly disclaimed. Warranties that are disclaimed include, but are not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Under no circumstances shall the holders of copyright or any other person or organization be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, special, consequential, or other damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute materials, goods, or services; loss of use, data, profits, or other benefits; or business interruption) however said damages may be caused or on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of these materials, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

Contact Us

Of course you can always leave comments here on the blog, but if anyone wants to contact us privately, here is some contact info.

Nathan Eady

307 Gill Avenue

Galion, OH 44833

USA

419-468-1708

Here is an email address you can also use to connect with us (click to enlarge): That one doesn't get nearly as much bulk, so hopefully things sent there won't get lost.

Grace Brethren Church of Galion

1055 Galion-New Winchester Road

Galion, OH 44833

USA

419-468-6848

Putting Things Online

All this time I was thinking in terms of regular hosting. But the webspace provided by my ISP is inadequate (in terms of space, mainly), and the free hosting I tried didn't work out, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this...

Then it came to me: I'd been blogging our progress anyway, whenever there are updates. Why not just use Blogger in the first place? Why not, indeed!

The main purpose of this post is just so that there will be a post, so I can see what things really look like while I set up the template. Also I needed a place to attach the image that will become the shortcut icon. Actual content will be forthcoming, however.