Worship

• Elementary 9:15 program is teaching through the life of Jesus.  Barbie Pappas taught about Jesus as a young boy, John the Baptist, Jesus calling his disciples, Jesus changing the water into wine, and Nicodemus' visit to Jesus.
• The 11:00 Elementary program focused on what the Bible says about Discipline.  Our teachers Glenn Starnes and Gary Johnson taught the children about faith skills that will help them know God more.  They included scripture study, scripture memory, prayer, sharing your faith and worship.
• Our early childhood program, including the nursery, focused on loving God with all their hearts by looking at the ways Jesus loved God and people with all of his heart.  Megan and Jason Richards and Katherine Noble taught our early childhood students while Sherri Carlson and Sheila Lamb have been teaching our kids in the nursery.  We are so appreciative of our gifted teachers!
• Greeter Training - Several children's ministry greeters attended the FEFC/First Connections greeter training on January 17.

Community

• SLT (Servant Leadership Team) - met January 26 to discuss parent involvement and commitment as it relates to recruiting.
• Nursery staff - Ely hosted a monthly nursery staff meeting on Sunday, January 10.  Staff discussed questions and possible improvements in level of care.  One suggestion included the use of walkie talkies to improve levels of communication between nursery rooms and check-in desk volunteers.
• Team Celebration - The children's ministry staff took time to celebrate Sandy Bower's last day with us.  We will miss her but trust that the Lord is going to honor her decision to spend more time at home with her family.

Mission

• Touch of Love Care Kits - We continue to collect supplies to create 200 care kits on Valentine's Day.  We have chosen to send 100 kits to kids in Congo and 100 kits to kids in Haiti.  We are appreciative of Don Read and his partnership in this project.  He is writing a series of family devotions to prepare families for the experience of serving together on February 14 from 4-6.
• Camp Grace - The next Camp Grace event will be Februrary 27 from 1-4:30.  This camp is open to all children with special needs who are 3 years through high school.  We are hoping to host 50-60 campers!  The Camp Grace leadership team met twice in January and is planning to meet one more time before the event.  We are appreciative of Todd Garrett's leadership of our incredible volunteer leadership team!
• Summer Acting Camp - I met with Mary Ellen to discuss plans for hosting an acting camp this summer.  Participants will work throughout the week to put together an entire theatrical producion including set design, music, and choreography.  We are excited about this unique outreach event.

Other

• Children's Ministry Associate (Elementary) - We are in the final stages of hiring an Associate to lead our Elementary Programs.  We continue to pray for God's direction and discernment as we move forward.
• Praying for volunteers to complete leader teams.

December

Worship

• Rejoicing in the salvation of a fourth grade student that visited FEFC with his cousin.  He chose to accept Christ as a result of a small group discussion following the Bible Lesson on Sunday morning.
• Evaluating data collected through the parent survey.  We are so appreciative of Joe Berti's work to create a summary of all of the data.
• Transition to 9:15 program to 2nd floor commons for teaching and worship going well.  We have noticed a much greater participation in worship and attention during teaching.  Making plans to incorporate more organized games and activities to promote community and relationship building.  Beginning series on the Life of Jesus
• Next 8 week Disciples in Training classes beginning January 17.  Offering 2 classes, Inductive study of John and What the Bible says about Creation
• Will meet with Pathways leadership team (monthly meeting) to discuss current placements, plans for January and opportunity to join Bannockburn's special needs ministry fair.

Community

• Met with SLT December 1 to dicuss survey and January recruiting strategy.
• Attended All Staff Retreat
• Ely hosted monthly nursery staff meeting.  Included Christmas party with guest speaker, Kat Cannon.

Mission

• Beginning Touch of Love Family mission opportunity.  Collecting items such as soap, toothpaste, and hand towels.  Packaging Party scheduled for February 14 from 4-6pm.  Families are encouraged to attend together.
• Beginning first stages of VBS 2010 planning - curriculum evaluation
• Meeting with Camp Grace leadership team to plan and organize next Camp Grace event.

Other

• Accepting applications for Children's Ministry Associate (Elementary).  Praying for God's direction and discernement.
• Praying for volunteers to complete leader teams.  Current needs listed below.

• Early Childhood - 9 classroom leaders
• Elementary - 4 small group leaders
• Greeters - 3 check-in volunteers, 4 security volunteers

• Camp Grace - We hosted our first Camp Grace at FEFC on Saturday, November 14 as a project through Serve Austin.  We hosted 20 campers with special needs for an afternoon of fun and fellowship in a camp like environment.  Many of the children that joined us were visiting FEFC for the first time!  We are very appreciative of the many volunteers that served as pals, team leaders, team coaches and activity leaders.
• SLT - The children's ministry Servant Leadership Team will meet December 1 to discuss the parent survey results and plans for recruiting to fill the remaining Sunday morning volunteer positions.
• Service Projects - Our elementary students have been involved in several projects supporting other ministries of FEFC.  On Sunday, November 29 they created placemats for our prison ministry and through the entire month of November they have been working to create Christmas cards for our Care ministry Christmas visits.  We have 10 fourth and fifth grade studetns participating in our Kingdom Assignments project.  It has been an exciting moth of putting our faith into action!
• Volunteer leader update - We continue to trust in the Lord's provision of Sunday morning leaders.  Our current needs include: Early Childhood - 15 classroom leaders; Elementary - 3 adult leaders at 9:15 and 4 small group leaders at 11:00; Greeter teams - 4 volunteers

• Our Fall Festival event was a huge success!  In the preview we hosted twenty to thrity families with children with special needs.  Our volunteers did a stellar job of running the games and welcoming families.    

• Camp Grace - We are launching our first Camp Grace at FEFC experience during Serve Austin.  Todd Garrett and his leadership team have been working diligently to create a camp-like experience for children with special needs.  Each camper will be assigned to a one on one pal for the day.  Campers and pals will rotate with teams through different activity stations throughout the afternoon.  We will conclude with a worship experience for all campers and pals.  Our desire is that Camp Grace would grow into a full day camp here at FEFC multiple times during the year!

• Children's Ministry Survey - We received 68 responses to our survey of the families with children in the children's ministry.  We plan to send out the link to the survey one more time to try to increase our response rate.  The information we received was very valuable for our future planning.  We are already making some adjustments to our 9:15 program for Elementary students. 
• Tough Ministries Conference - Leah and Becky, a key volunteer with Pathways, are headed to Houston this week to attend Tough Ministries Conference.  They will meet other leaders of special needs ministries and hopefully receive great information and training that will help us as we move forward wtih Pathways.
• Leader Recruitment - We are very close to completing our volunteer teams.  We are thanful for the Lord's provision of leaders to shepherd our young disciples.  Early Childhood - 10 leaders  / Elementary - 15 leaders / Greeters - 4 volunteers