Archive for March, 2008

We Fall Down At The Feet of Jesus

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
Session Notes, Saturday, March 22, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Hong Kong
Last week, we made crowns. Before we made the crowns we recited numerous scriptures (about 14 different scriptures) that talked about types of crowns and how they were received by Jesus. So we made the crowns last week, and this week they were still laid on the window-sill in the worship room and they were all dried, so we put velcro on the backs of the finished crowns and everyone got their crown and put it on. We had already been listening quietly in our worship room, to the song entitled “We Fall Down” and part of the song cries “Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb!” just like what the four living creatures were doing at the throne. So we put the cross at the front of the room, and streamed various colored river banners from the cross and everyone was quietly sitting on the floor in front of the cross while listening to the song and then we recited more of the crown scriptures and I asked the children to make sure they heard what the crowns were all about. I asked some questions, 1) What were the 24 elders doing at the throne? 2) What did they do with their crowns? 3) What does it mean to “cast down your crown?” 4) What color were their crowns? 5) What did they say to Jesus at the throne?  etc. Then we recited about 10 different scriptures. Then we put the song on and everybody lined up in the back of the room. Then I demonstrated and went first, as the song was playing, I walked slowly up to the cross, took the crown off my head, and laid it at the foot of the cross, and then they were instructed to do what the 24 elders were doing. They were on their face before the Lord, kneeling before his throne. So this is what we did for about 10 minutes. Everybody one by one brought their crowns and laid them at the foot of the cross and then just got on their knees and put their faces to the floor and worshiped while the song “We Fall Down” was playing in the background.
The next project for the day was to pray for Israel. Before the class, I drew a map of Israel on a flat bedsheet and put the major cities in Israel on the map in approximate locations. Then around the outside of the country, I put which seas and countries were bordering Israel. Then on the rest of the outside of the map on the sheet, I drew what looked like bricks to depict the western wall or the “wailing wall” in Jerusalem. So when we taped the map up to the wall, it looked like the wailing wall with the map of Israel right in the middle of it. The children and mothers and all the helpers, gathered around the map and each child prayed whatever the Lord put on their heart to pray for the nation of Israel. I had also described what the significance of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is. Then we declared some scriptures out of Isaiah 60 and 52 about the nation of Israel.

The next project was to learn the movements to a new song called “Our Heart.” It is a song that talks about getting all of the nations of the world to worship the Lord and a song of intercession to those ends. The children caught on to the actions very quickly. We decided who was going to represent various nations because as we do the song, we intercede for whatever nation we wear that costume for.

Crowns Incorruptible

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
Session Notes, Saturday, March 15, 2008, 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong
All week during my worship sets I was getting things about thrones and crowns so I did a study on crowns and came up with a multitude of scriptures that talk about crowns. The Lord gave me music that had a symphonic sound, pipe organ sound, and piano sound, and it caused me to put some music into a new CD which I entitled “Crown Incorruptible.” When I studied on crowns I discovered there are crowns of righteousness, anointing oil, holiness unto the Lord, glory, glory and honor, golden crowns, and more. The most impressive place the Lord took me was to the throne where the four living creatures are continually worshiping before the Lord saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy!” And the 24 elders are seated at the throne and they take off their crowns which are golden crowns and cast them down before the feet of Jesus and worship him and tell him that he is worthy to be worshiped, honored, and all power belongs to him, and he is the creator of it all. This is the point where the Lord gave me the huge symphonic-type sound with pipe organ and strings along with keyboards.

I decided it was time to have the children in my worship class to participate with the 24 elders so we made crowns. I cut out crown patterns from poster board, purchased a bunch of paints, paint brushes, glitter, glue, and metallic foil paper, beads and gems. After reading the scriptures and having the children recite the scriptures in English and Chinese, we all made crowns. Of course, there was glitter, glue, and paint everywhere, but they came up with some very special creations as they heard about what the crowns looked like according to the scriptures. We decided they were all too wet and the gems and glitter were still falling off, so for a week, we laid them on the window-sill in the worship center and they dried all week.

After we completed making the crowns, it was our day to pray for all of the countries on the continent of Africa. So this time, I drew an outline of Africa on a huge plastic table cloth with multi-colored marking pens. Each country on the continent was one of five different colors and I tried to make it so there were not the same color of countries next to each other. I believe there are about 35 countries, including islands around the continent of Africa. I had some scriptures from the Psalms where I substituted the name of Africa and the countries where it talked about “the nations” and each child took a turn with “Twister-type Intercession.” The child was to put both hands and feet on four different countries, ones that I called out. So for example, the first child’s turn was for the color of blue and he was to put his right foot on South Africa, left foot on Sudan, right hand on Madagascar, and left hand on Morocco. So as the child was stretched out in all directions on these “blue” countries while the rest of us proclaimed that all of these countries would serve the Lord! or all of these countries would repent and be saved! depending on which scripture they were given to recite as a group. Then that person got up and then the next person was to put all of his limbs on the red countries, so I would call out red countries for example, left hand on Egypt, right hand on Mauritias, right foot on Togo, and left foot on Swaziland! and the children were laughing because they were all stretched out all over this huge map of Africa, they were learning the countries, they were seeing where all of them were located, and they were interceding for the country all at the same time.

A New Twist To Prayer

Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Session Notes, Saturday, March 8, 2008, Children’s Worship 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong
This week, the Lord put it on my heart to make a map of Africa which was very colorful and the size of the map was big enough so that the children could put both of their hands and their feet on four countries (one country for left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot) and then we proclaimed scriptures for those four countries. When I made up the map, I tried to make sure that none of the countries whose borders were touching each other had the same color so the map was very colorful with green, yellow, blue, red, and purple. And the size of the map was as big as a huge table cloth. We laid the map on the floor and first we proclaimed the scripture in English and then in Cantonese. As I spoke phrases in the English, they would repeat after me and then as my interpretor spoke in Cantonese, they repeated after her. Each student got about three turns to place their hands and their feet all over this map. For example, I would say to the first participant, “Put your right foot on South Africa; put your left foot on Sudan; put your right hand on Togo; put right left hand on Seychelles. And the child would be all over the map, twisting their body everywhere to try to reach all of the countries. Then as this child held this pose, we all proclaimed various scriptures. For example, all of the “green” countries, we proclaimed the “green” scripture. For all of the “blue” countries, we proclaimed the “blue” scriptures, etc.

Then we had set up two tables before the class and this week, I went to an aquarium store on the street in WanChai on Hong Kong Island and purchased smooth rocks that were used to put in big fish tanks. They were HEAVY so I had to take a suitcase with wheels on it to purchase the rocks. We washed all the rocks and then placed them on tables with a plastic table cloth and newspapers spread all over the floor and we had prepared scriptures or scripture words ahead of time in both English and Cantonese and each person was given a large paintbrush and a small paint brush and they were instructed to paint the rock however they wanted to and then put a word on the rock like “faith” or “trust God”. I read the scripture out of Deuteronomy 27 which says, “…the Israelites set up a stone altar and plastered the rocks with plaster and wrote the law on the rocks so they could remember all of the words of the Law that Moses told them.”  So that is what we were doing today. We were writing words to remember scripture. Instead of wearing our colored ephods during the class today, when they came into the class, they were dressed with a plastic garbage bag with a fresh hole cut into it so that the bag could be slipped over their head and then we cut holes for their arms to go through. So they had “plastic ephods” to do the work of the Lord today so they didn’t get paint all over their clothes. Then they used the “ephods” to carry home their colorful rocks when they were completed at the end of the class.

One student got the idea to glue glitter to the top of his toy truck. So he slipped the truck out of his backpack and put glitter on his “Glory Truck” - “Weng-you-for-tcheay”!!

Pray for Africa

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Session Notes, Saturday, March 1, 2008, 3:00 p.m. Childrens Worship
Today, we brought Africa into God’s House. We call it “God’s House” as we step through some curtains which we call “Curtain of Time” - we step into Eternity, where the Lord answers our prayers. We did a procession today and this time we brought Hong Kong, Africa, and Israel into God’s House and we placed them all in their own “room” in God’s House. Each of the children got around the map we had for each, laid their hands on it, and then they were asked to pray first for Israel, then for Hong Kong, and then for the countries which they had selected from our sheets for the various countries of Africa. Sometimes the children cannot think what to pray, so I told them to “bless that country.” Some of the children are working on hand-writing books of the bible. One child is working on Malachi. One of the mothers just finished the book of Obadiah. So when they get a book completed, they are awarded a book-marker certificate. When they get all 66 books written, then there is a greater reward at the end. One of the children came up to me and had memorized Psalm 121, which is one of the scriptures we have on our chart to memorize. I had him recite it for me and he will get a star on the chart for the completion of that. I will not list all of the prayers that were prayed for Africa today, but some of the prayers that were prayed for the country of Africa today were:

Sean - “Father, I pray that these countries would have your peace. Show them miracles.” (Guinea, Burundi, Kenya, Central African Republic)
 
Sam - “Father, bless these countries with peace. Bless them that they will not go hungry.” (Lesotho, Burkina Faso, Libya, Liberia)

Jessie - “Father, bless these countries. Give them peace. Let them know you.” (Mali, Mauritania, Cape Verde)

Long Long - “God bless the people to have good health, peace, and happiness (Gabon, Ethiopia)

Ivan - “Father, help these countries that they experienced growth, that they have plenty of food and rest (Malawi)

Simeon - “Lift the name of the Lord, lift the name of the Lord, lift the name of the Lord, lift the name of the Lord” (Simeon is an infant - he had hold of the two countries that he was praying for and as we said ‘lift the name of the Lord’ his mother was lifting Simeon over her head each time - he was laughing - and all of the children started hollering the same thing - it was a very anointed time with Holy Spirit laughter) (his countries were Congo, Republic of Congo [Zaire])

We started to learn a new song because once the song is learned, we will learn actions to it about the nations. They will put on nations costumes. “Our hearts, our desire, is to see the nations worship….” When I introduced this song I said, “This is a new song, but not a new song, but new to us.” The Holy Spirit swept in and I just about fell on the floor behind the keyboard. It was very powerful. And then joy swept through the place. We then did a procession, bringing all of these countries into God’s House. Each child had either a country, a flag, or a banner of some type, along with the mothers, and we did a procession with them them into God’s House and then all put our hands toward the middle of a circle and hollered out the name “JESUS!!!” and then gave the Lord a clap offering for about a minute. Then we sang the “Joy Song” exhuberantly with some of our youth leading the song as I played it on the keyboard. It was a very powerful time.

At the end of the time, all of the children were instructed to write down the names of their countries and to remember to pray for them this week.