With the change in temperature comes a change of schedule! At Sparta Church, lot of our regular programs take a break, but there are lots of special gatherings and opportunities.
Summer is from June 21st- September 6th. 

Watch the video above to get the scoop on Summer Sundays! 

Summer Updates:

• There are no CORE classes for the summer! 
• Are you nervous about your kids sitting in the Worship Center? We have a new resource for you: a kids sermon note sheet. This worksheet is a tool to help our kids learn to listen to a sermon. Worksheets will be available to take as you walk in to the Worship Service. This will begin Sunday, June 21st.  At the end of each service during the summer, kids can show their worksheet to the Children's Ministry team at the front Info desk and pick a small reward (ex. small toy, sticker). We love having all ages in  worship together and hopefully this encourages our kids to participate in the Worship Service alongside the adults! Check out the worksheets here
• We will have "All Together Sunday" Multigenerational Worship services on July 5th and September 6th. These are Sunday services that are intentionally geared towards having our kids in the Worship Center service with us. There will be sermon-based activity sheets available, and some special moments geared towards our younger church family members. On these Sundays, only the Nursery and Family Room will be available.  We encourage families with kids ages 2 and up to have them join us in the Worship Center!
• 4REAL Worship continues during the summer at 10:30  (except 7/5 and 9/6).
• Nursery   is available both services every Sunday 
• The 2-4 year old rooms are available at both services every Sunday except 7/5 and 9/6.
• The Family Room is available both services every Sunday

If you are feeling the pressure to make summer special for your kids, consider reading the following article from Amy Payne at the Gospel Coalition. Her article encourages parents that perhaps our job isn't to be the "chief memory maker." She points us to scripture and reminds us that God calls us to remember His faithfulness. 
 
"When I look to Scripture, I find that a particular type of memory is highly valued. Again and again, God’s people are called to remember his works.
This is at odds with my natural memory-making efforts, which can turn into stressful attempts to provide “core memory” opportunities. The value I place on these opportunities starts to feel silly as I dig into what the Word says about remembering. When God’s people remember his works, the Lord uses this recollection to quell our fears, deepen our trust, and align our focus on him..."

This summer, when you're doing chores around the house or riding in the car, lift the mood and redeem the time by memorizing scripture with your kids! Studies show that it's easier to memorize words when they're set to a melody. Below are just a few samples of music that have paired scripture with song. Everybody's musical tastes are different, so check them out and see which suits your family best!

Hey Parents!

How is the first week of summer going for your family? Whether your kids are little or big, home, private or public schooled, summer represents a change in schedule and pace for most families.  Does the change in season bring up any issues in your home?  At my house, when we are on summer break, it's amazing how quickly our house can descend into cleanliness chaos.  As a result, one of goals for my family this summer is to keep our house tidier.  How will we parent this?

One principle I have found to be true is that "more is caught than taught." Those of you who know me I am a prolific talker and I love to teach. Shockingly, my children don't seem to listen to all the verbal lessons I offer them. However, they do notice what I do!  So how are we going to keep our home tidier this summer?   Initially, my mind went to sticker charts, routines, and other sorts of "programs" to try to teach the kids to keep the house clean. These are all great tools,  however, I was quickly convicted that my own "picking up" skills are...ahem...lacking. After reflecting on this, our new plan is for my husband and I to lead by example and bring our children into these routines.  As they see mom and dad work on becoming neater, hopefully they will catch on to this skill for themselves!

If you were in church last week, you noticed that summer brings change there too! (Not sure what I'm talking about? Read or watch the info below to get the scoop on Summer Sundays!) For many of you, you'll have your children sitting next to you in the Worship Center instead of being in the CORE classroom.  I know this can be a challenge for lots of us.  However, where summer reveals a problem, it also often offers the space to  be intentional and work on it. That's why we've provided a tool to use : our Weekly Sermon Worksheets. Hopefully these will be useful to your family. Here's what our family discovered our first week trying it: if an adult also does the worksheet, that can be very encouraging for our kids (an, interestingly, helped us better attend to the sermon!). Doing the sermon worksheet alongside or with our kids helped everyone engage with God's Word!