This morning, we had a very “packed” worship service. It began with the Chapel Team leading the pledges, The Lord’s Prayer, O Canada and the Land Acknowledgement. This was followed by the first song, “Awesome God”. Students were most familiar with the chorus and the volume of praise reflected that.
Next, the Chapel Leaders led the reading about the actions of respectful leaders. Then, they went through three different classroom scenarios. Each scenario had two different possible responses. For each of the three, students were asked to choose the one that demonstrated respect.
For this month’s Care & Share, two representatives from Grade 5 announced that we would be collecting men and women’s winter gloves or mittens to support City Street Outreach, a 100% volunteer organization, that provides food and clothing to homeless individuals in the GTA. Adult gloves or mittens can be brought in on Wednesday, January 29th.
Our second worship song was “Indescribable” by Jesse Reeves and Laura Story. It praises the amazing power of our God!
After the singing, the Grade 4A class presented their Bible memory verse, taken from Philippians 4:8. They recited the verse with actions but also broke down each section, explaining or giving examples of each.
Next, there was a new video about CRISP Kids Questions. A video featuring various students sharing what respect means to them was shown.
Our guest speaker today was Pastor Ian. After asking the students to guess his sport (participation and interest), he opened with a word of prayer and launched into his message about respect – respect for authority and respect for “stuff”. He identified that God is our first authority. He pointed out that the first four commandments in the Ten Commandments are about God. The second part of the Ten Commandments focuses on others. Jesus also taught in a similar manner, sharing that the Greatest Commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Then, to love others / our neighbours as ourselves. Pastor Ian also pointed out that the first commandment about others (commandment #5) is about honouring our parents. He shared some stories about his own family but summarized that obeying our parents means “obeying right away, all the way and in a happy way”. Attitude, action and approach matters and reflects what is in our hearts. Pastor Ian also spent some time talking about respecting our”stuff”. He pointed out that this is tied to the concept of stewardship. God has entrusted us with many things and it is our responsibility to care for them. To conclude, Pastor Ian used his usual Super Practical Application Time (SPAT) format. He shared that we can respect authority by praying for our parents and their relationship with God. We can also obey them “right away, all the way and in a happy way”. Lastly, we can be good stewards by remembering that everything comes from God and we must take care of it.
After the message, the Chapel Team led the audience in repeating the aspirational closing passage.
