How to Prepare for Sunday's sermon

Taken from Listen Up (click HERE to find out more about this book)

1.  Look up next Sunday's Bible passage and read it at home during the week.
2. Pray for Pastor Duke in the middle of the week.
3. Pray often for yourself, that, by His Spirit, God will grow in you a heartfelt expectation that God Himself will speak to you as His word is preached.
4. If you can, try not to come to the sermon exhausted, but to come rested and ready to pay close attention.
5. Deliberately prepare your mind and heart before the sermon and say to yourself:  "This is when God speaks to me."  Pray again:  "Lord, speak to me.  I am listening."

Did you notice 3 out of the 5 tips involve prayer?

Let the little children come (more specific)

Emmanuel’s mission statement begins with the following phrase:  glorifying God by making disciples.  Our children’s ministry wants to do this.  Two ways we need to make disciples are by helping parents understand their God-given responsibility to make disciples of their children and by providing God-glorifying, Bible focused lessons that point to Jesus.
There are two big opportunities for everyone at Emmanuel Baptist Church to get involved in ministering to children and families.

SONSHINE: 

The Sonshine carnival (06.23) and Sonshine (06.24 – 28) are coming quickly.  There are lots of way you can help with that: 

• Bring cookies or kool-aid
• Invite neighborhood families to the carnival and Sonshine
• Especially, pray for Sonshine.  Pray for Pastor Andrew and the teens and adults as they continue to prepare for this big week.   Pray for the children and families who will be visiting our church for these events.  Thousands of invitation cards were just mailed to houses around the church.

EKIDZ FALL MINISRY:

Pray for the preparation going into our fall children’s ministry.

Specific things to remember regarding this ministry:

• Tonight (06.06) and next Wednesday (06.13) there are children’s ministry Q&A times for parents and teachers at 7:00.  Please plan to come out to one of these meetings to hear about what we are planning to do in the fall.
• Teachers, assistant teachers and future teachers, I also want to remind you of three very important & necessary curriculum training times:  Saturday, June 16 (6:30 – 8:30); Wednesday, June 20 (9:00 – 11:00) and another time after Sonshine (check www.emmanuelbaptist.com/children for date and time).  You can go to the children’s webpage to see previews of the curriculum.
• Please email children@emmanuelbaptist.com if you have any questions.

Let the little children come...

Two prayer requests related to EBC's ministry to children and families:

1. Summer - Sonshine carnival (06.23) and Sonshine (06.24 - 28).  Pray that these would be great opportunities for us to minister to the community around the church.
2. Fall - Two services and changes within the children's ministry.  Specifically pray for teachers who are going to be trained on the new curriculum over the summer (check out www.emmanuelbaptist.com for information about new curriculum and training times)