‘God truly blessed our day at Quest!’
Inaugural Quest event a fun, faith-filled success BY MELINDA SHUNK Children’s Ministry Coordinator
S
ept. 15 was our first Quest ever and it won’t be our last, so don’t be sad if you missed it! Just be sure to mark your calendar and share pictures with your students for next year. We have no doubt that word of mouth will do most of the publicity for next year’s event and will surely double this year’s attendance of 150. St. James Christian Life Center was the perfect host church for this event under the leadership of their Children’s Minister Sean Dunbar who made sure we had everything we needed to make the event run smoothly. Michelle Wilkins, Sadie Wohlfahrt, Peaches Smith, and Tiffany Jones helped with all the registration, set up and take down throughout the day. The lessons were written by Karen Swales who spent countless hours planning and writing appropriate third through sixth-grade lessons. We were blessed to have the Rev. Zach Roberts, the Rev. Jonathon Bevil, Pam Snider, and Melinda Shunk to teach each group of about 30 children. Sure we had bounce houses, an amazing playground, nine square, photo booths, and box lunches, but what touched children’s lives the most was bagging rice for the food pantry, worship with students serving Communion, and hands-on fun rotational lessons that taught kids that our God Loves Us, our God Chooses Us, our God Gives Spiritual Gifts and God Calls each of us. “Wow! We had a great time! Kids showed up Sunday to church with their crosses on from the Lesson from Pastor Zach,” said Anne Stocks, Children’s Minister at Trinity United Methodist Church. “They seemed so much more plugged in and invested 9
The Rev. Jonathon Bevil helps to shephered children tasked with leading Holy Communion. Each pair of servers was guided by an adult. || Photo by Melinda Shunk
ARKANSAS UNITED METHODIST
