2009 Story Tent: The Joy Committees
10th Anniversary of the Story Tent
In any collection of "old favorite" bible verses, the opening words of Psalm 100 are sure to appear: "Make a joyful noise to the Lord of all lands." Over the last several years, joy has been a familiar topic at Saugatuck. As one of the issues raised by the Marketing Ministry Team, and as a focus of the church's 175th Anniversary, talk about joy seemed to be everywhere. And yet, it can still sometimes feel a little confusing.
This year, the 7th and 8th grade class took Psalm 100 as their Story Tent text. Over the year, we studied these powerfully joyful words and asked ourselves some initial questions:
- What exactly is this joy thing anyway?
- How does joy differ from happiness?
- If it's so natural, why does the Bible need to tell us to be joyful?
- And what are the things about us that keep us from the kind of joy we all seek?
We then created characters to embody the different things in life that keep us from joy and set them in motion to see how we can overcome those things — and with the help of God, even overcome ourselves.