Jill Benson
I work as the Dwell Curriculum Coordinator from my home just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I've interacted with Dwell as a teacher, parent and Children's Ministry Director and am passionate about bringing the big story of the Bible to kids of all ages. I enjoy in-depth study of God's Word and hold degrees in Biblical Languages and Old Testament from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I love that in my role I get to connect with Dwell users throughout the continent and connect them with one another. Outside of work, I fill my days with reading, writing, knitting and chasing after my two young children with my husband.
Posted in: Resources for Teaching Youth About Worship?
The middle school level of the DWELL curriculum has a unit on worship during which the group plans their own worship service. It's year 3, unit 1 of the Dive level of DWELL. CRC churches can access the leader materials for free on DWELL Digital if you'd like to look at it to see if it would work. You can also preview the leader guide and accompanying DIVE magazine on the Digital Library. You might need to adapt it a bit for it to work with the older kids, but since you can view it for free, it might be worth looking to see if there are parts of it that would work for your group.
Here's a link to the first session of the unit on DWELL Digital (you'll need to log-in to view the whole session, but can preview it without a login). And a link to the leader guide and student resource on the Digital Library.
Posted in: What Faith-Forming Children's Books Do You Love?
5 of my favorites for telling particular Bible stories are in this post, and there are some great books for celebrating diversity at the end of this resource. Some other favorites that come to mind (not necessarily "Christian" but they have certainly been faith-forming for my kids):
- After the Fall and Beekle by Dan Santat
- The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld
- Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour
- The Invisible String by Patrice Karst
- Can I Play Too by Mo Willems
Posted in: Bringing the Christmas Season Into Your DWELL Sessions With Simple Advent Wreaths
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
Posted in: COVID-Moments From A to Z: How Making a List Helped Me Practice Gratitude
I love this, Trudy! Thanks so much for sharing.
Posted in: Sunday School During COVID?
Hi Kristin,
There are some churches doing in person Sunday School with DWELL or DWELL Flex. If you'd like to connect with them, you could consider joining our DWELL Leaders Facebook group and asking this same question there.
If you're looking for curriculum to use, DWELL Flex is nice because if you end up going back to virtual you can continue using the same curriculum. It's designed to adapt to church, virtual or home learning. And it's free for CRC churches through DWELL Digital. You can find out more details about Flex on the DWELL website: DwellCurriculum.org.
Posted in: From a Garden to a City: Looking Forward With Hope
Thanks, Melissa. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Posted in: From a Garden to a City: Looking Forward With Hope
Yes, so true! That combination of action and reflection is so important.
Posted in: Resources to Talk Race and Racism With Children?
I have the book And Social Justice for All by Lisa Van Engen. It has a chapter on race and at the end of the chapter includes discussion questions for different age groups (3-6, 7-11, 12+). It also has things you can do with those age groups (often the suggestion is reading a particular book together). I haven't read through the whole chapter (or the whole book), but what I've looked at has been very helpful!
Posted in: A Simple Way to Encourage Family Faith Formation with Free DWELL at Home Resources
You're welcome! So glad to hear that it's helpful.
Posted in: Freedom to Lament: Journeying Together Through Pandemic Pain
Thanks, Karen!
Posted in: How Do You Manage Craft Resources for Preschool Ministry?
When I worked in Children's Ministry, I had a volunteer who organized all this for me. We had a huge supply closet and she organized all the supplies on shelves in that room. Each whole shelving unit had a letter and then the individual shelves on that unit had a number. She placed the craft items in different baskets and used circle stickers to mark where the item was stored on the basket. She also wrote down where everything was stored. For example if glue sticks were on the second shelving unit in and on the third shelf of the unit she wrote down, "Glue sticks B3" and then also put the glue sticks in a basket and placed a "B3" sticker on that basket. I typed all the information she had written down into Excel and printed out master lists organized by item name and by shelving unit, which we placed into the room. That might be a bigger system than what you're looking for, but it was very helpful! If you needed something you could just look it up on the list and then it told you which shelf it was on. We did have to clean it out about once a year though, as we had a lot of trouble with people not putting things back in the right place or leaving things in the room that didn't have a place. The volunteer that set it all up usually cleaned it out every summer for me.
Posted in: DIY Advent Calendar
Thanks for this great idea! We already have several ways we track the days in Advent, so I made envelopes just for the weekends during Advent. The Saturday envelopes have a fun activity we have scheduled for that day and the Sunday ones have a little description of that week's candle that we read as we light our Advent wreath at dinner. They look beautiful on the wall, were easy to make, and my kids love checking them each weekend to see what we have planned!