An Encounter With Adventist Education
GENTRY, ARK. – On Jan. 21, 2023, the administration, staff and K-8 students at Ozark Adventist School led the worship service at the Gentry Seventh-day Adventist Church. The service included a slideshow testimonial of the first semester of the year.
Students shared the children’s story, rendered a memory verse recital and sang beautiful music in both Spanish and English. The staff and their families led out in the preliminaries and the sermon was presented by the principal, Tara Bailey, along with the seventh- and eighth-grade classes.
Bailey, a certified trainer for the Encounter Curriculum, presented the two-fold objective for the morning’s Bible class. The essential question: How does God get my attention? The Big Idea: God sometimes gets our attention by sending people to us with a message from Him. These objectives were met by intentionally focusing on the important note: Talking is not teaching and listening is not learning. Your involvement will seal your learning. The congregation instantly involved themselves in an interactive lesson on the prophet Elijah and how important it is to answer when God calls.
The student speakers shared their research on Biblical examples of God’s call to different individuals in the Bible, messages from God provided in the story of Elijah and how the division of God’s people resulted in the reign of good and bad kings. All of this emphasized how important it is to trust God as He leads.
The message culminated with a demonstration of how distractions in this world take us from the Lord’s side and far from hearing His call. The demonstration included the three eighth grade students holding bowls that represented Elijah, Baal and Ashtoreth. Each bowl held small balls that represented the nation of Israel. As Elijah took balls from the other bowls, Baal and Ashtoreth could simultaneously take balls from his bowl. This was to illustrate how distractions and sin in our lives take us away from God. At the conclusion of the message, everyone received an invitation to choose Christ above all other things in this world.
