Here’s a totally random but potentially useful idea to use in your kidmin.

A little over a week ago, I took my family on a really cool adventure. I’d come across a website that shows you when and where to look to spot the International Space Station. No, really. You tell the website where you are and it tells you when you’ll be able to see it. It will tell you where in the sky it will enter your view and where in the sky it will leave. It will also tell you how long you’ll be able to see it.

To really make this an adventure, we drove almost three hours away to Enchanted Rock… a famous outcropping of granite in the Texas Hill Country that would give us a completely unobstructed view of the night sky. We got to the top of the rock about 15 minutes before the scheduled sighting. When the time came, we were not disappointed. It was the brightest light in the night sky and for the next four minutes, we watched it zoom across the night sky. We then hiked down the small mountain in the darkness which only added to the adventure.

So, what does that have to do with kidmin?

Nothing really, but there are some potentially great applications. Here are a few.

  • The next time you schedule any kind of overnight event (lock-in or camp), plan this as an activity. The best times to see the ISS are shortly after dark, so you won’t have to stay up super late.
  • Make it a homework assignment that ties into one of your lessons, a great opportunity to connect kids with their parents around a fun spiritual conversation.
  • The reason we can see the ISS is because it is reflecting the light of the sun to us in darkness. There are some great application on how we are to reflect God in the darkness.