Extreme Makeover - CE Edition!

It's Extreme Makeover - Christian Education Edition!

Ever since the Associate Pastor's wife and I get back from the Pastor's Wives Retreat last week, we've been plotting how to revitalize a classroom in our building that we share. She is going to be teaching the Junior High Youth group in that class beginning next month and I just started teaching the Bible story for the Wednesday evening children's program in the same room.

What color do you paint a classroom - especially one with a weird green carpet?

I decided to look up information on the psychology of color and found out that children love bright primary colors. But red stimulates a faster heartbeat and intense emotions. Definitely a "NO" for the room. (The boys in our class gave us a thumbs down for pink so that's out too).

Yellow is out too since babies tend to cry more in a yellow room and people tend to lose their tempers more often, even though yellow is a sunny, cheerful color.

While I loved purple as a kid, not everyone does. Since we also share the room with two other teachers on Sunday mornings, purple may not work.

That pretty much left shades of blue (peaceful), green (calming) and brown(earthy). So armed with our new found knowledge, we went shopping and brought home some paint chips. We chose an aqua blue for the walls because it looked better with the carpet and a mocha color for the trim in the room.

So far we found a wonderful brown area rug to put in one corner. We plan to make throw pillows of coordinating blue and green to sit on along with a great wooden bench that's already in the room. We're planning on coordinating blue and green curtains. I found some fun posters with hidden Bible pictures in them - you almost have to be cross eyed to see the real picture...

What fun! We plan to start work this weekend and continue whenever we can until it gets done.

Though we know we don't have to go overboard to make the room look like a page from Better Homes and Gardens, we do want the children to feel welcome and happy to be there. Any place that generates more pleasure than negative feelings will be a place where children will want to be. So we'll paint the walls with eye pleasing colors and ask God to color our hearts with love for these precious saints under construction.