Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

The people sticks were quite popular when the children were making up their prayer stations.  Here is another way of using them... Hold one of the wooden people in your hand and pray for someone in your family.  Ask God to help or bless them.

Last week at Tots we tried out one of the new story bags we are putting together and told the story of Noah's ark.  Have a look at what we did! Noah and his Ark Lining up the animals to go on the ark Animals in the ark The rain starts to fall! Back on dry land... Rainbow biscuits-  click  here  to make! We are hoping that the bag will be useful to tell a bathtime story!

This prayer station is by the youngest in the group.  It's very simple, but says a lot! Take a plate and draw a smiley face on it.  Pray for people in the world who don’t have enough food.

This is an easy idea to help pray for healing.  Stickers with names on might work better because we found that pens don't easily write on bandage! Pray for people who are ill and ask God to heal them.  Write their name on the bandage.

Here's an activity we tried in TOTs after telling the story of Noah's Ark.  It's a simple craft and, yet again, includes biscuits- always a winner! Biscuit Runny Icing Fondant icing rainbow shape More runny icing! Smarties!

This is a really considerate station by one of the youngest members of the group... Draw something you like on a piece of paper e.g. One of your toys.  Rip the paper down the middle.  Put one half of the paper on one of the plates and the other half of paper in the other plate .  Ask God to help you share things.

This is another simple but really thoughtful invention by one of our children... There are two plates- one sad and one happy.  Put a gem on the plate that shows how you feel.  Tell God why you are sad or happy.    Say thank you if you are happy.  Ask God to help you if you are sad.

Several of the children decided to make up prayer stations looking at homes.  In this station, person 1 is on the left of the picture and person 2 is on the right. Choose a person and pray for them and their house Person 1- thank God for homes that are safe, warm and comfortable. Person 2- Pray for people who have no homes or whose homes are unsafe and  crowded. 

Here is a station for those who love Lego! Using the Duplo , build a house.  It can be any shape or size.  As you build it, think about people without homes because they have no money or jobs. Pray to God that He’ll give these people houses and a life equal to what we have.

I was really amazed by the ingenuity of this prayer station!  Out of the random selection of things presented, this child chose the ping pong balls and turned them into something I would never have thought of- almost a bowling  game! (In this station 'sin' balls have an 's' on them and what the inventor has termed 'holy' balls have a cross on them.) Put the  ‘sin ‘ balls in a pyramid and think of the things you have done wrong this week.  Ask God to forgive you and break the pyramid up with the ‘holy’ balls.  This shows that God can break up sin and that He forgives you.

Listen to God.  What do you think He would like you to  do in your life?  Do you need to change something or make a new start?  Make a promise to God.  Take a piece of wool and tie it (loosely!) round your finger to remind yourself of that promise.

Here is the first prayer station invented by one of our children: Hold the marble and think of the wrong things you have done this week.  Ask God to forgive you and take away the foil as a sign your sins have been removed.

We had such an encouraging session this morning at church with our 5-11s! Over the past year and a half we have been using regular weekly prayer stations see  our Sunday prayer routine  and  children's favourites , so the children are very used to using symbols and praying non verbally.  This week we thought that we'd let the children have a go at making up their own stations that we could use in future weeks and we were amazed by what they came up with!!  It was a bit of a gamble as we didn't have any idea of what would happen, but as usual, given the opportunity to express themselves and their ideas creatively, the children ran with it and bowled us over. After studying the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13), we discussed the various things that Jesus was teaching us to pray for.  We then showed the children a variety of resources they could choose to use- preferably only one for each station!  We had: bubbles, straws, dice, wooden people on lol...

Having discovered word clouds at  Tagxedo  I thought I'd play around a little! We were looking at the story of Jesus walking on the water and Peter getting out of the Boat to join Him so I copied the text (Matthew 14: 22-31) and pasted it into the word cloud creator.  I made an oval and then inverted it so that the words were around a blank space in the middle. After telling the story, I then asked the children to take the word cloud and see what stood out to them from the words they could see ans from what they had heard.  We prayed that God would speak to them and then everyone sat in silence for a few minutes while they drew or wrote what came to mind in the space.  It was amazing to see what different things about the story spoke to different children and they were able to explain quite clearly what their responses were, having had time to reflect! Jesus helping Peter when he was sinking Believe that Jesus can help when you are afraid ...

This is a way for our 3-5s to think of things to thank God for in a very visual way.  I put together a selection of clipart images of recognisable everyday items such as a ball, a TV, a home, books, bananas, sun etc and then printed them, laminated them and stuck a little bit of magnetic strip on the back.  We had a spare magnetic board lying around that we could then stick the pictures to.  Now, either as a structured or independent activity,  the children can easily choose something to say thank you for and because they are magnetic, the pictures won't be easily lost!

A fun way to learn and remember a memory verse.  It works roughly along the same lines as a beetle drive, only in this game you have to throw a 1 before you start because you always need the first word! Memory Verse Dice Game  1.       You must throw a 1 to start 2.     When you throw a 1, colour in the first word of the memory verse 3.     Throw the dice again.  Colour in the word that matches your number. 4.     If you have already coloured in all the words of that number wait until your next turn and try again! 5.      The winner is the first person to colour in all of their words. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Give thanks to the Lord and pray to him Psalm 105 verse 1 For a printable version of the game and some blank grids click  here.

Today in Sparks we told the story of the feeding of the 5000 using our story stones... It was very difficult to try and explain the concept of 5000 people to the 3-5 year olds so that they could then understand how amazing it was that Jesus could feed them with only 5 loaves and 2 fish so we tried something a little different to get the point across! I've recently bought myself a popcorn maker and it seemed perfect for an illustration. First I showed the children a small measure of popcorn kernels and all of them decided that there was certainly not enough there to feed everyone in the room.  It was less than a handful!!  We then put them in the popcorn maker and switched it on.  They were fascinated to see the popcorn start to fluff up and pour out of the chute.  Eventually we had a massive bowlful that fed all of us with loads left over!  It really helped them to understand the idea of Jesus making such a little provide for so many.  We then...

This is an easy way to get children to pray for others and will appeal to the kinaesthetic learners!  It's similar to the  thank you tower  idea we use with the 3-5s but involves naming those things and places we'd like God to bless. All you need is Duplo blocks, thin labels and pens/ pencils. Get the children to write names on labels, stick them on a block and build them into a tower. Each time they add a block to the tower they should ask God to bless that person or place.  Each visible side of the block can be labelled.  How many blessings can you build into your tower?

A few months ago I wrote a post about the prayer box we were taking into our lunchtime club at school.  Click  here  to read the details! We have now settled into a routine with the box.  We spent the first session of the term teaching the children (school years 3-6) how to use the prayer stations and now we have them out each week as they come in and we spend the first few minutes letting them choose stations to visit.   Our main weekly stations are: World prayers (with inflatable globe), thanks- either with graffiti board or playdough, prayer requests, healing board, sorry whiteboards. With the prayer requests and healing board, we let them stick a smiley face next to any answered prayers and we are starting to see results a few weeks in! Healing board Prayer requests

 I was thinking about prayer labyrinths the other day and came across finger labyrinths- a portable and very sensory version of the tradition!  I had a go at making one and really found that tracing the path helped me to focus in prayer.  I thought about buying some for the children to use because it might appeal to the more kinaesthetic while they are listening to God in silence but soon realised it was going to be very expensive as we might like to give all of the children a chance to try it at the same time!  The next best thing I could do was make my own.   I'm afraid they're not as tactile as wooden ones might be, but the sense of following the path on a journey with God is the same!  We tested them out with three of the children at Powersource and one, at least, really seemed to find it useful.  We'll introduce them to the children as a whole in the coming weeks.  As with everything, what appeals to some will not appeal to all, but if ...

Today we are looking at salt and light in Beacon club and Powersource (Mattthew 5: 13-16). Here are some creative ideas to open up discussion and put the point across... Being Salt: Salt and shake crisps This idea came from an  Urban Saints Energise  lesson plan and it was an amazingly simple and effective illustration.  The only problem is finding salt and shake crisps nowadays (big supermarket needed!) Open an bag of crisps and let the children taste them plain.  A lot of the children at this point said 'Yuk'!  Then open another packet and do the salt and shake routine.  Get the children to taste them now- much better!  This really put across the point of 'being salt' being about making things better for people somehow and putting some flavour into life. Being Light: Glow in the dark stones The object of choice to talk about light seems always to be candles, but it struck me that something glow in the dark was more to the point! ...

I happened upon this amazing website today and it really got me thinking about how we could use it to help the children (and ourselves!) reflect on Bible readings... I've always loved word clouds but been frustrated by not being able to save them.   Tagxedo  has solved this problem!  Not only can you save word clouds as JPEGs and PNGs, but you can also choose shapes to form the cloud into.  Here are a couple I made, using shapes to reflect the content. Jonah Chapter 1 Salt and Light, Matthew 5 They are so easy to create by copying and pasting Bible passages.  As with all word clouds, the most frequent words are larger.  It struck me that, after reading the passage, the children could then spend time looking at the word cloud, reflecting on the words that jump out at them and then we could use their responses to start a discussion.  This might especially appeal to visual learners.  We're doing Salt and light tomorrow at Powersource so ...

About a year ago we realised that it would be good to get some consistency in how leaders and children approached behaviour management.   As most leaders are on the rota once a month, it proved a little bit tricky to keep boundaries the same from week to week!  No one wants the children to feel that they are back in school on a Sunday morning, but behaviour boundaries need to be respected and children actually seem to feel much happier when they know how far they can go! As the best reward systems are positive and let the children have some ownership, we put it to out 8-11s to come up with a plan.  This is what they came up with! Rules: ·          Respect others ·          Always be sensible ·          Speak kindly and positively ·          Only one person speaks at a time ·     ...