Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Every week we go into school to do a lunchtime club with 7-11 year olds.  Because everyone's learning style is different it's hard to keep everyone focussed at the same time,  but this activity had everybody participating for the whole time and they loved it!  More than that, it really helped us to go deeper with the children and to help them express their ideas about spiritual matters.   The children had expressed a real interest in talking about Heaven.  We'd discussed it the previous week but I wanted the children to show me their ideas and to see what being creative would uncover! We started by asking the children to imagine a place where they felt entirely safe and entirely happy.  We then invited them to choose a foam sheet of a colour that represented that place to them.  Next we told them that the Bible says that heaven is a place where there is no more death or crying or fear or sadness (except maybe tears of joy as one pointed out!)....

Last week we had Anita from Finland staying with us and she was able to tell me a little bit about her work using Religion Pedagogishe Praxis, a German method of spiritual exploration with children, involving the group making a symbol of the story with colour and small objects. I really liked what she told me and wanted to try out some of the ideas! RRP is not well known in the UK so I can't claim to know any of the theory but I just wanted to explore what would happen if I used  some colours and objects with children to help them explore an idea.  I'm hoping to learn the proper process at a future date!!   Anyway... I put together a basic kit box I could use quite cheaply from The Range and from stuff I had already lying around. A multipack of felt rectangles and a multipack of coloured foam sheets (children need a choice so there needs to be a few of each colour). Candles, tea lights and a set of tiles from the pound shop Buttons, shells,...

This Sunday Sparks learned about Zacchaeus, thinking about the theme of Jesus being our friend. After telling the story, this is what we did... A group collage, sticking leaves on a picture of the tree where Zacchaeus hid, giving the opportunity to recap on the story with the children. Remembering that Jesus went to eat with Zacchaeus by playing with the toy food and tea set. Playing with toy money to remember what Zacchaeus did before and after meeting Jesus. Remembering that Jesus wanted to be Zacchaeus' friend by drawing our friends and saying thank you to God for them. Singing 'Jesus love is very wonderful'!

Last week we went into school to do a SEALS assembly about changes based on the story of Abraham being called by God to leave his homeland and journey to a distant land (Genesis 12). We started with a game... We got 10 yellow ball pool balls, 5 red and 5 blue  and shared them out as follows into 3 baskets spaced out across the front of the hall: Left basket: 5 yellow balls, middle basket 5 red and 5 blue balls, right basket 5 yellow balls. 2 volunteers stood by the left hand and right hand baskets.  When I shouted 'go', they had to change their balls one by one until the left basket had 5 red balls and the right basket had 5 blue balls.  The first to change all of their balls was the winner.  All of the children in the hall were cheering on their favourites and from this game we introduced the idea of 'change'. We then talked about God calling Abraham to leave everything behind to journey to an unknown place (mirroring what would happen after the summer w...

Today our theme was 'Bigger than Big' so we set out some things that would reflect lines from that song we love!  We also wanted to give the children more of a chance to explore and investigate so we got the ohp and some colour acetates out... Big and little balls (and massive balloons!) books around the theme Instruments to reflect 'louder than loud'!  These came in really handy when we sang the song. Bubble wrap to explore 'stronger than strong' Investigating shapes and colours on the OHP Chalks on giant and small chalkboards We had a lot of fun and enjoyed the slide and seesaw too!

This prayer activity is fun and interactive and can be used with children from 3 upwards.  We gathered together some laminated maps of the world, the UK and the local area.  Then we stuck them on the wall, but you could do this on the floor if you wanted to!  We put a blind fold on a child and turned them round and then got them to stick a hand sticker onto one of  the maps.  The child them took the blind fold off to see where the sticker had landed.  We then asked God to put his hand over that place and to bless it.  

Yesterday we had a brilliant whole church day!  Our themes for the day were relating to each other and reaching out to the city.  Here are the crafts we did in the workshop time to encourage the children to think about being God's hands in the city and having hearts filled with his love.   Decorating hand and heart biscuits Great Commission hand print banner Outreach bracelets to remind us to be God's hands in the world Cutting and painting hearts and hands to make into bunting to hang as a reminder

Here are the gifts we made for Father's day in Powersource this week! Shirt and tie cards Marshmallows dipped in melted blue candy melts and then topped with sprinkles. Hope the dads enjoyed them!!

This was an improvised game that turned out to be a real hit! You will need: Fly swatters- 1 per player (we had hand shaped ones from the pound shop!) An inflated balloon Hit the balloon with the fly swatters!! We played 3 v 3 in a large space.  The object of the game was to get the balloon to touch the wall behind the opposing team.  It was fast moving and half way through we had to introduce the rule that you were only allowed to touch the balloon twice in a row.  The children loved it, played non- stop for 20 minutes and would have carried on if the leaders had had the energy!  They especially loved doing high fives with the flyswatters each time a goal was scored!

I was thinking about how the children love using the globes and world map to pray for the world and wondering how I could make something big enough for everyone to use at the same time. As I was walking round the pound shop I found a shower curtain and remembered the days of teaching when, if we wanted a really big image, we'd project it onto the wall with an overhead projector. So.. I taped the shower curtain to the wall, made an OHP transparency of a world map outline and projected the map onto the curtain.  In hindsight it would have been much easier if I hadn't taped the quite thin curtain onto a wall with a mural on it.  It got quite confusing when trying to work out what was a line on the map and what was part of Noah's Ark underneath! After about 20 minutes, I'd traced the outline onto the sheet with a permanent marker and it was much bigger than the biggest map we'd used for praying with up to now, though I am a little bit concerned that I might ...

As part of our lesson on Bartimaeus yesterday, we played I Spy and linked it to saying thank you to God.  As most of the 3-5s are not really up on their letters yet, we used colours instead .e.g 'I spy something that is red'.  When the children had guessed what the item was, we discussed why we needed the item e.g fire extinguishers (red!) were useful for putting out fires so it was a good thing we had them!  We then all said 'Thank you God for Fire extinguishers, amen,' and the next child took a turn.  The children really enjoyed this and you could use the game anywhere and any time to prompt the children to think about the things around them and say thanks to God! To make it even more of a game, you could even give them a tube to look through as an I spy 'telescope'!

Today with our 3-5s, we looked at the story of Bartimaeus and had a lot of fun!   We told the story and everyone had a pair of these glasses made of card and pipecleaners so that we could all practice not being able to see and then being able to!  The glasses were so easy to make and so effective.  The children loved them!  I found the idea on this  Pinterest pin  if you want to see the original idea. After we'd talked about the story we then talked about why we need our eyes.  We put blindfolds on and tried to guess the items in the feely bag! Next we let the children choose an activity. They could draw a picture of Bartimaeus being healed by Jesus (we had lots of smiley faces on Bartimaeus!) or choose from these options: Playing with a selection of goggles, sunglasses and blindfolds Thinking about how Jesus can heals us and playing with the doctor's kit and the toy ambulance Using their eyes to help them put together s...

After creating the  pray at home bag for under 5s , I thought it was time to give the older children something to match!  The bag is designed for the 7-11s to use more independently and for the 5-7s to use with a bit more parental support.  The children will be used already to most of the prayer ideas inside it because of the prayer stations we use on a Sunday morning (see  Our Sunday prayer routine  and  children's favourites ).   Details of the contents and prayer ideas are below.  For a printable version click  here Contents: Laminated world map Round stickers Battery operated tea light 2 blue stones 1 die Buttons (use as counters) Laminated prayer bingo game (for a printable version click  here ) Post it notes Prayer diary Pen Bubbles Magnetic writing board Playdough Duplo blocks     World prayers Choose a country on the map.  Ask God to bless that country.  Stick ...

I recently came across chalk board paint for the first time.  Two coats of paint and literally anything can become a chalk board!  It's quite cheap as well, so that's a bonus! We always have a  graffiti board  as one of our Sunday morning prayer stations, but to give us a little bit of a change I've swapped the cardboard for a chalk board.  All I did was paint one of the random bits of hardboard    left over from the building work and now we have a five foot long, reusable board.  The children love using the coloured chalks as well.  It's always good to have some variety in prayer!

This Sunday in creche, the theme was God the Creator.  Here are some of the things Catherine put out for the children to explore and play with...  Toy farm Books about plants and animals Pictures of insects Discovery basket of natural items (including seeds in the bag!) Farm and creature jigsaws Fruit and vegetables with different textures to feel... We also sang one of our favourites- Bigger than Big!