Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Today in Sparklers we had a go at mess free painting and made some rainbow pictures!  Click here  to find the Pinterest post I got the idea from!  This would be ideal for a lesson on Noah's ark and I might try it out next term in Sparks.  This is what we did... Squirt some paint onto some card (not too much!) Put the painty card into resealable sandwich bags and close them.  We then laid them out on a mat for the children to access easily as they wanted. Squidge the paint over the card by pressing on top of the bag. Carefully remove the card from the bag when you've had enough squidging! Hang the pictures up to dry!

Our vision for the children is that they will come to have a deeper relationship with God that is all their own.  Part of going deeper with God inevitably involves a questioning process.  Sometimes this involves the children asking their own questions and sometimes it involves leaders asking them questions that are open ended and allow them to think, respond and elaborate on their ideas. One idea that we have started to use is question balls.  We've used these before with ice breaker questions on them, but this time the questions are spiritually focussed!  Children throw the ball to someone.  The catcher has to read out the question where their right thumb lands and try to answer it.  this is best done in a small group so that there is space and time for listening and elaborating!  It's so interesting to hear what the children think and just shows us the depth of their thinking about God... Here is a list of questions I've written on th...

We couldn't let this week pass without making a link to the Olympics, so we had a lesson on endurance today!! We started by building towers with blocks and seeing who could get the tallest tower before it fell!  If it fell down you just had to start all over again and keep going!  As we were running a summer Sunday session for a group of 3-11s this was especially good as every single child could participate at their own level. Next we looked at the memory verse from Hebrews 12.v1 and put it together with duplo blocks. When we'd put the verse together and looked at its context in the Bible, we needed to unpack it a bit more! We got some battery operated fairy lights (batteries previously removed) and asked the children to switch them on.  When they couldn't we put in the batteries and established that, to keep lit up, they needed batteries to power them.  We also looked at a wind up torch and saw that it wouldn't keep going unless we kep...

As part of our lesson looking at endurance (a link to athletes at the Olympics starting next week!), we used some Duplo to put together the memory verse we were looking at... We gave the children labelled blocks, each showing a word from the verse and asked them to try and work out what it said.  Two rather enterprising children worked out before anything else that the verse was Hebrews 12:1 so requested a Bible.  The rest of the group tried to make sense of the words while they looked it up.  Everyone else then had to listen carefully and put everything in the right order.

After telling the story of Matthew's call to be on Jesus' team of disciples, we discussed the wider issue of being on a team and linked this to the excellence you needed to be on an Olympic team.  This is the talk we gave and the prayer response we used... Before the talk, give everyone a card disc with a 'J' written on the back.  All of them should be silver except for 5 which should be gold.  Distribute the gold ones randomly but make sure they are given out! So who here is on a team? (discuss teams) We’ve picked some teams today already. Look at your medal.  Who’s got a gold one?  Well done.  You are the gold team!  Come up here to get your prize! Present medals- applause How does it feel to be chosen? How does it feel not to be chosen? When I was at school I never got chosen for teams.  I was really bad and always got picked last for PE.  I always felt like I was no good.  Has anyone else had that? In the...

In our celebration slot at Olympics Messy church, we focussed on the idea of being on a team and how you could be part of Jesus' team.  This is the story we told and it involves a lot of audience participation!! Story- The Call of Matthew. Being on Jesus' team Matthew was someone that no one really liked! ( Boo!) He collected tax money from people-  probably the job that people hated most (Boo!) Nobody wanted to speak to him.  (Boo!) Jesus came to town one day (hurray!) He brought his team with him!  (hurray!) Everybody came out to see Jesus and cheer! (hurray!) Matthew sat at his desk because he still had a job to do (boo!) Jesus (hurray!)  walked over to Matthew (boo!) Watch Jesus tell him off the people said (hurray) "Come and be on my team!" Jesus said (WHAT?) "WHAT?" Said all the people "But everyone on your team has to be amazingly and brilliantly good at being perfect.  You must have it wrong.  He...

Today we had our Olympics Messy Church and a great time was had by all! Here are the crafts and activities we had on offer... Gold medal biscuits: Digestives, yellow icing, smarties and fizzy belts Olympic ring prints: Kitchen roll tubes, paint and paper Olympic torches- paper cones, crepe paper, sequins Frisbees- 2 paper plates stapled together and decorated.  They were then thrown onto targets to collect points! Laurel crowns- hole punched paper leaves strung on to 2 joined pipe cleaners Laminated flag jigsaws Baby area- including rings and mug trees! Bottle hoopla  We also marked a court on the floor and played our own version of tennis with fly swatters and a balloon! More to follow on the story and prayer activity!

As part of the child led lesson on the Lost Sheep we had this week, this is how we prayed... Before the younger children came down we hid lots of paper hearts around the room.  After we had told the story, we talked very briefly about how God loved each one of us as much as he loved the lost sheep he went to find. The children then went to find all of the hidden hearts.  They each write their name on a heart and placed it on  top of our lovely cuddly sheep toy.  A leader then said thank you to God for loving us and thank you for the people we love. Everyone said a big Amen and the older children taught the younger ones an active way of 'Amen' ing!

One of the new ideas we've tried out this term is to encourage the children to take a more active part in the teaching on a Sunday morning.  This was our first attempt... After teaching the 5-11s the story of the lost sheep and getting them to reflect and respond creatively (see  here  for details), we asked them to think about how they would teach the story to a younger age group. We divided the lesson into parts: Worship game story craft prayer Children decided which part they'd like to help lead and then they got into small groups, with some adult input where necessary, and planned what they would do to lead that part of a lesson for 3-5 year olds. This is the plan they came up with: Worship- sing 'Great Big God' and 'Bigger than big' with actions (children leading) Game- squeak, squeak, Baa, Baa- a variation on a well known game where a child turns their back and has to guess who has said 'squeak, squeak, baa, baa' st...

Yesterday at our final school lunchtime club of the term we took an Olympic theme! We started by throwing beanbags at targets, giving children several chances to improve on their scores.  This set the scene of determination! After telling the story of the man through the roof (see the three card story telling method  here !), we discussed the determination of the men to get their paralysed friend through the roof to Jesus.  They didn't give up because the house was crowded!  This led to discussion about other things in life that we need to keep going with, even though they are hard work and linked with the Paralympic value of determination. Children made 'Olympic torches' by sticking lengths of yellow and orange crepe paper to card cones.  They then wrote on the cones the things in life they needed determination for.  Finally we prayed that God would help us to have determination in these areas and waved the torches around to some loud Amens! ...

Today I was telling the story of the man lowered through the roof to Jesus to some 7-11year olds.  They always respond much better with a visual element, but I didn't have much room in what I was carrying so I told the story with 3 pieces of card... Two men carried their paralysed friend to see Jesus. When they arrived at the house where Jesus was.. ...it was so crowded that they couldn't get through the door! So they carried their friend up the stairs at the side of the house, onto the roof. They made a hole in the roof... ...and lowered their friend through it into the house below. Jesus spoke to the man, forgave his sins and told him to get up and walk. Their friend was healed!  The men went home praising God!

Here is a game we used to introduce the verse from Matthew 7: Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 The game has two parts... Part 1- getting your cards I printed out enough cards for each child to have a set each and on the back put coloured marks, so we had a blue set, a green set a red set and so on. We then mixed all of the cards up and dealt them out to the children so everyone had equal numbers but all the colours were mixed up.  The children had to choose which colour they were going to collect by looking at what colour they had most of in their hand. Next the children went round asking whoever they wanted if they had a card of the colour they were collecting.  The rule was that if you were asked, for example, for a red card and you had a red card you had to give it to the asker.  If you had 3 red cards though, you only needed to surrender 1!  The children really loved goin...

Here is our next new story bag, which we tested out in Sparks this week! Contents: 2 Daniel board books Lion cuddly toy finger puppet sad and happy faces to discuss feelings in the story lion mask 3 lion sticks and a box 'pit' Daniel and King stick puppets Angel figure We told the story using the bag and then acted out being lions who had our mouths closed by an angel- roaring one minute, then stopping suddenly on a signal. We asked the children to build dens for the lions... And then made a paper craft with hearts to remind us that God loved Daniel and saved him from the lions. We also talked about Daniel being brave and trusting in God to help him.  We talked about times when we were scared and then built a strong tower with the lego to show that God can help to make us strong when we are afraid!