Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

This is a talk that can be easily used in an assembly or for an all age service and focuses on the idea of Jesus being an unexpected gift. You will need: 4 items to wrap as gifts.  One should be really easy to guess (e.g. a book), a couple should be quite difficult to guess (I used sunglasses and a duck shaped door stop!) and one should be an ordinary looking, quite boring container with chocolate coins hidden inside. Ask children what their favourite thing about Christmas is.  Gifts are bound to come up! Talk about why we give gifts- to show people that we love them and care for them.  Ask some of the children to try and guess what is wrapped up in your gifts.  Start with the easy to guess gift, proceed onto the harder to guess gifts and end with the box containing chocolate coins.  Each time, after guesses have been made, reveal what the gift is.   Explain that sometimes we know immediately what we've been given but sometimes it's harder to work it...

This is a lovely idea that Dave J used this week in our all age service.  It was something that all ages could do and was a very active way of blessing people! You will need: thin purple ribbons, long enough to tie round wrists. Talk about purple being the colour that a lot of people use to decorate churches with in Advent. Talk about what hope means (this could be linked to the first candle on the Advent wreath!). Discuss the idea that Advent is a time of hope and waiting for Jesus to come again- waiting for a better time when there will be no more death or sickness or crying.  Give everyone a purple ribbon and ask them to tie it round the wrist of someone else in the group, praying as they do so that that person will have hope in Jesus in the coming weeks.   This worked really well for a group that covered ages from 0 to adult, though children needed a little help with tying!

This is a tool to help children to tell and discuss the Nativity story.  Simply use the print out to make up a cube and tell the story using the pictures!  Then you can throw the cube and talk about whatever picture lands face up.  See what the children remember  and what they like best about the story. There are pictures of... The Star of Bethlehem Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus The Three Wise Men A Shepherd An Angel A candle (to discuss Jesus as the Light of the World) There is a full colour version to tell the story with and a colour- in version so that the children can make their own cubes to retell the story. Click on the links below to print off the pages Nativity story cube (full colour) Nativity Story Cube (colour-in)