Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

I'm so excited to introduce our first guest post from Kate at  Jesus Without Language .  If you've not visited her site yet, follow the link above and check it out!  Kate's come up with this great idea for praying with pipe cleaners.  I'll let her explain it... Hi - I'm Kate and I usually put material over on my site Jesus-Without-language . I'm a big fan of Flame Creative Kids and I'm really honoured that Mina has allowed me to guest post this creative prayer idea. Sometimes we need to pray for big things, people in war, a natural disaster, a political situation... but sometimes big issues are just too big to grasp. This prayer activity breaks them down into nine more specific prayers. This activity is based on a fig tree - the fig tree symbolised stability and was a usual place to be found praying in Jewish traditions. Twist Prayer trees :  Materials : 4 or 5 pipe cleaners (chenille stems), scissors, tree template (optional). Start with...

Here's a bag I've put together for my placement church to help with Baptism services.  It can be used to help teach children about the elements of Baptism and can also be used during the service for children to play with! Contents include: Baby doll Reflection bottle 'water' ribbon streamers battery operated tealight bowl crosses Baptism of Jesus fuzzy felt 'My Baptism Book'

With Valentines day approaching,I've seen a lot of crafts on Pinterest recently related to love and hearts.  For some reason, it made me think about those people who find this time of year difficult because they have lost someone or feel broken- hearted for some reason.  I came up with this prayer idea to help children to think of those who need to know God's love in a healing way.  It would also work well when looking at the beatitudes- especially 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted' (Matthew 5:4).  It could even be adapted for 'Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God' (Matthew 5:8)! You will need: Sticky backed plastic (contact paper), a large roll of wallpaper backing or other paper, small cut up pieces of coloured paper.  Cut out a big heart shape from a piece of backing paper.  Cover the heart with sticky backed plastic (contact paper), sticky side down. Turn the paper sticky side up.  Children can take...

I'm making a Baptism story bag for my placement church so that we can help children to relate to what is happening during the service.  It seemed a good idea to get something related to the story of Jesus' baptism in there, so I've made a fuzzy felt set to help tell the story. I've made a few sets now, gluing the felt base to the inside of a box lid and putting the rest of the pieces inside the box.  This makes it easy to to tidy away and keep everything together! As you can see, I've used pale blue felt for the base, two shades of blue for waves, a dove and some hearts to help to emphasise God's love.  I cut a slit in the dark blue wave layer so that the stick 'Jesus' could move easily up and down in the 'water'.   More details of the Baptism bag to follow soon.  It's nearly finished!

I came across some ideas for crayon melting on Pinterest recently and couldn't resist having a go! Click here for the original idea on The Kinder Kid .  Here is my take on crayon melting with a message...   I happened to have a silicone mould with people shapes that I'd picked up at the pound shop, though really any kind of mould would be fine.  Silicone worked with no mess, but I'm probably not ever going to be using it for baking again! Break or cut crayons into small pieces and get children to arrange various colours in the moulds.  Don't fill right to the top or you may have spillage!.   Talk about the different colours representing different skills and gifts that different people within the church or within the group have.  Children might choose specific colours to represent what they know of certain people. Now put the mould into a preheated oven at about 200 degrees (e.g.quite hot!) and bake for anything between 5 and 8 minutes. ...

Here is the last installment of the series on Psalm 139! This section looks verses 23 and 24 at the end of the Psalm.  While I don't think we should always shield children from the difficult and harsher parts of the Bible, for the purposes of this series I've left out verses 19-22 as they are not massively constructive without A LOT of deeper discussion! In verses 23 and 24, the Psalmist asks God to search and know their heart and to help them to follow God's 'everlasting way'... Games: Play a version of tag where players have to run from one side of the room to the other.  If they are caught on the way, they will have to join the team of taggers. It will get more and more difficult to follow a straight path to get to the other side! Alternatively, set up an assault course for children to pass from one end of the room to the other. After playing discuss how it can sometimes be hard to get from one place to another.  Sometimes the path is quite winding!  T...

This activity is based on verse 16 of Psalm 139:   In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. Building on the other activities so far, speak to the children about how God knows all about them and, that even before they were born, He had plans for them.  Show the children some maps of the local area, road maps, globes etc and talk about the journeys we go on in life and how we sometimes end up in places we'd never imagined we would be.  Spend time exploring the maps! Speak about the children's hopes and dreams for the future including where they would like to travel to and help them to pray that God will show them what His plans for their life are. As a symbol that they are trusting God to show them the way, let the children draw their initial letter on an old map (or a print out from the computer!).  Get the children then to cut the letter out out so that they can pin it somewhere as...

Looking at the next theme of the psalm (found especially in verses 7-12), involves a game and a craft... Mirror Game Pair the children up and allocate them as person A and Person B.  Get the children to stand facing each other and then ask person A to perform a series of movements that person B has to copy as if looking in a mirror.  After a while, swap roles so person B performs the move and person A copies.  After everyone has had a turn, speak to the children about how God is always with us and, like the person who was following all our movements, He follows everything we do and everywhere we go. Craft This craft will help the children to think about God covering and protecting them wherever they are and wherever they go. You will need: Envelopes, collage paper, glue, buttons  1.  Stick down the flaps of the envelopes and then cut the envelope into quarters.  This will give you 4 pockets per envelope.  Each child needs 1 pocket! 2.Enco...

Here's the next post in our look at Psalm139, focussing on the theme of 'God made me in a wonderful way' (based especially on verses 13-15). This relies on having access at least to a sink and a microwave! You will need strawberries, lolly sticks, chocolate, sprinkles to decorate (and preferably some chocolate covered strawberries pre-made already!) The idea is that the children will have the chance to make something that involves a lot of intricate processes but is wonderful as a result. We're trying to get across the idea of God's love and knowledge of everything that makes them up. If you have some pre-made chocolate strawberries to start with, it would be interesting to see the children's reaction to what is inside (if fully covered with chocolate it won't be immediately obvious!). The steps involved in making these with the children can include: washing the strawberries hulling them drying them (if you don't do this, the chocolate won...

This month I'm putting together some ideas to help teach themes from Psalm 139: God knows me God made me in a wonderful way God is always there and He protects me God has plans for me Help me to follow your ways To help the children to reflect on the words of the psalm, I've put together some word clouds.  The first cloud will help the children just to focus on the important words.   The second cloud can be used to help children to record their personal response to the psalm- simply write or draw in the space! To print off a sheet containing both word clouds,  click here. Here's an idea to help look at the theme 'God knows me'- more themes to follow in future posts! Talk to the children about themselves.  What is special about them?  What are they like?  What do other people know about them? Is there something that only you and your family know about you? Talk about the fact that God knows them as deeply as they know themse...