Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Here's a fun way to pray creatively and symbolically give over prayers to God.  You will need: an A5 sheet of very thin paper or tissue paper.  4 strings of equal length (about the same length of the sheet of paper), a large button (or a little plastic person if you have one!), a hole punch, some scissors and some pens. Punch a hole in each corner of the sheet of paper. Tie a piece of string through each hole and attach each string to the button or plastic person.  Think about things or people you are worried about and talk about how it helps to give our worries to God and ask Him to help us.  Write the people or things you are worried about on the paper and pray that God will help you to release them to Him. Climb on a chair or stand at the top of some stairs.  Ask God to bless these people or situations and release the parachute as a sign of letting go of the prayers and trusting them to God.

Here is a play dough mat to help children explore the story of Pentecost. Click here to print out the mat, laminate and let the children use play dough to make tongues of fire coming from the heads of the disciples. Think about: How would you have felt if you had been a disciple on that day? What might the other people, who saw and heard the disciples have been thinking and feeling? Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit? How did the Holy Spirit help Peter? How could you ask the Holy Spirit to help you? Pray: Pray that we will come to know the Holy Spirit working in our lives and helping us. Pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to speak to other people about who Jesus is.

I found a cheap salad spinner (£4 in IKEA!) and was finally able to try out some spinner art!  It's brilliant: quick, clean (because the spinner sits in its own bowl) and each piece is unique!  The process of making the art really lends itself to Pentecost themes so here's an idea to help celebrate the occasion... You will need: A salad spinner; red, yellow and orange paint, small paper plates, a tub of hair gel (optional)   Put a plate on the bottom of the inside of the spinner and blob some paint in.  Put the lid on and spin!  It only takes a few seconds of enthusiastic spinning and this is what you get... I think that trying to get the plate balanced across the bottom of the spinner would have helped this one (above) to be a little less lop-sided!  Some sites recommend adding a blob of hair gel and it does make the paint a little more runny.  Experiment and see what works best for you. I love it!  I tried it out yesterday ...

This Sunday the lectionary covers the story of Thomas being invited to touch the wounds of the risen Jesus and recognise him.  A lot of the time when we cover this story with children we focus of the idea of faith and being able to believe even though we don't see.  It struck me that it's also about how we recognise Jesus and what implications that might have for us as disciples. Here are some ideas to help explore the theme! Games:   'Feely' bag.  Can you recognise the item even if you can't see it?  How did you know? Blindfold a child and get them to fell the face of another child.  Can they guess who it is? How? Get a collection of celebrity photos or photos of people in the church.  How many people do you recognise? How? 20 questions- can you guess the mystery person?  What helped you to guess? Make a diagram to identify eveyone in the group by looking at hair/ eye colour etc. Think about: Even after doubting, Thomas saw Jesus...

A few weeks ago we had a village creativity day which involved quite a lot of mess!  Here's a great activity we did that can help children to engage with the New Life theme of Easter: butterflies painted with rolling eggs!  I like the idea of rolling eggs symbolising the stone that rolled away from the tomb at Easter, so that was an added bonus that we could talk about to the children who came along. This was especially popular with boys- maybe something to do with the high activity level! You will need: A deep sided tray, plastic Easter eggs (that you can put something inside!), marbles, paint, paper butterfly shapes.  Place your paper shape inside the tray.  Put a marble inside each egg you are going to use to paint with.  This will give it a little more weight.  Add a few spots of paint to the paper (less really is more in this case!).  Now shake the tray from side to side so that the eggs roll across the paint and decorate the paper. ...

Here are the final two play dough mats for the Easter Story.  Click here  For the 'In the tomb' play dough mat. Click  here  for the 'He is risen' play dough mat. Print out, laminate and get started with the play dough!

Here is the next play dough mat in the Easter Story set. This time, we are looking at Good Friday and thinking how Jesus' friends would have  felt when they saw the cross.  This is a very tactile way to help younger children to explore the shape of the cross.  Use play dough to fill in the cross shape and to put expressions on the faces of the people.   Click  here  to print the mat and Laminate it so it will last repeated play dough sessions!

Here's our second ever guest post!  This time Traci Smith introduces an idea to help children think about giving to others during Lent.  I'll hand over to Traci... In a new book from Chalice Press called   Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life , author Traci Smith shares dozens of simple practices to equip families of all kinds with the tools they need for bringing faith home. Today's idea is specifically for the season of lent, and it encourages families to connect the spiritual practice of almsgiving to food and hunger. Though we are in the middle of lent, this practice can be started anytime during lent and does not have to be the full 40 days long.  Download the PDF from the book  or continue reading for more details!  Almsgiving: 40 Days of Giving During Lent Giving to the poor is a key feature of most of the world’s religions. In Christianity, giving is especially important during Lent. Almsgiving is one of the three tra...

Here are some ideas for activities if you want to try out Messy Communion!  Our celebration section wasn't officially communion, but we talked about the last supper and shared some bread and wine in a very open and mToving way.  Here are the crafts and activities we did before the celebration started...  Last Supper Play dough mats.  Click  here  to print.  Memory game tray: study the tray, then remove an item and guess what's missing  Making toast (use a bread stamp to stamp a message on the bread first!)  Remember me jigsaws.  Click  here  to print, then laminate and cut up!  Making grape juice  Decorating special cups Easter Word Searches Bread and juice to share

Here is a play dough mat that would work well with older children as a prayer activity. Click here to print out the sheet Speak about Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane.   Think about the hard thing he knew he had to do but that he wanted to do God's will anyway.   Ask children about times when they face hard things.  How might they ask God to help them?   What does it mean for 'God's will' to be done in our lives? Encourage children to make leaves for the tree.  For each leaf they make, pray for someone they know, asking that 'God's will' be done in their life.