Faith at Home: Prayer Walk Scavenger Hunt

This is a really practical way to get children involved in a prayer walk around the local area and to help them think about praying for the people around them.  This activity is part of the printable Lent Ideas for Families book and you can print off the stand-alone instructions and picture sheet here if you want to pass it on to other families.

You will need: paper cut into heart shapes, pens or pencils.  Scavenger hunt sheet, phones or digital cameras.

Walk around the streets of your neighbourhood as a family.  Give each child a scavenger hunt sheet.  When you get to a street sign, write down the name of the street on a paper heart.  Look out for things on the scavenger hunt sheet and take photos of interesting things on phones or digital cameras:

When you get home, choose a paper heart and pray for God to bless the people on that street.  What else could you pray about, based on the scavenger hunt? Eg. people staying safe on the road, thank God for pets, pray for friends at school….

Each day pray for a different street and ask God to bless the people who live there.

Open-ended Bible Story Response: Making Pictures

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Hand in Hand Conference in Eastbourne and really enjoyed helping to lead the 'Hands On' stream with Victoria from GodVenture.  We really wanted to give leaders lots of ideas to help children explore and experiment with their responses to Bible stories and in prayer.  What better way to do that then to get the leaders exploring and experimenting for themselves?!

This was one of my favourite activities set up by Victoria and is such an easy but effective way of helping children to respond to Bible stories with freedom.

You will need: Old picture frames, 'bits and pieces' e.g. lolly sticks, match sticks, leaves, glass pebbles, stones, pine cones, ribbons, an old sheet (optional)

Lay out the empty picture frames on the sheet and arrange your different objects and pieces into open containers.

Tell a Bible story and then ask the children to use the objects to make their own picture response either inside or outside a frame.  Leave time at the end for the children to explain their pictures and be ready to be amazed!

These pictures are examples by children's leaders at the conference as they explored the story of Jacob's ladder.

If you give this a go, please do post some of your pictures on our Facebook page!

Review: An Illustrated Lent (with 20% discount code!)

A few months back we had a look at Illustrated Children's Ministry, a new ministry using illustrations as creative way of exploring the Bible with children at church and at home.

ICM has continued to grow its resources and the newest product on offer is 'An Illustrated Lent.'  If you're looking for a high quality product that will engage children in creative and reflective ways over this season, then this might be a solution!  Even better- this is a downloadable resource so you won't have to wait for it to arrive in the post...

There are two possibilities depending on your situation and I've taken a look at both below.  The exciting thing is that Adam at ICM has offered Flame readers an exclusive 20% discount code for this week only- valid until Sunday 14th Feb.  Read to the end of this post to find the code!

The Church edition contains ideas and colour illustrations to engage children with each of the 7 weeks of Lent, using the stories of Jesus in the Wilderness, The transfiguration, Jesus and the fig tree, the prodigal son, Mary anointing Jesus' feet, Palm Sunday and the women at the empty tomb.

Each week's section includes a beautiful colour illustration, some open ended questions, activity sheets and reflective colouring sheet.  What I love about the illustrations and colouring sheets is that they are both simple and unique.  There is nothing saccharine, twee or patronising about them as so often happens with Bible colouring sheets- believe me I would not be recommending them if they were!  

While the word searches might be more suitable for older children, the colouring sheets, illustrations and questions lend themselves to children of any age and I would fully recommend this as a laid-back, thought-provoking and reflective resource to use.  There is much room for the children to respond in their own way and reflective colouring really lends itself to relaxed discussion.  Even better, these come as downloadable files so it is possible to give each child their own copy of the colour illustration of the week to take home and discuss with their family.  If you are looking to get something easy and effective for your church children's work this Lent- this could be it!

...Which leads us on to the family edition of an Illustrated Lent!

Again, there are seven weekly sections, this time focussing on 'Give', 'serve,' 'listen,' 'love,' 'watch,' 'risk,' 'go and tell.'  Each week involves short devotions for the whole family that require little or no preparation (and could be done over breakfast!), questions to go deeper, a hands on activity, prayer and, again, a beautifully illustrated colouring sheet to help with refection and give relaxed time for discussion.

I especially love the 'watch' section where the family is encouraged to look out for sightings of God during the week.  This is a resource that helps you to reflect but also encourages you to get up, go out and do!

So check it out by clicking here and don't forget to use our exclusive code- flame20 for 20% off anything in the store!

Lent Ideas for Families: Printable Booklet

It's that time of year again...

Easter eggs are already in the shops and that's a reminder that Lent is just around the corner!  

Here is a printable book of ideas for the whole family, with an activity for every week in Lent and also one for Easter Day. Weekly themes covered include: 'blessings,' 'love your neighbour,' 'hospitality,' 'giving,' 'praying,' 'fasting,' 'Holy Week,' and 'celebrating.' Activities include a prayer walk scavenger hunt, a reflective colouring sheet and scone pretzels recipe.

When we give these out at church, each family will also have a little bag containing a piece of sandpaper, some strands of wool and a play dough mat.  Nearer to Holy week, each family (or anyone who wants one!) will also get a 'Holy Week in a box.'  See inside the booklet for further details!

Click here to print off and start the journey!