Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

This experiment with skittles is colourful, easy and makes a great statement about what we are asking God to do when we pray.  In essence, prayers are a way of joining with God and asking him to have an effect on the world and situations around us. We pray because we believe that our prayers, through God's power, will make a difference to the world.  In this activity, colour is released from the sweets into the surrounding water, creating a colourful picture, symbolic of how the prayers we raise to God are a way of us joining with Him to release the kingdom here on earth and have an impact. You will need: A bag of skittles, a plate, hot water (not hot enough to scald, but hot enough to make the colour run!) Arrange the skittles in the plate Pour some hot water onto the plate to cover its surface.  Pour it carefully so that the skittles stay in place.  Wait and the skittles will gradually release their colour Try an alternative... Cover the s...

This is a very tactile and visual way of praying for peace and reconciliation that would work for all ages. You will need: small blobs of play dough in different colours Think of and talk about situations where two sides are fighting with each other.  This could be anywhere in the world (e.g. wars) or much closer to home and involve people they know or even themselves.  Talk about God bringing peace and that it is one of our jobs as Christians to pray for peace: God blesses those who work for  peace , for they will be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9) Ask each child to choose two blobs, each of a different colour.  Ask children to blend the two colours together to make a new colour.  As they do so, ask them to pray that the two different sides will come together and make peace.

One of the things I really loved about teaching was helping children to explore their learning styles.   According to educational research, children learn in all sorts of different ways and will prefer some styles over others.  I really believe that the same philosophy applies to worship styles.    Organisations such as Scripture Union are really getting behind this idea, as you can see in their brilliant Explore Together material, which uses 6 different zones based on learning styles.  There are so many ways of worshipping yet, in church, we tend to greatly restrict ourselves to linguistic and musical approaches.  Based on ideas about learning styles, I've put together a survey you could do with children, to help find out their preferred styles and on the second sheet of the PDF you will find suggestions for approaching each style in worship.  I like to… always sometimes never ...