Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

It seems such a long time since I lasted posted but the reality of ministry leading up to Christmas is a bit crazy! I was lucky enough to be given a copy of Illustrated Children's Ministry' s 'An Illustrated Advent for Families' and some of our families have been working their way through it in the last few weeks. Although, so close to Christmas,  it seems the wrong time to be reviewing an Advent product, I wanted to make sure that we had given it a good go! There is so much to recommend about this product and, though it may be too late this year to start using it, I am entirely sure that next year's version will be just as amazing! For a single family to purchase a digital copy of the pack costs $10 or about £7.50 and there are options for churches to buy a licence to send it to multiple families for a really reduced price, which is a great bargain.  What is helpful is that a downloadable sample is available so you can get a taste and see if this would be...

This year I have seen a variety of lovely ideas online for helping children and families to get involved with the Advent season.  Drawing on some of the ideas I've seen, I've come up with a little bag of things to give out (along with prayer ideas for each item) which will take people through some of the main Advent themes.  Putting the bags together doesn't take all that long when you have everything you need and it's quite therapeutic to paint a whole load of Baby Jesus stones! If you want to find out a bit more about the baby Jesus stones, click here. For each bag you will need: A prayer sheet ( click here to print), A felt or paper star, a felt or paper heart, a pipe cleaner, a baby Jesus stone, a tea light candle, an organza drawstring bag (I used purple bags to reflect the liturgical season. First paint your baby Jesus stones. I used white and brown paint and a black paint marker (but a sharpie would probably work too). I also covered the finished pain...

One of the themes that runs through accounts of the birth of Jesus is that of 'journey'. Mary, Joseph, the wise men and the shepherds, all make their own journey towards Jesus and his birth.   This 'colour-in' reflection on the journey theme takes children through a labyrinth maze to the nativity star at the centre.  While they are thinking about the journeys the various characters take, children might also be able to explore their own journeys towards finding out more about Jesus. Click here to print the page. Talk about: Why do we go on journeys? What is it like to go on a journey? How might these people have felt as they travelled? What does it feel like to reach the end of your journey? Which 'journey' character do you think you are? Pray: As you trace the path, pray for people who are on a journey, far from their homes. Pray that they will get to their destination safely.  Pray for all those who are on a journey, trying to fi...

Advent is nearly here and Christmas is coming!  Here are my top 10 ideas from the Flame archive to help you with your preparations... Printable Nativity Character Prayer Cards Jesse Tree Advent Journey Play Dough Mat Emmanuel Reflective Colouring Sheet 24 Things to do in Advent: Printable Booklet for Families Nativity Story Bag Advent Hope Ribbon Prayer Christmas Card Snow Globes Nativity Discovery Box for Under 5s Nativity Story Cube (Full Colour or Colour-in versions)

This is one of our most popular crafts at last week's Messy church and was a hit with all ages- from adults down to the youngest children.  These sun catchers are great to colour and display in your window.  Let the light shine through! You will need: Clear acetate, Sharpies or permanent markers, copies of the picture sheet. To print the sheet click here .  Print off the picture sheet and either  1:Photocopy it onto clear acetate, cut out the individual pictures and let children colour them with markers or  2. Lay clear acetate over the top of the picture sheet so that children can trace over the outlines of the pictures with black marker before cutting out the picture and colouring the rest of it in. Have fun!

We are getting ready for our light party next week and a light themed Messy Church as well!  This is one of the activities for Messy Church that we just might have on hand at the party as well.  Play dough is always a favourite. If you want to print out the mat, click here. Remember to laminate the mats if you want to reuse them in the future :-)

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the  Lord  your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9 This craft is a very visual way of helping children to explore the idea of the presence of God with t hem, even in the hardest of times.  You will need: sheets of paper, watered down ready mix paint,  paintbrushes, wax crayons or oil pastels. Screw the piece of paper up into a ball.  Open the paper out and look at all of the creases.   Rub a crayon or oil pastel over the creases and they will pick up the colour.   Think about times when life has seemed a bit like this creased up piece of paper; when things have gone wrong in life, or when things have been hard or painful. Let children choose a paint colour that most represents God to them and use it to paint over the top of the creases until all of the white paper has been covered. Even thou...

As I am becoming more aware of the different needs children have and the different ways in which we connect with God in prayer and reflection, I am also becoming more aware of multi sensory tools!  I really like finger labyrinths as a prayer tool and this is a very touchy- feely version I have recently been exploring.  The idea with this method is that there is a marble trapped between two layers of felt, which you move along the labyrinth path with your fingers. There are obviously much more elaborate labyrinth patterns you can make, but I wanted to keep my first try as simple as possible... You will need:  Pieces of felt (for each labyrinth I used 2 rectangles of 15 x 12 cm), embroidery thread, needle, scissors, marbles Lay one rectangle on top of the other and sew the edges together, leaving a hole of about 2.5cm at the top left hand corner (as shown below). Slip a marble through the hole so that it sits between the two layers of felt.   Sew y...

Often we avoid speaking to children about sad and traumatic times, but to do so is to do them a disservice.  This activity helps children to pray for themselves or others who are going through sad times and gives an opportunity for discussion to be opened up. It is helpful, in this activity to use the verses from Revelation 21: 3-4 where the new heaven and new earth is described and we can see that, in God's kingdom, all sadness and pain will be taken away for ever: I heard a loud voice from the throne. It said, “Now God’s home is with people. He will live with them. They will be his people. God himself will be with them and will be their God.   He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, sadness, crying, or pain. All the old ways are gone.” You will need: Strips of paper (5cm by 2cm is a good size), ready mix paint, water, baby oil (or vegetable oil, but this will give yellow drops!), containers for the paint. Water down som...

Using wooden spoons painted as story characters is a great way of helping to tell stories to younger children. Unfortunately, it means that you need a lot of spoons if you want to tell lots of different stories! It struck me that a little bit of left over chalk board paint might solve that problem... I painted some craft spoons with  couple of coats of paint on both sides. I then got the chalks out and drew on some pictures to help tell a Bible story.  The great thing about spoons is that they are double sided, so if you want to tell a story like Jesus calming the storm, you can put storm on one side and sun on the other. Children could make their own drawings to retell a story and the best part is that, when you have finished, you can wipe them clean and use them again for a different story!   Enjoy some story telling and do post any photos of your creations :-)