Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

For those of you who have followed this blog over a period of time, you will probably know that last month saw the publication of my first book.  I am so excited about it! The book looks amazing and has loads of ideas for helping you to introduce Holy Communion to under 5s.  There are play sessions for Creche areas, sessions for more formal children's church settings and ideas for when you have no children's groups at all. There is also a section for what families can do at home to explore the main themes. What is extra great about this book is that it comes with downloadable and printable material.  To give you a taster, here is one of the play dough mats that links with a session exploring what it means to be part of God's big family.   To print click here You can buy the book here (overseas postage is available) or on Kindle here. Have fun!

For those of you who are looking ahead and planning for Ascension day then this is for you- but even if you're not, this is a great activity to help children think about giving their prayers to God!   This appears as one of the crafts in last month's Premier Youth and Children's Work magazine, which is amazing always worth a read :-) You will need: A plastic bottle or glass jar, water, vegetable oil, food colouring, Alka seltzer tablets Fill a bottle or jar halfway full with water and mix in some food colouring.  Now fill the rest of the bottle with oil, leaving a small space at the top.  The oil will separate from the water into a separate layer.  Drop an Alka Seltzer tablet (or try a quarter or half at a time if they are large tablets) into the bottle and watch as bubbles of coloured water start to ascend into the oil layer in the style of a mini lava lamp!   Talk: Watch the bubbles rising and thin...