Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

This Sunday is Bible Sunday in the Church of England Lectionary and we get one of my favourite epistle readings. Seeing the words in a visual way really helps to keep the message in mind. I usually do something with labelled pieces of clothing and then cover all of them with a coat marked love. We have the chance to talk about the pieces of 'clothing' we find hardest to put on and the examples we see in the lives of other people we know. Here's a printable reflective colouring sheet if you'd like to use it. Talk about:   What do these words mean? Kindness, humility, meekness, patience? Which are you good at? which would you like to be better at? what does it mean to 'wear' these things? Who shows these things to you? Why is love over everything? How does love bring everything together? Pray:  Choose one of the virtues mentioned in the verses. Choose something that you wear every day e.g. socks, shoes, hair bobble. Every time you put that thing on over the next ...

Over the past year or so, we have been holding a monthly Muddy Church session for all ages. Muddy Church is an amazing idea and you can find out more (with all sorts of brilliant resources) here. We have adapted the format to suit our congregation and the session is usually a wander through the park with a focus for wondering and exploring, linked to a Bible verse or story. We then finish, after 45 mins- 1 hour, at the cafe for a drink or an ice-cream! We have all ages participating and our usual crowd varies in age from 3-70s. It's great if you want to do something intergenerational! Our most recent session used a verse from Psalm 91 and looked at the theme of God's protection, or what we could find that was 'safe and sound.' Here is a printable version of the sheet we used on our wander: And here are some of the things we found! A Conker hidden in the cleft of a tree Something 'strong' supporting a tree and keeping the branch upright A snail's hiding pl...