Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Crafts to help you explore the events of Good Friday. You will need: Hammer, nails, piece of wood, wool, paint, oil, paper, paintbrush, paint container. Good Friday Play Dough Mat Tape resist cross

Here is the next play dough mat in the Easter Story set. This time, we are looking at Good Friday and thinking how Jesus' friends would have  felt when they saw the cross.  This is a very tactile way to help younger children to explore the shape of the cross.  Use play dough to fill in the cross shape and to put expressions on the faces of the people.   Click  here  to print the mat and Laminate it so it will last repeated play dough sessions!

Here is another addition to the collection of reflective colouring sheets I'm building up- this time, helping children to focus on the cross.  To print off a copy, click here. Have fun!

Chalkboard paint is a fantastic thing!  Our children love the prayer chalkboard we have and, when we were planning Messy Church for Easter, it struck me that we could use the same principle with the cross as a prayer response. One of our amazing congregation members built us a cross and Kylé and I set to work with the chalkboard spray paint (much quicker than just painting it on!). After showing a video clip about the Easter story, we showed everyone the dark, blank cross and talked about the sadness of Good  Friday and how we sometime have sad things that happen or wrong things that we do that make us feel bad.  We then reminded everyone that The Easter story didn't finish with Jesus dying but with him rising to new life and that, if we ask God to help us, He would help us to have new starts and hope in our lives when things go wrong. We asked people to come and decorate the cross with coloured chalk as a sign of the new life and hope that Jesus can bring to us. ...

Here's another preview of our Messy Church crafts for Easter! I came across this idea on Pinterest and we love it.  It's quick, easy and makes a really colourful resurrection cross to celebrate Jesus rising to new life!  You can see the original idea if you  click here , but this is how we've adapted it!  Cut out a cross shape (we used A4 card)  Stick masking tape over the cross in whatever pattern you like! Dip the ends of chalk in water and paint with it in the spaces created by the masking tape.  (It doesn't matter if you go over the edges of the tape!) When the chalk is dry, carefully remove the masking tape from the cross!

Here's an activity that will be available at Messy Church this Easter but is also an interesting way to help children reflect on what happened to Jesus on the cross. When using it as a reflection activity, I'd put an adult with the board as a guide and also to help prevent any injuries should a nail come loose for any reason! The board is a piece of wood that I have hammered nails into so children can feel the textures and be reminded of what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. The nails are then used to stretch elastic bands into cross shapes of different colours and sizes.  As children make their cross they can thank Jesus for what he did or talk about what it must have been like for him.  The individual crosses represent us as individuals who have been saved by Jesus and eventually the whole board will be filled with overlapping crosses to represent the overlapping of our own relationships as Christian friends and family.  A note on the board:  I'm n...