Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

If you want to offer an absorbing and challenging way for children to explore the story of Zacchaeus, then look no further.  This is a great way of helping them to think about the determination of Zacchaeus to see Jesus, because it will take some determination to complete the task!! You will need: Dried spaghetti, mini marshmallows and a plastic Easter Egg Challenge the children to build a 'tree' with the spaghetti and marshmallows, that will support and hold a plastic Easter egg (real eggs are way too heavy for what they are likely to build!) Talk about: How easy was it to build the tree? What difficulties did you encounter? What difficulties do you think Zacchaeus encountered in the story? What lengths would you go to to see one of your heroes? What lengths do others go to in order to be Christians?- think about the persecuted church When do you sometimes have to be determined? Do you ever have to use your determination in order to live as a Chris...

Here are some ideas for exploring this passage... This session was used with a group of children ranging in age from 2-10 so there are lots of hands on things to do!  Memory verse hunt: Cut out the words of the memory verse below and hide words around the room.  Everyone will know that you are my followers if you love each other. John 13: 35  Children find words and have to make the verse when all words have been collected. Make up actions to try and remember the verse. Make bookmarks using the memory verse.  Make hearts using thumbprints Talk about:   What is love?  Talk about love for friends and family.  How do we show that we love each other?  Jesus showed love for Peter. Even though Peter denied him, Jesus forgave him and gave him a job to do and Peter went on to do great work for God (we had been looking at some storie...

This prayer activity links really well with the story of Jesus calling the disciples but could be used to pray for anyone or any situation! You will need: strips of paper (experiment with length but the ones shown are roughly 10cm x 2cm) Scissors, pens Choose a strip of paper and write on it the name of the person or situation you would like to pray for.  Cut slits near to the ends of the strip as shown below.  Fit the slits together to make a fish shape.  Now comes the fun part! Hold the fish high in the air and let it go.  As it gains momentum you will see it start to spin! Talk about: Discuss the story in the Bible where Jesus calls the disciples and sends them out to make more- turning fishermen into fishers of people (Matthew 4:19) What does it mean to be a disciple? How would people know that you are a disciple? How do you think that the disciples made more disciples? How would you try? Pray Think of people who don't know w...

This is a fun idea to help children to think about praying for others to know Jesus and about how our behaviour as disciples can rub off on others. 1. Get a blank greetings card (or a piece of card folded over!) and draw a cross on the front.  Cut out the cross shape, making sure the fold remains in tact.   2. Open the cross up.  Colour one side of the card very thickly with crayons. Make it very colourful! Talk about the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, thinking about the forgiveness and the new life that he brings.  This is what the colour represents.  Talk about how when we have good news we want to share it with others so that they can be a part of it too.  Who do we know who we'd like to share in the forgiveness and new life that Jesus brings?  How could we behave so that some of what we know rubs off on them? 3. Fold over the card again so that the coloured section is inside.  Write on top of the cross the names of people you wo...

This week we've been looking again at being the salt of the earth and talking about how, as disciples, we can lead 'salty' lives of compassion for others and love of God.  I wanted to get across the idea of having to grow as disciples and that this will take time, so I had a little bit of an experiment with growing salt crystals! Here's what you do... Put some salt in the bottom of a jar (probably a bit less than shown in the picture!)  Pour in some water to fill about 1/4 of the jar and mix with the salt.  Not all of the salt will dissolve and you will be left with a thick salt layer at the bottom of the jar.  This is fine! Tie a string to a pen or pencil (as in the picture) and dangle the string in the water.  Let the pen rest over the top.  Put the jar/pen/string somewhere warm and wait!  Over time, evaporation will happen and salt crystals will start to form on the strings.  The picture below shows a few days growth only. U...

Yesterday I was working with one of our children on communion preparation.  Part of what we talked about was discipleship of Jesus.  If we wanted to follow him, how could we show that in our everyday lives?   I wanted to get across the idea of following being an active thing so we made a sandal (or flip flop!) of ideas!  I found this craft on Pinterest here , but we put a discipleship slant on it! Cut out a flip flip shape from card and make 3 holes like so... Put a pipe cleaner underneath the flip flop shape and thread one end through hole A and one end through hole B. We chose people we would try to remember to pray for and then chose a button to represent each person, threading the buttons onto the pipe cleaner ends.  We then threaded both ends through hole C to make the flip flop strap and secured them underneath. Now we discussed things we could do (achievable things!) that would reflect the fact that we were trying to live out what Jesu...