Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

This is our second monthly take home prayer activity for our local primary school. After we had demonstrated the prayer activity in assembly, each child took home a small pot of bubble mixture and a prayer card to try it themselves! To print out a sheet of the prayer card, click here.

After the success of our Prayer Space at school and the enthusiasm from the children, we thought it would be a great idea to give each child a practical prayer to take home with them. It was a great idea until I found myself sorting skittles into 120 little bags. Fortunately it's a fairly small school! I went in to school to do a collective worship session where I demonstrated the prayer activity and then each class was given prayer bags to distribute to the children. I know from feedback on the street and on my next visits that at least some of the children did the prayer at home, so I will call that a good result! You will need : a copy of the prayer and a small bag for each child, Skittles sweets, bag ties, stapler. I put roughly 10-12 skittles into each bag, tied the top of the bag and then stapled the prayer to the front. Click here to print off a sheet of prayers.

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...

This weekend I am off at a gathering of churches from our diocese and beyond and will be running a workshop for parents about how they can help children to engage with faith at home.  To give them some ideas for praying together, I've made up some bags which we will work our way through during the session! Here's one of the bags laid out... I've included: some bubble wrap, felt tip pens, spotty paper, play dough, play coins, plastic teaspoons, bubbles, pipe cleaners, playing cards, skittles sweets and lego. Here's how I will suggest we might use each item (after getting some ideas from the parents themselves which will probably be even better than these ideas!!) Family Prayer Bag 1.  God Venture Skittles Prayers:   (Found at http://godventure.co.uk/prayer-activities/sweets-prayer/ - thanks Victoria for this amazing idea! ) Choose a skittle at random, say the appropriate prayer and then eat it! Red: family Purple: friends Green: the...

Here is our second prayer bag for children to take home.  Like the Family prayer bag for 3-7s , this bag has ideas that families can use to pray at home and each one will only take a few minutes.  This bag also takes into account that the children of this age group will be more used to our prayer routines and may want to do some  things independently!  All bags will be ready to give out in the next couple of weeks, but why not try some of the ideas at home before they arrive... B ubbles C ounters (card squares) Laminated  3 in a row prayer game (to print out click here  ) Laminated w orld map Spot s tickers Journal notebook Felt tip Prayer chatterbox (to print out click here ) Post its  'Sorry'  acetate Bubble prayers Say thank you or sorry to God or ask Him to help you.  At the end of your prayer, blow some bubbles as a sign of your prayers going up to God. Prayer journals Use the notebook to write and draw your ...

In an effort to help parents with ideas for connecting children with God at home, over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to get some prayer bags made up for each child.  For the 3-7s age group the activities are suitable for using as a whole family, each taking just a few minutes!   As we don't have massive groups of children, with a little organisation and outlay this is going to be possible!  The purchases I've made are: paper bags, plastic teaspoons, dice, small pots of playdough (4 pots for a pound in the pound shop), bubbles (9 for £1), party blowers (10 for £1), bags of pound shop lego (1 bag will supply about 4 children).  Everything else has been printed off and laminated! ·          Teaspoons (click  here  for teaspoon prayers explanation) ·          Prayer cube (click  here  to print off) ·          Die ·...