Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Have a look at this guest post by Cathy Porter, all about her new book and then print off and play the memory pairs game she has made! Hi, I’m Cathy. I’m ordained, married to a vicar and mum of three children, 2 of whom are autistic and all of whom tend to be anxious, questioning and inquisitive. We try to explore faith together at home in a hands on, messy, all included, everyday kind of way. So I am often over here gathering new ideas from Flame Creative Kids! I asked Mina if I could let you know about my latest book – ‘So many answers’ -   all about how God always answers prayer. It’s one of those go to books that will help you face the difficult questions and disappointment when your kids can’t see how God has answered, or for the times when he doesn’t give us the answer we hope for. In ‘So many answers’ I open the faith-story with the voice of a child expressing their doubts that God always answers prayer, and gradually explore in a very visual way how we ex...

I was very excited, this week, to be given a review copy of the new resource from Illustrated Children's Ministry - An Illustrated Earth for Families  and I have to say that we wasted no time in trying it out! An Illustrated Earth For Families is a downloadable resource that includes 12 separate sessions for the whole family to use together.  Each session includes a Bible story, questions, storytelling cards, a prayer and two colouring sheets- a simple one for younger children and a more complex version for older children and adults. The sessions are split into 3 sections (Water stories, Plant and Food Stories and Animal stories) and each section finishes with four practical ideas for the family to do together. Some families from church had a go at one of the sessions and it's fair to say that they had a great time! Here's a review from Emma and her two boys.. C (aged 5) was very excited when he saw the colouring and when I said 5000 he knew the story from School....

Today I'm really excited to bring a  guest blog from Adam at Illustrated Children's Moments .  This is a new resource that will really help children to engage with the Bible.  There are free resources too!  Be sure to check out the website... I’ve often come to Flame Creative Kids for ideas and resources for my ministry in the past, so it’s a great honor to be here today sharing with you about Illustrated Children’s Moments. Through this new venture, I’m creating original artwork for use with children’s ministry and helping to bring the Bible to life for kids. On November 16, we are releasing four brand new products: 1) Advent materials and resources for churches, 2) engaging and interactive Advent materials for families to use at home, 3) Five Advent coloring sheets, and 4) an Advent Coloring Poster pack. I wanted to share with you about two items today that will hopefully give you an idea of what we’re all about. Illustrated Children’s Moments Children’s M...

I'm so excited to have Victoria from GodVenture contributing a guest post with a Nativity theme! Her site has some brilliant prayer and devotional ideas for children and families and she has written some great books to help the family celebrate Jesus together.  Be sure to check out GodVenture ! Here's what Victoria has to share... I’m always looking for different ways to play with the nativity story, and since I have two girls under five who love dressing things, I thought this would be fun for them. It’s DIY fuzzyfelt, and it only took me about 30 minutes to make! All you need is: Felt Sharp scissors for cutting felt A big piece of card or board for your backdrop Masking tape I started by taping a huge piece of grey felt to my board. They were a little concerned that the grey wasn’t a nice colour, but I knew the other brighter colours would look good on it. You don’t have to use grey of course, and you could make your board out of different piec...

Here's our second ever guest post!  This time Traci Smith introduces an idea to help children think about giving to others during Lent.  I'll hand over to Traci... In a new book from Chalice Press called   Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life , author Traci Smith shares dozens of simple practices to equip families of all kinds with the tools they need for bringing faith home. Today's idea is specifically for the season of lent, and it encourages families to connect the spiritual practice of almsgiving to food and hunger. Though we are in the middle of lent, this practice can be started anytime during lent and does not have to be the full 40 days long.  Download the PDF from the book  or continue reading for more details!  Almsgiving: 40 Days of Giving During Lent Giving to the poor is a key feature of most of the world’s religions. In Christianity, giving is especially important during Lent. Almsgiving is one of the three tra...

I'm so excited to introduce our first guest post from Kate at  Jesus Without Language .  If you've not visited her site yet, follow the link above and check it out!  Kate's come up with this great idea for praying with pipe cleaners.  I'll let her explain it... Hi - I'm Kate and I usually put material over on my site Jesus-Without-language . I'm a big fan of Flame Creative Kids and I'm really honoured that Mina has allowed me to guest post this creative prayer idea. Sometimes we need to pray for big things, people in war, a natural disaster, a political situation... but sometimes big issues are just too big to grasp. This prayer activity breaks them down into nine more specific prayers. This activity is based on a fig tree - the fig tree symbolised stability and was a usual place to be found praying in Jewish traditions. Twist Prayer trees :  Materials : 4 or 5 pipe cleaners (chenille stems), scissors, tree template (optional). Start with...