Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

We are holding a special Easter activities event this year aimed at families. Most, if not all, of the families do not attend church, so I wanted to produce something they could take away and do that would carry the message of Easter in a easy to approach way. This is what I came up with and there will hopefully be enough for each person to take a bag away with them. The activity involves planting the seed paper and linking the growth of the flowers to the hope and new life Jesus brings at Easter. You will need : Little drawstring bags or envelopes, enough printed strips for each bag, a piece of plantable seed paper for each bag (it is cheaper to buy A4 seed paper sheets and cut them up than buy pre-cut shapes!) Print out the 'Planting New Life' Strips and cut them out. Fold and put into a bag with a rectangle or square of seed paper that will also fit the bag.  Give out and watch prayers and hope grow in the community!

What I love about the meeting of Peter and Jesus on the beach in John 21 is that Peter is given a chance to start again- his three denials of Jesus  mirrored by the three times he tells Jesus that he loves him. This prayer activity helps to emphasise the idea of the new starts that Jesus can give to us all so that we too can go out and reach others for him. You will need : two containers- one holding a mixture of vinegar and salt (about a cup of vinegar to a tablespoon of salt) and one holding water.  Old, stained copper coins. Give each child a coin and ask them to think about parts of their life where they might have let others down or would like a new start.  Put each coin in the container of vinegar and salt.  Let them say sorry to God in their heads if they would like to.   Put on the lid and shake (some of the coins will start to clean up even before you put the lid on!)  Thank Jesus for forgiveness and new starts.  Take off the ...

A few weeks ago we had a village creativity day which involved quite a lot of mess!  Here's a great activity we did that can help children to engage with the New Life theme of Easter: butterflies painted with rolling eggs!  I like the idea of rolling eggs symbolising the stone that rolled away from the tomb at Easter, so that was an added bonus that we could talk about to the children who came along. This was especially popular with boys- maybe something to do with the high activity level! You will need: A deep sided tray, plastic Easter eggs (that you can put something inside!), marbles, paint, paper butterfly shapes.  Place your paper shape inside the tray.  Put a marble inside each egg you are going to use to paint with.  This will give it a little more weight.  Add a few spots of paint to the paper (less really is more in this case!).  Now shake the tray from side to side so that the eggs roll across the paint and decorate the paper. ...

Yesterday we were in school to do a SEALS assembly about new beginnings.  We decided to use the story of Moses and the burning bush to speak about God giving us new starts... We began with a game.  Two children came out the the front and each had a minute to build a tower with plastic cups like so: As expected, each tower fell down several times during the minute and the children had to start again.  This was great fun and led on to our story which was also about starting again. With more volunteers we acted out the story of Moses and the burning bush, focussing on the fact that Moses had messed up in Egypt and run away but God still had a job for him to do.  He could start again with his people!  We used ribbons on a stick to show the fire, waved about by the child pretending to be the bush.  Very effective, but next time we'll use a shorter stick.  Moses was in danger of losing an eye at one point! After the story we used an illusion to ma...

Butterflies are great symbols of new life when you are talking about the resurrection.  These are really easy and really effective to make- but are probably best made by older children as the folding can be a bit fiddly! First get a brightly coloured page from a magazine, Then cut it into 2 squares- I used one 12 x12 cm and one 8cm x 8cm Starting with a corner, concertina the paper diagonally Tie the two concertinaed squares together with thread  Hang the butterflies up!

You will need:  Pens, butterfly outlines, string, hole punch to make holes for string, somewhere to hang the butterflies! Resurrection 3 days after he died, Jesus rose to new life! Christians believe that Jesus brings us hope and new life. What are your hopes and dreams?  Where in your life would you like a new start? Write or draw your ideas on a butterfly shape and hang it up.

This is good for Easter or any time when you have talked about the resurrection. We talked about Jesus dying and rising again to new life and the hope that this gives us.  The children were then encouraged to think of areas in their life where they'd like to have a new start- maybe in a relationship where they'd argued with someone, or something positive that they'd like to start doing.  They then coloured in part of a butterfly's wings as a symbol of asking God to help them with that new start (you can find lots of outline pictures of butterflies on the internet.  We just printed one out and enlarged it to A3 size).  Some of them shared and others kept it private.  This has now become one of our regular prayer stations.