Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

  I love investigating what is going on generally in the creative world and I've recently been massively inspired by the work of Anna Bruder at A Line Art - particularly her recent work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Click here to see all about that! It struck me that bringing colour to black and white flowers was a really powerful symbol of the new life of Easter Day, so that's what we will be doing in our Easter day service. My plan is to give everyone who comes a flower and to invite them, at any point in the service to come and fill the flower with colour at one of our craft tables. We'll then use them at the end of the service as a symbol of the new life of the resurrection and create a flower garden. This works particularly well if you are using the passage from John's gospel where Jesus is mistaken for the gardener. Here's a quick how to: Print some flower shapes onto card (if you want to use mine, click here ). Stick the flower head to a paper st...

 This Sunday we hear the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead- an unforgettable glimpse into what will come on Easter Day. If you're looking at this story, here is a play dough mat to help children to explore a bit deeper. This mat focusses on the emotions of the various people in the story and asks children to use playdough to make facial expressions for different events. There are all sorts of characters they might choose to think about: onlookers, Mary, Martha, the disciples, Jesus, even Lazarus himself. Each character will have a different perspective and it is always fascinating to hear the reasoning behind what children create/ Another useful question to ask is always: I wonder where you are in the story?  If you'd like to print out the sheet, click here.

 This craft is really easy to make and helps to emphasize the enthusiasm of the crowd's Hosannas as they waved their palms. You will need: White A4 paper, green paper or card, glue, scissors, stapler. Cut a sheet of white A4 paper in half lengthways. On one of the halves, write the word 'Hosanna' and colour in. Start at one end of the paper and make a concertina. Fold an A5 sheet of green card or paper in half and cut out a palm leaf shape. This will give you two leaves. Glue a strip down the middle of each leaf. Stick one end of your concertina to the glued strip on one leaf and glue the other end to the stip on the other leaf. Press down firmly. This makes your Hosanna sandwich. Staple the bottom ends of the leaves together. Make sure you are not also stapling your concertina! Open your palm leaves to see the Hosanna!

 This year we are following the lectionary more closely than usual, so I've been getting ready around the story from John 9, of Jesus healing the man who was born blind.   This picture is split into two to show the difference of the two states. Colouring the picture provides a great opportunity to chat to children about seeing and to wonder what Jesus helps them to see. Click here   to download and print the page and head over to our instagram page if you'd like to see the picutre creation video!

 Here's the reflective colouring sheet we used on Sunday to help explore the story of Jesus healing the Official's son. One of the themes we drew out was Jesus' compassion, something that the Bible links clearly to his healing miracles. Click here to download and print the sheet.

 Tomorrow our all age service will look at the story of Jesus healing the Official's son (John 4: 43-54). We generally have a craft going on on a table at one side of church that people can opt into whenever they want to in the service.  This craft has a scientific basis and is a really creative, visual way to illustrate the healing miracles such as Jairus' daughter, the Centurion's servant and others. The tissue paper figure rises from lying down to dancing, all with the help of static electricity. To print out the instruction sheet, click here .