Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Our vision for the children is that they will come to have a deeper relationship with God that is all their own.  Part of going deeper with God inevitably involves a questioning process.  Sometimes this involves the children asking their own questions and sometimes it involves leaders asking them questions that are open ended and allow them to think, respond and elaborate on their ideas. One idea that we have started to use is question balls.  We've used these before with ice breaker questions on them, but this time the questions are spiritually focussed!  Children throw the ball to someone.  The catcher has to read out the question where their right thumb lands and try to answer it.  this is best done in a small group so that there is space and time for listening and elaborating!  It's so interesting to hear what the children think and just shows us the depth of their thinking about God... Here is a list of questions I've written on th...

Over the past couple of terms, we've really been encouraging the children to ask questions about God, Christianity and the world in general!  We really want to know what they want to know about their faith and so we've been trying to spend one session a term solely based on trying to answer some of what they ask.  Their questions can be quite challenging and we can't always answer them on the spot- but maybe that's a good thing for them to see! Here is a selection of what they have recently asked: Why is God kind all the time? Why did God make the world? Why isn't God friends with hell? Why does he forgive us? What happens when you die? Why are there angels? How many different names has God got? Has God got any friends in Heaven? Why do we die? Why can't we see God? Why do people not believe you are there? Why were you there before everything was here? Is there a limit to how many times God will forgive us? What made heaven and hell go again...

As one of our long term prayer stations, we encourage children to write letters to God and to post them into a post box on the table.  They can ask any questions they like and tell Him anything they want to. In our prayer times, even adults are drawn to this station.  What the children write can be very revealing about their relationship with God and with the world around them.  We keep finding that the children have such a capacity for depth and questioning that really challenges us as leaders.