Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

This Sunday will be Remembrance Sunday and, because of our new restrictions, we will have to do things differently this year. Here are some resources to help! This is the family service video I made for our diocese this week, including a short story of a real soldier who died in WW1 and what the Bible says in Isaiah 2: 4 about the hope that God will bring Peace between nations.  Click here for the simple liturgy, if you'd like to follow along with the words. This is the story of the soldier just by itself:  Here is a 2 minute video of images to help visual children (and adults!) to reflect during the 2 minutes silence. This is a play dough mat using a verse from Revelation to help explore Remembrance day themes. Here are some prayer ideas for people and places in conflict: Play dough prayers for peace Flying dove peace prayers Praying for peace with zips

I was at an amazing Baptism conference last week where we used Rosemary as a sensory way of remembering our Godparents and Godchildren as we prayed. I know that smelling rosemary has a real link to improving memory and I vividly remember using Rosemary oil during my exam revision at school! As All Souls Day is approaching, this Sunday we had our annual bereavement service and it struck me that we could use the Rosemary with children who have lost loved ones, to help them to bring their memories to God with thanks. Using the scent of the herb is a gentle and positive way to help children explore what can be an emotional subject. You will need: Rosemary stalks with plenty of leaves. Give each child a leave from the stalk of Rosemary and get them to rub it between their fingers to release the scent. Talk about their memories of the loved ones they have lost. Think about the sweetness of the smell. What happy memories do they have? What would they like to thank God for about that...

Today we had classes from one of the local schools into church to do an 'Easter journey' of activities.  This is the activity we used to introduce the Last Supper and the children loved it (from the 5 year olds up to the 11 year olds!) First I collaged a picture and scanned it so it could be reproduced.  Then I printed some copies off, laminated them and cut each sheet into 10 pieces.  Click here if you want to print off the picture to make your own jigsaws. We gave each group of 3 children one of the jigsaws, before we said anything about what happened at the Last Supper and they worked together to put the puzzle together. When everyone had completed the puzzle, we asked them about the symbols they saw in the picture- bread, cup, heart- and the words.  They explained what they thought they were about and then this led onto telling the story.  They had so many ideas- especially about the symbolism of the heart!  A great conversation start...

Today we looked again at a meal that Jesus shared with others.  The children hear the story of the last supper at least once a year when we look at the Easter story,  but conversation with the younger ones reveals that they don't always connect the communion service with this story, so we probably can't tell it often enough! Today we focussed on the theme of 'remembering', thinking about how Jesus used the meal as a way of asking his disciples to remember him. We started off with a memory game.  We put some items on a tray and asked the children to look and remember what was there.  In secret we then removed an item and asked them to guess what was missing.  Smaller items were much harder to remember! We then asked the children about really good things they could remember from their lives.  They drew or wrote their favourite memories on pieces of paper and then we put them all inside the treasure chest to symbolise how precious they were to us. ...