Category: children’s ministry

“Safeguarding the integrity of creation” in children’s ministry

all age, children's ministry, church resources, pictures, random thoughts, worship

I’m hosting #Churchkidchat this week and, inspired by a great question from Sarah Green about how we might use less plastic in children’s ministry, I thought we’d focus our chat on the general area of making children’s ministry more environmentally friendly. There are a few directions this could go – here are some of them, to get us all thinking:

THE THEMATIC CONTENT of our children’s ministry might be focused on care for creation, sustainability, stewardship of the earth, delight in God’s world, which is identified as an essential aspect of Christian idenity and living in the Five Marks of Mission.

THE PLACE where we do children’s ministry might give us opportunities to engage with the created world in new ways, for example by holding sessions outdoors.  We might go a step further and reframe children’s ministry along the lines of wildchurch or forestchurch, intentionally inhabiting the place so that it is formative of our thinking and praying and action.

THE TIME when we undertake children’s ministry may also be an interesting thing to reflect on – we may or may not have the chance to explore ministry with children at a variety of times and days, but it the changes of the seasons and the relationship between dark and light, growth and decay, warmth and cold can still be explored if our children’s mininstry is taken out of a controlled environment and allowed to be shaped by the natural environment. There may be ideas we can encourage our church families to use at home, for those times when having group sessions isn’t practical.

THE MATERIALS we use can reflect our care for the environment in a number of ways: at a basic level it might mean involving fewer single-use items, less plastic, etc, but taking it on a stage we can also activitly encourage engagement with creation, whether or not the thematic content is specifically to do with the environment.  Just as using colouring pens to make art doesn’t mean our session is actually about the pens, we can also use natural objects (stones, sticks, leaves etc) as the materials for a session that is not explicitly about the materials we use. We may find, however, that using such materials helps us and our children to think and reflect and pray in different ways from when they are given pens to use.

Here are some of the ideas, questions, and resources that we talked about, captured from the twitter feed and put together into a pdf.

CHURCHKIDCHAT eco stuff twitter feed

 

 

All age friendly sending out song

all age, children's ministry, hymns, worship

My train was delayed so while I waited I wrote this, to the tune of ‘I saw three ships’. It’s not profound, but it might be useful to someone somewhere.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
and show the love of heaven above,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
Your peace to grow on earth below,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
to share your grace in every place,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
In all we say and think today
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
to live for you in all we do,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Creative Stations of the Cross

all age, bible, children's ministry, church resources, easter, holy week, worship

This morning at church we worked together (all ages) to create the(biblical) Stations of the Cross.

Three of the stations were mine to plan, and I’m posting here what we did.

My first station was the betrayal and arrest of Jesus. We cut paper into strips, and used crayons to make rubbings of silver coins on the paper, while we talked about Judas’ story, and how he tried to take back what he had done, but the consequences were already happening. We thought about the consequences by making our strips of paper into a chain, representing Jesus as a prisoner. The chain and all its interlinked loops also reminded us that all our actions affect other people, but that we can make that a good thing, not a bad thing, by the way we are with our friends, and with the people we find it hard to get on with- especially when we have things to forgive, or when we need to say sorry.

My next station was Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate. Pilate was supposed to be the one responsible for justice, but he didn’t know what to do so he washed his hands as if to say ‘what happens to Jesus is nothing to do with me’. This is how injustice keeps happening, even today.

For this station we cut cross shapes out of sugar paper and wrote on them an issue to do with injustice that we felt strongly about: poverty, bullying, #metoo, racism, prejudice, being blamed for something that’s not your fault… We carefully folded the ‘stalk’ and then the ‘arms’ and then the ‘head’ of the crosses into the middle so we had a little folded square. We looked at how we had hidden the issue that we’d written on the Cross. Then we floated that square in a bowl of water and it opened again, revealing the truth hidden inside. Some of them opened slowly, some quickly. That’s how justice happens: someone dares to speak the truth, so that everyone can see it.

My final station was when Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross. I cut the ‘way of the cross’ out of fabric, and everyone made little people out of salt dough. The people were placed on the fabric road, in groups, with a cross for each group so that they could share the burden. We talked a lot about how tired they were, and about who supports us on our life journey – and who we are able to support – especially when life is hard.

You can see some of the other stations on this film that my son made during the morning – he didn’t manage to catch all the Stations but here’s what he managed to photograph, in order. https://youtu.be/Df7LoKS83fI

Advent doodle 3: Jesus and the little children

advent, Advent Illustrated, children's ministry, clipart, doodle

The new testament reading set for morning prayer today, when we remember St Nicholas of Myra, is Mark 10.13-16:


People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Christmas carol – Sugar Plum Fairy

children's ministry, christmas, hymns, Other cool stuff

This was written for a friend, who wanted a new carol to sing as part of a nativity play. It goes to the tune of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (from Tschaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite). Nothing profound here, just something to meet a particular need.

Little baby, sweetly slumbering,
Cradled and cuddled in Mary’s loving arms.
In the sky are angels gathering,
but for now, here below, all is still and calm.

Little baby, our Emmanuel,
God with us, one of us, born to be our king.
Little baby, while you slumber,
Far above you angels sing.

We know you came to save us all…
But how can God become so small…?
For God so loved all he had made
He sent his Son the world to save……

Little baby…