Tag: church

Mothering Sunday

all age, children's ministry, church resources, hymns, lent, mothering sunday, sermons

Here’s a random collection of stuff for Mothering Sunday – all in one post so it’s a one-stop shop. Help yourself, and enjoy.

Some thoughts that might drift into a sermon

heroicbiblemumsThe Bible’s stories of mothering are never twee, sentimental or saccharine – how might you describe the mothers in today’s readings (or whichever combination of lectionary readings you are using)?

  • Exodus: cunning, determined, desperate, protective, nurturing (in being the ‘wetnurse’)
  • 1 Samuel: passionate, generous, sacrificial, brave, joyful, trusting and faithful
  • Luke: faithful, responsible, aware of the double-edged sword of caring
  • John: still present even in sorrow, faithful, grieving, caring and cared-for, love that is stronger than death

What if you added to those readings the Old Testament stories of Sarah, Ruth, Rachel and Leah, Rebecca, Hannah, Moses’ mother and sister…. and from the New Testament, the story of the annunciation, the nameless Syrophoenician woman’s refusal to take no for an answer, henchicksand Jesus’s own tears over Jerusalem as a mother weeps for her children,longing to gather them like a hen gathers her chicks.  The list of characteristics associated with mothering grows ever longer and more diverse.

Mothering is all those things, and more.  Without someone to do those things for us – without someone to look out for our interests, to defend us, to protect us; without someone to enable us to learn our purpose in life, without someone to model trust, faith, and joy; without someone who will love us enough to let us go our own way; without someone to take the risk of loving us, even knowing that that love may bring them pain; without someone to stand with us in our times of greatest suffering – without someone to do those things for us, we are missing something crucial.  And if we ourselves have nobody for whom we can do these things, we are also missing out.

childrenssocietyWho does all this for people who would otherwise never experience this kind of mothering?  Charities like The Children’s Society protect children in danger, act as an advocate for children in trouble with the law, enable children who are struggling to reach their God-given potential, take a risk and invest in the future of children in the knowledge that they must have their own integrity, and yet at the same time walk with them on their journey of self-discovery, and affirm that all children are, in the words of Moses’ mum “beautiful before God”.

Sometimes the Children’s society, and other charities that work with vulnerable children, is involved in finding out of situations of extreme suffering, tragedy and crisis, new and life-giving ways of creating family and community, just as Jesus did from the cross when he asked his mother and his best friend, John, to care for each other when he had gone, and just as Moses’ mum did when she risked everything to give her son a chance at life.

We might think about our own lives – our experiences of mothering or of being mothered; remembering with thanksgiving the people who have done those things for us.  And perhaps we might also think of times when we have been failed by those who were supposed to care for us, or those times when we ourselves have failed.

If mothering were only done my mothers, it would be very hard indeed to ensure that everyone received the nurturing, the protection, the love, the sacrifice, the guidance (etc) that we need to become the people we are meant to be.  As a church community, we are called into a role of mothering that sometimes might need to be just as desperate, fierce, loyal, grieving etc as the mothers in today’s readings.  If we, as a church, truly love the community in which we are situated, just as God loves it, and if we are to be God’s holy people for God’s needy world, then we will feel the pain of the world’s suffering, and we will be willing to sacrifice something of ourselves in order to bring to birth God’s purposes for the world.

On the cross, God’s love is nailed firmly to the world so as never to let it go – is our love for the world so firmly fixed as this?    Are we this passionate about nurturing the world into becoming the place that God created it to be?  A truly parental love is one that would give anything and everything for the child.  This is the love of God that we see on the cross, but this is also the love that we are called to have for one another and for all of God’s creation.  When we love like that, we make our Mothering-God visible in the world.

Other activities

Heroic Bible Mums colouring booklet
Pick the bible mums you’re going to focus on (see sermony thoughts, above) and search google images for a line drawing for each of them – caption them with a sentence explaining what each one’s special gifts and characteristics are.  The booklet can then be photocopied and given out for use during the service or as a take home gift.  Don’t forget to include bible references so that families can read the stories again.
Bible Mums is the version of the colouring book idea I made one year – I’m afraid the images were downloaded, and the copyright belongs to the artists – no infringement is intended by posting it here.

Heroic Bible Mums activity, for during the talk
Draw round someone on a large piece of paper (maybe two widths of wallpaper liner taped together at the back) and get people to come and write inside the outline words to describe what mothering is like, or the characteristics of someone who is in a mothering role, perhaps taking a lead from the examples of mothering in the readings – pictures are fine too, if writing words is hard.  The end result would be super-mum, with all the possible gifts on one person – explain that no one person is perfect at all these things, and that’s why we help each other out, and share some of our responsibilities, and that’s why we look to God for help, and not just to ourselves. Wonder together about which of these gifts you could offer to someone else, and which gifts you think you need help with.

Giant greetings card
Give out small bits of paper shaped like flowers on which people can write a greeting addressed either to mothers, to children, or to others that they feel they want to greet on mothering Sunday, or draw a picture of a mother figure who they want to give thanks for or pray for.  It might be particularly appropriate to encourage people to think of the people who have taken a risk for them, or who have invested in them in some way – perhaps including teachers, leaders of cub / brownie packs etc.  Invite everyone to come forward and stick their flowers to a large (A3 size or  bigger) blank greetings card.  After the service the card might be left in church and seen by all the church community, or better still, left somewhere (together with some spare flowers and instructions) where the whole local community can see it and add a flower if they wish to do so.

Flower blessings #1
Prepare some paper flower outlines – a simple centre circle with circle petals round it the same size as the centre, and give them out during the service.  Get everyone to write on their flower a simple blessing for those who care for them – it can be just one word if they like.  Get them to fold the petals in to the centre (making the creases really nice and sharp) and then bring them forward to a large tray with water in it.  Gently lay the folded flowers (with the folded petals uppermost) on the surface of the water.  As the water seeps into the paper, they will magically unfold!
Variation on this: if you have too many people for this to work (eg if you’re doing it in a school assembly) and you have access to an OHP and screen, then write people’s ideas on a hand full of flowers and float them in a glass dish of water carefully balanced on the OHP – the paper will cast beautiful shadows of the flowers gradually opening.

Flower blessings #2 (blessings by post)
You can make flowers as above, but tell people to take one home and use it as a tiny letter to someone they love but don’t often see – maybe a parent or a child who lives far away.  Invite them to write a blessing or other message on the flower, fold the petals in, and then send it by post together with instructions on how to float it open. I’d love to get an interactive Mothering Sunday card like this – wouldn’t you?

Here are some pictures so you can see what they look like – and you can use the first one as a template:

Cut it out, then write your message:

then fold the petals in, and float it on water- and watch them open:

 

The posies

daffodilsdifferentlWho gets them? Just mums? All women?  Just parents? Everyone?  It’s one of the recurring dilemmas of Mothering Sunday, so here are some funky ideas that neatly distract from having to answer the underlying question about who gets the posies:

1. Do enough posies so that there’s not only enough for everyone, but enough for spares that can be taken to the housebound, and make sure people know they can take one for their neighbours

2. Do enough posies so that people whose loved ones have died can have one to put on the grave

3. Suggest that for people whose mothers live far away and aren’t going to be visited on the day, the flowers from the posie might be dried in a flower press, and stuck to a card and posted!

4. Offer daffodil bulbs as an alternative, so that they can be grown at home and given to geographically distant mums at the next visit.

5. Take a collection to buy a gift from www.presentaid.org – there are sections related to ‘green fingers’ and to children, either of which might be a suitable alternative to giving flowers on mothering Sunday.

sunflowers6. Give out sunflower seeds, with spare packets available for people to take to their neighbours, to start a community sunflower festival – pick a date later in the year when the sunflowers will have all grown, and invite everyone back for a special service.

7. Here’s a radical idea: what if someone in each church in the whole country offered to be the local contact point for people who live a long way away but who love it if someone local would visit the grave of a loved one on their behalf on Mothering Sunday and place some flowers there?

Two hymns for Mothering Sunday

All our blessings
Tune: All things bright and beautiful

All our blessings, all our joys
With thankful hearts we sing,
God of love and faithfulness,
Accept the praise we bring.

For parents and for children,
For partners and for friends,
For those whose care enfolds us
With love that never ends.

For fellowship and friendship
For all we have to give,
For those who’ve shared our journey
And taught us how to live.

For all who’ve shared our sorrow,
Walked with us in our pain,
Who’ve held our hand through darkness
And showed us light again.

In sacrifice and service
Your love is clearly shown,
Your outstretched arms embrace us
to bring us safely home.

For those who give us life and breath
Tune: O Waly Waly

For those who gave us life and breath,
For love that’s stronger far than death,
Today we bring our thankful hearts,
For all a mothering love imparts.

For kindness, patience, warmth and care,
For each embrace, each smile, each tear,
Each word of peace, each healing touch,
These simple gifts which mean so much.

We look to you, our mothering Lord,
Who shows love’s cost, and love’s reward,
Your passion fiercer than the grave,
Nailed to the world you came to save.

So teach your people how to live,
How to endure, how to forgive,
Teach us to trust, to sacrifice,
To share the love that has no price.

Minecraft World, Minecraft Church

random thoughts

I am a minecraft novice. There are many things that I know I do not know, and many more that I do not know that I do not know. But I have a world, and I have started to build. Selecting ‘creative mode’  (because ‘survival’ sounded like too much effort), I found myself in a primordial forest, surrounded by trees and vines.

Something hopped past (I have since learned to recognize it as a chicken – so if you were wondering whether the chicken or the egg came first, now you know). I pottered around in the undergrowth for a while, working out how the controls worked. I walked into a few trees.  I build a very small hut, put a bed in it.  I looked around in the gathering darkness, and thought, ‘this is pretty cool’.

Evening came, and morning came: the first day.

On the second day, I put a roof on my hut, using the same blocks, and managed to build a little pen on the roof for my chicken friend. It laid an egg. I planted a rose bush in the hut (because you can, on Minecraft, as long as you make your floor out of dirt or grass).  I pottered around some more. My son pointed out that I could achieve more if I switched to ‘flying’ instead of walking about.  I decided to build a tree house, at the top of the tree where I’d built my little hut.  I had just laid the floor, when it began to get dark again. I made myself a new bed, rather than bothering to fly all the way down to my hut, because you can, on Minecraft. I looked around and thought, ‘I really like this, it’s fun.’

Evening came, and morning came: the second day. On the third day, I worked on my tree house. I found out how to do windows, and my son showed me how to do doors. To be hospitable, I put in a whole row of beds. And a staircase, and a second storey!  I added book cases, a furnace (in case the perfect weather on Minecraft ever changed), and some torches on the walls. I added another chicken coup on the roof (because you can- and even with several chickens it was only quite a small coup and it was confined to the roof – they didn’t take over the whole world or anything). I clicked, and it was so.  I looked around at my hut, my tree house, and my chickens, and I thought, ‘this is great – my own little world!’

Evening came, and morning came: the third day.

On the fourth day, my son and my daughter joined me in my world. They built tree houses of their own, and my tree house was designated the community centre.  The kids decided that there would be a community rule that you have to spend every other day working on community projects – the alternate days you could work on your own treehouse. So they worked on the community centre, and built connecting paths between the centre and their huts. I made them put fences along the paths, because I’m so rubbish at controlling where I go that I kept falling off. They built a swimming pool, that anyone could use, and some public restrooms (really!).  They added a spiral staircase all the way down the community centre’s tree and spawned some pigs in a pen at the bottom of the tree.  As it began to get dark I looked around and I thought, ‘you know what? this is awesome, I am interacting with my kids (and showing that I’m not a dinosaur), they turn out to be pretty community minded, and we entertained ourselves all day without fighting’.

Evening came, and morning: the fourth day.

On the fifth day, we had a new rule. We’d sort of been doing it anyway, but we decided it was a Good Thing if we didn’t disturb the natural Minecraft environment any more than we really had to.  We decided to stick to using ‘jungle blocks’ because they blended in with the natural environment, and that if we stuck to building in the treetops we wouldn’t have to cut down any trees or dig up the ground.  I looked around and was really proud of my little world. As it began to get dark, I realised what was missing – there weren’t any people! Apart from us, the creators, of course. Never mind, it was all still awesome.

Evening came, and morning: the fifth day.

On the sixth day, I raised the subject of people (or ‘villagers’, as my son tells me they are called).  He advised against it. He said they’d get everywhere, and ruin it all. He was probably right. So we decided against people. But we did train a couple of wolves into dogs.  Later that day, the subject of church was raised.  Should our treetop community have a church?  The kids said they would get right on that project once they’d finished the swimming pool.  I looked at some pictures on the internet of churches built on minecraft and was mind-blown.  They were considerably more advanced than anything we had done so far. There was even a replica of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  As night fell, I doubted that our church would be quite on that level of awesomeness. But it was all still great. Especially without the people.

Evening came, and morning: the sixth day.

On the seventh day, it wasn’t a snow day after all, so with much complaining the kids donned their cold weather gear and headed off to school. I thought I might have a break from Minecraft, but it was just too tempting. I thought, ‘I know, I’ll start work on the church.’  That was an error. Without really thinking, I started building. My first step was to fly high up so I could find the biggest area – after all, a church has to be big and impressive, doesn’t it? And then I thought, ‘Which kind of stone shall I use? Sandstone is nice, but this nice grey stone will look more churchy.’ I started laying foundations in the treetops for a massive, stone church.

And then I stopped and looked at what I’d done. ‘Idiot!’ I berated myself (silently, because I am not alone in the house today, despite the children being at school). Why are you building a massive stone cathedral? Everything else here is small and made of jungle blocks. And why are you building a massive stone cathedral when you’ve not even spawned any people to use it?  And having suffered cold, stone churches with uncomfortable seating for much of your life, why use your completely free choice about what a church might be like to perpetuate something that doesn’t even fit with the local landscape and, frankly, isn’t the sort of church that the community might need?  And are there not other ways to make a building that could point to God? Plus, if you think it’s hard getting a wheelchair ramp put in a real medieval church, just try making one out of Minecraft blocks. But that’s another story (and if you know how to do it, please tell me in a comment!)

So I decided that perhaps today might be a rest day after all.  I deleted my vast stone foundation and breathed a sigh of relief. We’ll have another think about the people, and the church, but for the time being, it’s still a pretty good world.

Epiphany – ideas for children’s groups

children's ministry, christmas, church resources

This one works well with older children – maybe primary age.  Not so good with toddlers. But can be done well by family groups. It uses a simple origami star craft activity – a video demonstration of this part of it is linked below.

1. Talk about what everyone’s favourite Christmas presents were – what made them just right? What would be the best presents for a baby?

2. Talk about the gifts that the magi brought, and why there were just right, even though they look a little unusual at first.
Gold is precious – it’s expensive, and it lasts, so we use it for things that mean a lot to us, such as wedding rings.  The gold was given as a symbol of our offering of the most important things that we have.  The gold is a sign of something important about Jesus, like a wedding ring is a sign of love.
Frankincense makes the most wonderful-smelling smoke – it’s as if we can see our prayers and songs rising up for God to breathe in and enjoy. All our hearts’ longings, our joys and sorrows, our hopes and dreams, breathed in by God in our prayer and worship.
Myrrh is harsh, but healing  – like the antiseptic that stings as it we put it on, but helps a wound to heal.  It reminds us of hard times – illness, grief – but also of God’s ability to bring healing and life.

3. Give out long strips of paper – maybe 2 feet long, by 3cm wide  (I cut mine from a roll of paper) and pens.  Ask the children or family groups to use just one end of their paper strip for this activity.
Remind them that God gave the magi something they needed – a star to follow. On one side of the paper, ask them to write down something that they still need as a gift, for the coming year.  This isn’t a ‘thing’ like a new toy, but a more personal gift, such as more patience when school work is a struggle, or when younger siblings are frustrating! Or more time to relax (particularly for parents!).  Or help with making new friends, if that’s been a challenge before. Or help making a big decision, or facing a big change.
Remind them that the magi also gave something to Jesus – their gifts of gold, incense and myrrh.  On the other side of the same end of the paper strip, ask them to write down a gift that they already have that they would like to offer to God – this might be just a lot of smiles that they can use to brighten up God’s world, it might be a certain amount of time each day just to be with God, or it might be a particular talent that can be offered.

4. Take one of the strips as an example, and follow the instructions in this video (https://youtu.be/FDDvYwb-D44) to make it into a 3D star. (These aren’t hard to make, but you will need to practice in advance – I don’t recommend trying to teach how to do it in your children’s session, as it can be frustrating when it doesn’t work first time!  If you have teenage or adult helpers, you might like to teach them how to do it in advance, so that they can help you make all the strips into stars on the day).
As you start to make the star:
– tie the knot in the end with the writing on, so that it will be hidden in the heart of the star by the time you have finished.
– as you tie the knot, explain that when something was important to remember, people used to tie a knot in a hanky to remind them.
– as you wrap the strip around the pentagon shape, say that when something really matters we want to protect it and keep it carefully, so we might wrap it up.  You might also like to compare it to wrapping a present, or even (going back to the myrrh and the healing) bandaging a sore finger etc.
It’s a good idea to get the children to decorate their stars to make them personalised – they’ll need to be a bit careful so they don’t squash them accidentally!

5. When everyone’s paper strips have been made into stars, encourage the children to hold their star in the palm of their hand, and remember what they wrote in the heart of it.  Ask them to think about what they need and what they have to offer this coming year, and ask God to bless those thoughts.

The easiest paper nativity set in the world.

children's ministry, christmas, church resources

Photocopy-able, colour-in-able, limited talents in cutting and sticking required. Do help yourself!  LLLA Make your own paper crib scene
This is not a work of art, nor a thing of great beauty, but if you want something easy and cheap, it might just fit the bill!

A sparkly christingle talk!

children's ministry, church resources, Other cool stuff

How about this for a sparkly way of looking at the Light and the World:

You will need:
Christingles for everyone, and the means to light them
A small vial of iron powder – you can buy this online.  Use powder rather then iron filings. 

Start with your vial of iron powder – show it, sprinkle some between your fingers, back into the container. Explain what it is – it looks just like dust. In fact, it’s what the earth’s core is made of. It’s the most common element in our planet. It’s earth-dust, nothing more; we might remember that the Bible tells of God making the first human being from dust.  You can’t get anything more earthy than this. It’s grey and dull, really. It doesn’t look like anything special. It doesn’t look like it’s going to do anything cool.  Not on its own, anyway.

But look what happens when we introduce the dust of the earth to the light of the world. (Light your own Christingle at this point, dim the lights, and carefully sprinkle some of the iron powder into the flame – it’s worth practicing before the service so you get the right amount – the iron should turn to bright orange sparks, clearly visible in a dark church.  You may need to get someone to hold your christingle for you so you have your hands free to do the sprinkling).

The dust of the earth comes alive when it touches the light of Christ – Jesus came into the world to bring it to life, to bring energy and joy to places that were grey and lifeless.  When Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world’ he meant that he was bringing the light of heaven right into the midst of earth’s darkness.  When he said ‘you are the light of the world’ he meant that he could transform our dull dustiness into bright shining sparks of God’s love in the world!

At this service, we turn from dust to sparkles! The light of Jesus is with us, and is bringing us to life, so that we can bring his light and life to the dark places of this world – that’s our life’s work, and we do it in the transforming love and power of Jesus.  So shine as lights in the world to the glory of God the Father!

As an added bonus, here’s an extra verse you can add to This Little Light of Mine, that reflects the message of the iron powder talk:

When I am feeling dull and grey,
and sunshine seems so far away,
when I don’t know quite where to start,
I remember the stardust in my heart:
all it needs is a tiny spark
to get me shining in the dark,
So Jesus, give me your fire divine
to let my little light shine!