Messy Sunday Craft - Opening Door, Message Centre

Coming up this summer we are holding a summer holiday club (or VBS) for local children at our church.  On the Sunday after the club we will be holding Messy Church and inviting all the families whose children came to the club.

I said I would come up with a craft.  My initial plan was to search through all my usual crafty websites and find something along the right lines for the theme of the morning.  I tried that but I could not find something suitable anywhere. So I came up with something myself.

The story for that Sunday is the story of Rhoda answering the door to peter but being so excited it was hi that she forgot to open the door.  We will be linking that to Revelation 3 and "Behold I stand at the door and knock."  So we wanted a craft with a door theme.  It needed to be reasonably easy but not be done in just 5 minutes either.  This is what I came up with.

You will need
sheets of printable card,
1 roll of chalkboard sticky back poster paper,

glue,
a craft knife and ruler

and pens or other means of decorating the front.
Also a piece of chalk.

I went onto an image search and found the doors I wanted to use.  I printed out the door onto the right hand side of a Landscape format piece of printable card.

Fold that in half to make a card with the door on the front.

Cut around the top, right hand side and bottom of the section you want to open.  We will probably complete the doors to this point before Messy Church so that we don't need to have craft knives hanging around.

Mark the right hand side of the door with the tip of a bone folder or similar to score and then fold the door back along the line.

Cut a piece of chalkboard paper that is bigger than the opening door but smaller than half the sheet of card, as below.

Peel the backing of the chalkboard paper and apply it inside the card.

The next step needs to be done carefully so that you don't get any glue on the back of the section of card you want to open.
Lay the card out with the chalkboard side up and glue around the opening in the are marked below . . .

Carefully fold the front over and press down all over to glue the two sides together.  If you have accidentally got any glue on the back of the door area, quickly but carefully open up just the door and use your finger to rub the glue until it just rubs away.

Decorate the front as you see fit.  I decided the panels were glass and drew in a curtain behind the door.

Next you need to condition the chalkboard paper just like any other chalkboard surface.  Take a piece of chalk and using the side rub it all over the exposed chalkboard surface.

Then take a piece of kitchen roll or other soft material and wipe away the excess chalk.

Then write your message inside, any time you like.

I want to get some stick on picture hangers like these to pop on the back of each one so that there is an easy way of hanging them.

And there you have it, an opening door message centre.  I did think about putting a paper fastener through the door where the door knob should be but figured the prongs on the back of the fastener would damage the chalkboard surface underneath whenever it was closed.


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Prayer Spaces

Next week I will be leading a team that will be holding a prayer space in a local school.  We are rather excited about this opportunity and looking forward to the week.  There is still lots to do to get ready, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share some thoughts with you.

Back in October I shared a post about Why Prayer Spaces, in which I shared some of the history behind the prayer spaces in schools movement as well as snippets from recent reports and a video about prayer spaces in schools.

I also shared a post of some creative prayer space ideas.  Next week, we are only using one of the ideas in that post, the hands, and we will be drawing our hands on large pieces of paper, although for future spaces I would like to invest in a large printed and laminated hand.

Since writing that post I have made a board on pinterest for ideas for prayer spaces in schools and am gathering ideas at an incredible rate.  If you are interested you can check the board out at http://pinterest.com/aislingbeatha/prayer-spaces-in-schools/

So, onto next week.  We will have a variety of prayer stations.  The one we hope children go to first will be the calm zone where through mp3 players and quiet music with a spoken track over the top and the use of glitter calm jars, we hope they will calm down a little from the excitement of a new space and be ready for the rest of the room.



We will have a world zone where children will put post it note prayers onto a large world map on the wall, or pray for a particular part of the world as they put a piece of a world map jigsaw in place.  Next to that will be details of a charity the school supports with a marble run so that the children pray for the length of time the marble runs down the run.  On the other side of the maps will be a table with cress seeds to be sprinkled onto wet paper towels so that they can see their prayers grow over the week as their seeds grow.  This will be connected in to environmental issues.

As we are heading towards palm Sunday, two of our other activities will be using paper palm leaves which a team lovingly cut out last Sunday before church.  First will be a zone where they write down a prayer for someone who is important to them because on palm Sunday we remember the people celebrating how important Jesus was to them.  The other is the BIG QUESTIONS zone where children can write down a question they would want to ask of God and it can be absolutely anything!

And finally we will have a fizzy forgiveness table where children can think about letting go of something someone has done that has hurt or upset them by dropping a fizzy vitamin tablet into a bowl of water and watching it dissolve away.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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TRACING - The Non Arty Kids Leader's best Friend

This is my day fifteen post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.

I don't have the best drawing skills.  I'm not afraid to admit that.  While I am discovering that I do have artistic abilities, drawing is the one area that still lets me down.  This can be a problem when preparing materials for lessons, or more particularly for Open the Book school assemblies.  I am sure I am not the only kids leader who finds myself in this position.

That's where the internet and tracing comes to my rescue.  Over and over again!

Last week in Open the Book we were doing the story of Cornelius and peter and needed a sheet with some of the animals that Peter sees on the sheet.  So, off to the internet I went doing an image search.  Eels, lobsters, lizards, prawns, pigs, snakes and a ham all came my way!  I printed them off at an appropriate size and placed them under the fabric at a spacing I thought looked OK.  I traced over the lines with a black permanent marker, then coloured them in with kids poster paints.  I'm really pleased with them, what do you think?

If you are involved in children's ministry in any way, how have you worked around areas in which you are not particularly strong?


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Kids Worship

This is my day twelve post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.

Last Sunday I experienced a bit of a blast from the past.  Along with my husband and our youngest son we attended the Christening of a young family member of our extended family. The church the christening was held at was a traditional C of E church.  They have 3 services every week, a full sung service, a said service and a family service.  The Christening was held during the family service.

This vicar was amazing, he did EVERYTHING HIMSELF.  He set up the projector, laptop and screen, as well as the microphone in the few minutes between the two services.  He worked the laptop himself, and he worked the PA himself, having to disappear behind a screen every so often to do so.

So, you can imagine, not having a band, children's worship might be difficult.  NOPE, Duggie Dug Dug to the rescue!  This vicar has every single one of the Duggie Karaoke videos on his laptop.

These are songs we used with the children in our church about 5 years ago, hence the blast from the past, but they are still valid and so much fun, particularly with the very young children.  Heck, I'm over 40 and I still find them fun.  Certain non church going relatives were amused by the fact that I knew all the words and danced around to the songs.  If they thought me bopping around in my seat was amusing I dread to think what they would make of me full on dancing at our church.  Maybe one day we'll have to invite them over.
 
Sadly I can't find any videos of the actual karaoke backgrounds online to share with you, so you will have to make do with these alternatives.  These are two of the songs we sang at the Christening.

And, although we didn't sing it at the Christening of course I have to share a favourite of my American friends, "Is there a plank in your eye?"  Unfortunately I can't find a video version of that song, so you will have to cope with just an audio sample.

With the group of children I teach in Sunday's Cool we tend more towards videos with actions shown rather than the karaoke background ones.  I'll be posting about our kids worship in more detail soon.  But in short, we use a variety of different styles, some stuff from Duggie, some stuff from Ishmael, some stuff from Hillsong Kids, among others.  But hey, this guy was doing everything himself, every week, and I think considering that, he was doing an amazing job.

I'll leave you with a video from Hillsong Kids.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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WHY Prayer Spaces in Schools?

This is my day eleven post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.

Today I am heading North to attend a training day for Prayer Spaces in Schools tomorrow.  prayer spaces in schools are a spin off from 24/7 prayer rooms.  This, from their website:

During 2008, a handful of people around the UK seemed to stumble onto the same idea at roughly the same time - to set up creative prayer rooms in primary and secondary schools, to make prayer simple and accessible to children and young people. By the end of the year, at least six Prayer Spaces in Schools had taken place. 

Most of these people already had experience of prayer rooms through the 24-7 Prayer movement (http://www.24-7prayer.com), which began in Chichester in 1999, and has since spread into more than one hundred nations and most Christian denominations, giving birth to prayer and justice initiatives around the globe. 

During 2009, having heard encouraging stories from students and teachers from the first six schools, a further twelve schools workers and children’s/youth workers decided to host one in their locality. Again, all the feedback seemed very positive. 

Then towards the end of 2009, we began gathering some of the stories, the photos and the feedback, the good practice guidelines and policies, as well as the curriculum links that teachers were beginning to identify, and we put it all together into a simple resource pack. More than 100 of these packs went out within a few months, which suggested that people liked the ideas and were keen to explore hosting Prayer Spaces themselves. 

Six months into 2010, more than fifty further Prayer Spaces in Schools had taken place around the UK. In some areas, single Prayer Space weeks have triggered conversations between schools workers and teachers/educational professionals to multiply these Prayer Spaces in Schools across whole areas or school networks (Romford, Gloucester and Oxford, for example). And as a result of these single Prayer Space weeks, some schools are planning a week into their annual rhythm, some are considering setting up permanent Prayer Spaces, and some are considering launching or reviewing their chaplaincy/pastoral roles. The response of children and young people, and of the schools, to this simple idea has been extraordinary. 

“I thought the Prayer Space was fantastic.  A way for pupils to write down their fears as well as hopes.  It gave me as a teacher a real insight into the thoughts of my pupils and what they are dealing with outside the classroom.  The comments I overheard from pupils of all years was extremely positive and some were very thought-provoking.  I personally hope that the room is here long-term.!” (Maths teacher, secondary school) 

It’s probably important to say that Prayer Spaces in Schools are well-rooted in the Christian practices of creative prayer - of communication with God, and of hospitality. We would emphasise hospitality, because these Prayer Spaces are places of welcome, where children and young people of all faiths (and those of no faith) can find time and space and creative ways to reflect on questions of life and meaning and spirituality. So far, they have been hosted by people from across the denominational spectrum, and as such they don’t promote a particular ‘brand’ of Christianity at the exclusion of others.

Prayer Spaces in Schools Full, HD from Prayer Spaces In Schools on Vimeo.

I've been following the idea of prayer spaces for a number of years now, and have been really keen to see them happen in our local schools.  This week there is a week of cross denominational prayer happening in our town and a number of schools have at least considered the idea of a prayer space even if we haven't managed to organise one.

But WHY?  Let me share some snippets from reports from recent prayer rooms across the country.

 . . . . . .

I glimpse some of the anonymous stories shared with God; "happiness for my sister not to think about suicide", "that my parents don't argue", "for forgiveness", "thank you for friends, family..." and I love that we can trust each of these tales to God. I am grateful for the opportunitiy to provide a place like this, to lift some of the weight off precious shoulders. 

What I cherish most is not just the in-the-moment reactions but the long-lasting seeds sown. When asked about their favourite prayer activities, students talk about the tent with it's flame-effect tea lights and the science-y electromagnetic globe. But the most popular 'activity' turns out to be the spontaneous one - during each session, Dan gathers a 'gaggle' of 13- and 14-year-old students who sit around laughing, listening and longing for the life they see in Dan. 

They rollercoaster-talk of Bible stories, including the meaning of Jesus' life, death and ressurection... students ask 'true treasure' questions like; "if God's real why is there suffering?" "Are there still miracles today?" amongst others. Maybe God will one day play us a movie of our lives, and only then will we realise how these simple, creative, honest prayers were heard and answered?

 . . . . . .

We were also challenged by the hopes that the young people wrote down in the ‘Hope Blossoms’ activity. In the week preceding our Prayer Space, a national report from ‘Ambitious Minds’ was published and an article appeared in the newspaper highlighting Norfolk as one of the worst areas in the country for young people to achieve their dreams and aspirations. I fully expected the hopes and dreams of these young people either to show low aspirations or completely unrealistic ones such as “becoming famous” or “being rich”. But this wasn’t the case – they wanted to be teachers, doctors, vets, midwives, architects, mechanics, musicians, farmers, property developers etc. Some just wanted “to be loved” or for their “family to be happy”. One wrote “to get a decent job and have a family”. The challenge for us is to figure out how we can do more to enable these young people to achieve the potential and dreams that God has given them? 

At the end of each session in the Prayer Space, we asked pupils if it was what they had expected. Every time the same answer came up “No, we thought that prayer would be boring and that we would have to be silent. This was really cool” or “I didn’t know that prayer could be like this”. When asked if there was anything they didn’t like, there was silence, although a few said that they found the forgiveness section or the pictures of poverty hard. By contrast, when asked which was their favourite activity, they had lots to say, with blowing bubbles (to give your worries to God) and the fizzy forgiveness activity being clear favourites."

 . . . . . .

So there you have it.  Watch out next week if you are interested in learning more as I am sure I will be sharing. some of what I learn.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Story Telling

This is my day six post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.  Today I am just going to share links to some bible props and costumes that I have shared in the past.

One of the things I love to do is storytelling.  Here is just a sample

Big Bad Brian the Lion

Heeheee.  What a title.

This is the recording of me telling the story of big Bad Brian the Lion..

Big Bad Brian the Lion

I have used it in schools to talk about bullying, and in church to tell a bible story from a different angle.  Tomorrow I will tell you my technique for learning stories like this.  YES, I learn them.  I don't read them from a book, I learn them.  But the learning technique is not to learn them by heart (except for one or two stories where it depends on the exact wording to make sense) but to use a technique called "learning the bones".  I will explain that technique, using this story as an example, tomorrow.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Bible Story Props and Costume Tutorials

This is my day five post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.  Today I am just going to share links to some bible props and costumes that I have shared in the past.

Those are just the step by step tutorials that I have shared.  I will be sharing a very simple but new one later in the month when I can get the photo of it in action, a set of prison bars for the story of the Christians praying for Paul when he was in prison.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or all my craft projects indexed on one page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Sunday School or Sunday's Cool

This is my day four post for the "31 days of blogging in October" challenge.  I am blogging 31 days of Children's Ministry.  To find links to all the other days (as they get posted) go to DAY 1.  Today I am just going to share links to some bible props and costumes that I have shared in the past.

Here in the UK when most churches refer to Sunday School they are talking about children's classes that happen either during the main meeting or straight after it.  Unlike in American churches that sometimes also have adult classes for Sunday school.  I have never heard of a church over here that does that.

Our Sunday School currently covers children aged 4 to 11, with toddler toys available for the younger children.  The name Sunday's Cool came about years ago when we were also running a Saturday morning club for Christian and non Christian kids.  We called it Saturday's Wild and one of the team at that time came up with the idea to call what we do with kids on Sunday mornings, Sunday's Cool, to go alongside that.  The name stuck and although the age range has changed slightly, so that it only applies to 7 to 11 year olds now, we are still Sunday's Cool.

Currently we are using temporary materials, while we wait on a decision for other materials.  But those of you in the UK (or anyone else for that matter) might be interested, particularly in smaller churches as these are free to use materials.

I don't believe they are the right choice for my team or the children we minister to, hence them only being a temporary solution.  BUT they might be the right choice for you and your team.  they are from Scripture Union, which is a UK Christian publisher and are an online version of their printed Sunday School materials.

Light Live has materials for a range of age groups, and when you set up your group online you tell it which age group you want to be using.  You can set up multiple groups, and once each of your teachers has registered on the site they can log in and see their lesson.

The lessons are dated as they are in the printed materials BUT if your group doesn't run every week, or you want to skip a particular lesson for any reason, you can change the dates on any of the lessons, which is what I have done as there are two weeks a month we don't meet.

here's the dummy guide I wrote for my team members.  Once you have set your teams up and allocated dates to the lessons (if you ARE changing any of those) this is what they will need to do.

When you log on you should see the following three buttons at the top of the screen.  Groups, Programme and Session.  Click on Programme.

That should bring up the following Sunday's programme, in this case the 16th,

If the current week is not the one you want, scroll down the page and click on the week you DO want.  Which will bring it up, like so:

You then click on Select Activities, one of those three blue buttons on the right.

On the left you will see the overview, telling YOU as teacher what the lesson is ABOUT.  In the middle will be the activities to choose from.  On the right is some further info including the total suggested time for the activities chosen so far.

In the centre section you will see three tabs labelled Switch On, Into the Bible and Living the Life, that's basically the intro activities, the main activities and the conclusion activities. 

You will see that it has some suggested activities in each section already ticked, but you are free to change these as you wish.  Just click on the tick to untick it or click on the blank circle to tick it.  For further details of each activity click on it's tab.

Do that for all 3 sections, (you can have more than one activity in each section, just keep an eye on the suggested time on the right), and remember you won't necessarily do it exactly as listed.  For instance the activity I chose for the main thing had some stuff about the bible timeline.  We just skipped that since we don't have one.  It also had something about making a model, using resources you can click to open.  But honestly they are that, cut this exact thing out and stick tab a to tab b and everyone's thing looks exactly the same and ends up in the bin before they even get out of church type crafts, so  I didn't do that either.  But the rest of it was as I wanted so I ticked that one.

If you want to see if there is anything else, you can type in the search box and look for stuff that way.  I haven't always found that too helpful, but it occasionally comes up with something.

Once you have done that for all 3 sections you will see on the right a list of the things you will need, with links to the downloads.  Then click beneath the search box, on the blue  Compile and Print button.

Then you get to download the extra things you might need (it's up to you whether you do them each as individuals or use the zip file) and it tries to get you to buy the cds or printed copies rather than download copies etc.  You just ignore the bottom bit that tries to get you to buy them and focus on the top.

You then choose the Print session or download session at the top.  I have noticed that the download session seems to insert a blank page in between each activity so you end up wasting a lot of paper.  Although you could always choose to just print the pages you wanted and ignore the blank ones.  It will only print (or download) the activities you have ticked.

I printed it out, then went through and crossed out any PARTS of activities that I wasn't doing.

You will also need to print out the relevant pages of any of the downloads that you need.  Remember you will be photocopying in black and white so feel free to print in black and white (or grey scale) to save on colour ink, unless you particularly want one colour copy to show the children.

If you change your mind, you can come back in and alter the session, and print out a fresh copy of the altered version.

Like I said, it's not the right materials for us, only a temporary measure but this MIGHT help someone else.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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