Hot Cross Bun Multi-SensoryPrayers

March 23, 2016Leave a comment

You will need: Hot cross buns cut into bite-size pieces, paper strips, pens, spices in a pot, covered with foil and with holes poked in the foil e.g. cinnamon, ginger (or use a scented candle), sultanas or raisins

Bread- A reminder of the bread Jesus broke to give to his disciples as a remembrance of him.
Eat some of the bun and think of people who don’t know who Jesus is. Pray that they will come to know him and his love for them.

Cross–reminds us of the death of Jesus on Good Friday and the sadness surrounding it.
Glue paper strips to make a cross and write/ draw names/ people who are sad or grieving. Ask God to help them

Spices- remind us of the spices used in getting the body ready for burial. Again, this is a reminder of the sadness of Jesus Dying and of the people who took care of him
Smell the pot of spices or the scented candle.
Think of people who help to look after us and those people that we look after. Thank God for them

Sultanas and the sweet glaze on top of the bun– what Jesus did for us on the cross brings abut something sweet and amazing- the hope of new life and relationship with God.
Eat a couple of sultanas or raisins and think about what your hopes for the future are. Tell God about them.

Family Faith: Prayer Walk

February 23, 2016Leave a comment

We’re getting to the point now where the we are starting to see signs of Spring. What a great time to get out and about and be practical with our prayer! This is an idea to encourage the whole family to pray together.

You will need: Outdoor clothes, phones or digital cameras, a computer to download the photos onto.

Go out on a family walk around your local streets and encourage the children to take photos of the things they would like to thank God for or would like to pray about (e.g. people taking care of the world so less litter on the ground). You might need to ask for a limit of 10 photos each so that the children carefully consider their ideas rather than randomly snap away!

When you get home, go through the photos or download and print them out. Ask the children why they chose those particular things and thank God/pray about them. Print out some of the photos and make a photo collage of things you found on your prayer walk!

Worry Assembly (The Exodus story: Wandering in the wilderness)

September 20, 2015October 22, 2015Leave a comment

This assembly works well with years 1-6 and is quite interactive- especially if you have a willing teacher who doesn’t mind taking a risk!

You will need: A retelling of the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and being given manna by God, a sealed plastic ziplock bag 2/3 filled with water, sharp pencils or pens

We told the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and worrying about where they would get food and drink and also about where they were going. A great retelling can be found in this book: 9780745964331

Talk to the children about what worries them and then talk about the way that God helps the people in the story. They don’t need to worry because He has got it covered!

Invite a teacher to come out to the front (we had a very willing head teacher who we had prepared beforehand!). Sit them in a seat and hold a ziplock sandwich bag filled with water (and sealed!!) above their head. How worried do they feel now on a scale of 1-10? Then bring out a pen or a sharp pencil. What if I threatened to push this pencil into the bag? How worried would you be then? Stick the pencil ALL THE WAY THROUGH the plastic bag in one steady move so that the pencil is poking out either side of the bag. No water will come out! Repeat this twice more.

Emphasise the point you knew that no harm was going to come to the teacher even if they were worried. You had it covered. When we are worried, we know that God has it covered and will look after us. We can tell Him anything we are worried about. Who can the children talk to if they are worried?

Say a prayer, thanking God for people who help us when we are worried and thanking Him that we can talk to Him about our worries too.

All Age: Christmas Gifts Talk

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015Leave a comment

This is a talk that can be easily used in an assembly or for an all age service and focuses on the idea of Jesus being an unexpected gift.

You will need: 4 items to wrap as gifts. One should be really easy to guess (e.g. a book), a couple should be quite difficult to guess (I used sunglasses and a duck shaped door stop!) and one should be an ordinary looking, quite boring container with chocolate coins hidden inside.

Ask the congregation what their favourite thing about Christmas is. Gifts are bound to come up! Talk about why we give gifts- to show people that we love them and care for them. Ask everyone to try and guess what is wrapped up in your gifts. Start with the easy to guess gift, proceed onto the harder to guess gifts and end with the box containing chocolate coins. Each time, after guesses have been made, reveal what the gift is.

Explain that sometimes we know immediately what we’ve been given but sometimes it’s harder to work it out and we even get gifts that aren’t what they first seem on the outside. Talk about the fact that Jesus is Immanuel ‘God with us’. God came down as a baby, the first Christmas gift, but like the container with chocolate in it, he wasn’t what we expected! On first sight he would have been just an ordinary human baby, but actually he was a treasure worth more than we can imagine. He was a gift that meant we could be brought closer to God and, through him, God could show how much He loves us. Share out the chocolate and as you eat it, pray that we will all come to see How much God loves us this Christmas.

All Age: Nothing is Impossible to God Talk

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015Leave a comment

Here’s a clever way to illustrate teaching about nothing being impossible to God. If you practise you will be able to talk while cutting which will be a bonus!

You will need: Scissors, postcards or A5 sheets of paper

Ask for volunteers to come out to the front give each of them a sheet of A5 sized paper and some scissors.

Ask them to cut a hole in the paper that they will be able to fit their whole body through.

Some volunteers will immediately decide that this is not possible, while some may have an attempt!

Sometimes we are faced with problems that really worry us and that we don’t know how to solve!

Now take a piece of the A5 paper and follow these instructions…

1. Fold the paper in half lengthways
2 Cut alternating ‘up’ and ‘down’ slits in the paper as shown

3.Cut through the fold of the paper, leaving the fold of the end slit pieces in tact

4. Open the paper out into a big circle that you can pass your whole body through!

You may need to try this a few times before you actually do it for real so that you know roughly how many slits you need to make for your body to get through.

Talk about the fact that sometimes we are faced with problems that we don’t know how to solve- things that seem impossible to us. Talk about times when you’ve faced a problem like this yourself and how trusting in God has helped you. What amazing ways has God shown you that he cares and is helping you? The Bible says that all things are possible to God (Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27) and that, knowing this, can give us hope that if we trust in Him he will do amazing things.

All Age Talk: Baptism

June 1, 2015Leave a comment

This talk uses the story of the Baptism of Jesus as a starting off point.

You will need: Jigsaw pieces (at least enough for one each for members of the congregation), pictures on the screen or printed out and enlarged with only part visible so people have to guess what the picture shows.

When we think about baptism, our first thought might be of water and the new start it brings, washing off the old and bringing something new. For me, though, it’s always been about the words that God says to Jesus when he gets baptised himself in the River Jordan: ‘You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” For me an important part of baptism is about becoming part of God’s family, about becoming part of the big picture and the amazing plans He has in store.

So that’s where the jigsaw comes in! You might have been thinking that this is a strange image to bring to a baptism, but bear with me! I don’t know if anyone here is any good at jigsaws? In my family there’s a rule that you have to hide the box when you start a puzzle because it’s even more fun to do if you don’t even know what the picture is until it starts to come together. I’m not sure what you think of that!

Look at the partially obscured pictures. Can you guess what they show from only seeing part of the picture?

God has a big picture- his Kingdom, where there is love and joy and peace and hope. We only see part of it now, but we pray in the Lord’s prayer that His Kingdom will come on Earth and we will eventually see the whole picture. When we are baptised and we become part of God’s family, we become part of God’s plan to bring the big picture of his Kingdom to earth. Only God knows what the full picture looks like but when we are baptised, it’s as if we take up a piece and say to God, ‘I want to be in your family and I want to be part of your big picture!’ As part of God’s family, like the pieces in a jigsaw, we are also never alone. We are doing this together. Like the jigsaw pieces we are joined to many other people, many of whom are very different to us. If you look at the pieces of our jigsaw, hardly any of them are the same, yet they are all an important part of the picture and none of the pieces can make the picture by themselves. By joining in our new family, we get many new brothers and sisters who will support us, love us and help us to find where we fit.

I’d like to ask you to take one of the jigsaw pieces and to think of what it might mean to be part of God’s family and to be part of His big picture for the world. Maybe you would like God to show you how you can share His love and bring hope to others. Perhaps you would like to learn more about God’s love for you. Perhaps you would like to say thank you for those who have been baptised today and have become part of God’s family. taking up their own piece of thepicture. Let’s take a moment know to speak to God about his big picture and our part in it.

Play some music and let people reflect and then use the jigsaw intercessions.