hope – The Well Creative Children's ministry

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15.13

You will need: seed paper, coloured paper, pens, glue dots, glue, card, scissors,

Think about the new year and what our hopes for the next 12 months are. How would you like to see things getting better for yourself? Your friends and family? The world?

Talk about Jesus being the Light of the World and that, with him, however dark and bad things seem, there is always hope that light and better days will come. Jesus gives us hope of new life, even when everything seems hopeless.

Make a card signifying ‘hope.’ You might use colours or symbols (such as the rainbow) to show hope for better things. Attach a strip of seed paper to the front of the card with a glue dot, so that it can easily be removed.

Keep the card for yourself or give to to someone else. Write hopes for the coming year onto the seed paper and plant it in the garden. As the seeds grow, pray that your hope in what God can do will also grow.

Traditionally the 4 weeks of Advent each have a particular theme: hope, peace, joy and love.

As Advent begins this years we want to put some hope out there into the community and to encourage people to engage with the theme by thinking about what their hopes for the future are. This is a great activity for families to do together to encourage their local communities.

We’ve wrapped up some individual Tulip and Daffodil bulbs, attached a label to them and are going to leave them on the tables set up in each of our villages where people can give and take food items. This is the text printed on the reverse side of the label if you’d like to make your own:

What do you hope for?

What are your dreams for the future?

Where do you see hope in the world around you?

Plant this bulb in the ground and, as it starts to grow, may you see hope growing in your life.

Plant me NOW & look for the shoots of HOPE

in the Spring. Find a sunny, well-drained spot

where you will see me and dig a hole deep

enough to just cover me with soil. I need to be

pointed side up, my roots are in the flatter area.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God. With God all things are possible.” Mark 10:27