Tag: All Age

Mothering Sunday Button Thank You Prayers

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Next Sunday is the day when we celebrate Mothering Sunday. It was traditionally a day in the middle of Lent when people who worked were able to have time off to visit their mothers and their ‘mother’ church, where they might have been baptised. One of the most popular readings to use on this day is John 19: 25- 27, when Jesus creates a new community of support for his grieving mother when he connects her with the disciple John, who takes her into his home as his mother. Just as John becomes a support for Mary and vice versa, in life it’s not necessarily just our mothers who give us ‘motherly’ or parental care. There are so many people, especially in church families, who form a community around us to help support us and give us strength. To help celebrate and give thanks for mothers and other caring figures in our lives, here are some prayers using an item you can easily find at home. Find a button and hold on to it when you pray.

Buttons hold things together

Who do you look to to help you when things are busy and stressful? Who can help you to figure out what to do when you are confused about how to keep going? Who helps when it feels as if your world is falling apart? Think of them and say thank you to God for them.

Buttons are strong

Think about the times when you have felt sad, upset or afraid. Who has helped you to be strong. Who is the strongest person you know? Thank God for those people.

Buttons come in different shapes and sizes

Those who care for us and keep us safe might be mothers, but they also might be other people in our lives. Try and count in your head how many different people have helped you during the past week. Thank God for each one of them.

When buttons are missing we notice and things don’t hold together as well as they did before

Some of the caring figures in our lives may have died and we miss the fact that they are no longer here. Take a moment to remember them and the love they shared with you. Thank God for them.

Prayers for peace

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Here is a very visual and watchable way to help children to pray for peace and the bringing together of communities. You can also use things you are very likely to have a home, which is always a welcome bonus!

You will need: Kitchen roll, water, 2 cups, food colouring

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Take 2 cups and fill them about 2/3 full with water. Into each cup, mix a different food colouring so that each cup’s water is a different colour. Try to get as strong a colour as possible.

Cut a strip of kitchen roll as long as a sheet of the roll and about 5cm wide.

Talk about divisions in communities we know or live in. What causes such divisions? Who or what helps to heal divisions and bring people together. Think about one of the names for Jesus which is ‘Prince of Peace.’ What does that mean? How can we help to bring about peace?

Think of a situation where there is division e.g. in a war. Put the paper towel as a bridge between the two cups, with each end of the towel in on of the cups. Pray that God will help to heal the divisions and bring people together in peace, as you watch the coloured water ‘climb’ up the towel, meet in the middle of the towel and combine to form a new colour (e.g. red in one cup and yellow in the other will lead to an eventual combination of orange in the middle). Try different colours for different situations and watch your peace prayers bring about new colours!

Rainbow Prayers

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Rainbows have been such an important symbol during the Coronavirus crisis of how we are coming together as a community and supporting each other. Here is a prayer activity that children can easily do with their families at home.

You will need: items in the different colours of the rainbow- red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet. You might want to make it a challenge to find one or two items of each colour inside or outside the house or you might use a product that has lots of the same things in all colours e.g. Lego

Ue the items to pray:

  • Choose a colour, hold that colour item and thank God for as many things as you can think of that are that colour too.
  • pray for people that each colour reminds you of
  • Allocate types of prayer to different colours- choose a colour and pray that prayer e.g.

red- people who are ill

orange- people who need to be brave

yellow-thanks for things that make us happy

green- the environment

blue- people who are sad

indigo- people who take care of us

violet- questions you would like to ask God

  • draw rainbows and ask God to bless people in your community. Give the pictures to neighbours or hang then in your windows

Sticker Intercessions

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This is a simple but very colourful and visual way of bringing prayers to Jesus.

You will need:  A roll of wallpaper backing paper or a roll of foil, a marker or paint pen, a collection of coloured label and/or coloured dot stickers, felt tip pens.

Roll out your paper or foil to your desired length (it’s good to make it long enough for a group of children to get round at the same time!)

Write the word ‘Jesus’ in large letters across the sheet.

Talk to children about bringing prayers to Jesus and feeling confident that we can let go of them and leave them in his hands.

Think of who you want to pray for and either write initial letters or draw small pictures on the coloured label stickers. Stick the stickers anywhere on the letters of Jesus’ name as a sign of brining the prayers to him.

If children would like to pray for themselves, ask them to choose a coloured dot to represent themselves and to stick that on the letters of Jesus’ name too.

Church Family Group Art Work

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This is a great activity for the first session back after the summer as it helps children to think about who they are as a person, but also about the part they play in the much larger church family.  You could do this as an all age activity with everyone in church taking part, or you could do it in a junior church group.

You will Need: squares of paper with identical hearts drawn on them (10cmx10cm is good!), a larger piece of backing paper to stick the squares on when they are all complete, pens, crayons, paints, glue, scissors, tissue paper, glitter, sequins, feathers, fabric scraps, coloured paper.

Talk about how different we all are from each other- you might look at hair colour, eye colour, hobbies, likes and interests. God made us all individuals and we all have our own gifts and talents.  It might be useful to use some verse from Psalm 139 to talk about how we are made uniquely by God and He knows every part of us.

Then talk about how we are all part of the same family in the church and have been called to be disciples together. Even though we are all different, we all belong to the same family and have a part to play as disciples, loving God and loving each other.  How could we show that we love each other? How could we show that we love God?

Ask everyone to decorate a heart square according to their own personality. Use colours and textures to express something of themselves. When everyone has finished, stick all of the squares onto a backing paper to make a big church family banner.

Pray: Thank God for making us all unique but also part of an amazing family. Ask him to help us love ourselves, love each other and love Him even more.