Rooted and Fruited

Hi everyone! We hope you've had a great start to the summer holidays. Have you been out and about in any woods recently? Did you have a look at all the amazing trees? 

Today we are looking at Psalm 1 which talks about trees. Here are the verses for today.

How can we be like a tree? Larry is asking the same question today...

The children are hiding in this box here. 

Click on the video so you can watch them with Larry and Joy.

When a tree is planted in good soil and gets lots of water, it can grow deep roots. This means that the tree will grow well and be able to make fruit. When strong winds blow, the tree can staying standing.

If we spend time reading our Bibles and talking to God, we are growing roots too. We will be rooted with God. Our fruits will be the Fruits of the Spirit (which we talked about here). These fruits aren't apples or bananas but love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

If we find things difficult, we will be rooted and we will remember God's good promises to us . We will be able to keep close to Him

Here's that verse again as our colouring page today. You can download it here.

Prayer

For our prayer time today, see if you can go outside and see a tree (or can you see on from your window?). Place your hand on the bark and look up at the branches. Think about those roots going deep down into the ground. 

Thank you God that you will always be there for us. Thank you that we can grow strong roots with you as you will always love us and we can always trust in you. 

Amen

Here's one of our favourite songs from F@CT.  You can join in with the actions.

We hope you've had a good time being a tree today. We'll be back next Sunday with more adventures from the book of Psalms.

What is a Psalm?

Hi everyone. Welcome to our new look Christchurch Kids blog. We're feeling excited about the summer and we're looking forward to having lots of fun. Here on the blog we are going to be hearing from our new friends, Larry and Joy, as they learn more about the book of Psalms.

Joy has found Larry looking at lots of cards and pictures. Let's find out more...

Thanks Larry and Joy. I hope you have fun making that card together. Maybe you could make a card for a friend today?

It was interesting to hear about King David writing the Psalms. We can find out more about him in this video.

The verse from Psalms that we are looking at today is from Psalm 136. 

We can use this Bible verse to help us pray today. We can spend a moment being quiet and thinking of the good things we have in our life. We can say thank you to God for all the good things. We can say thank you to God that His love continues for ever. He will always love us and we can trust that He will always be good. It's amazing!

This is the verse for our colouring page today as well. You can download it here.

We've got a special guest today. She's called Music Mae and she loves the Psalms. She has a fantastic song all about this amazing book of the Bible. You can sing along if you like.

Thanks for joining us today. Wiggle Wednesday is on holiday for the summer but there are lots of exciting things happening online that we can join in with. You can find out more about some ideas here.

We'll see you next week. I wonder what Larry and Joy will be up to!

Getting excited about the summer

We're getting excited about the summer holidays and there are some great things to get involved with online.

Emy and her family spend one week every Summer at a CPAS Venture having lots of fun, making new friends and learning about God. This summer the Venture is going online from Monday 3rd to Sunday 9th August . This is a fantastic opportunity to have a look at a Venture if you have never been before. You can join in from the comfort of your own home. There are fun challenges and activities planned as well as finding out more about God. 

If you are interested in joining in with the Virtual Venture, email Emy at sundaychildrenandfamiliescoordinator@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk.

New Wine is breaking out too! There will be some fantastic New Wine content online to join in with from the 30th July - 3rd August. You can find out more about it on their website here.

Here's Rick to tell us more.

To help us to look forward to New Wine, we have one of the favourite New Wine songs from our house. We hope you have fun with this song for Wiggle Wednesday.

Pop back here this Sunday for a new look blog for the summer and meet our new friends, Larry and Joy.

The Great Banquet

Hello and welcome to Christchurch Kids. Today we're having a party! In fact, we all invited to a big banquet. Let's hear all about it.

Jesus was great at telling stories to explain more about God and what it is like following him. It's such a good thing to love God that Jesus says that it's as brilliant as being at a huge party with lots of delicious food. The only people who weren't at the party were people who had been invited but chose not to go. We can all choose to go to God's big party and ask him to be in our lives.

Let's celebrate

Why don't you celebrate this story by making your own delicious food? Maybe you could make your own pizza? 

Pizza is such a fantastic thing to make as you can use so many different ingredients.

A pizza base: You could make your own bread dough as a pizza base or you could use some toast, a pitta, a wrap or even a crumpet.

Tomato sauce: Maybe you have some tomato puree or you could use some pasta sauce or red pesto also tastes delicious.

Cheese: You can use any cheese you like - or even leave it off  if  you aren't keen.

Toppings: This is the really fun bit. You can add so many different vegetables to a pizza. It's also the perfect way to finish up a little bit of ham or bacon that might be left in the fridge. You can arrange your pizza to make all sorts of designs. Here are some fun ideas.

You could cut a wrap into any shape pizza. Beware the Pizzasaurus!

There is a very famous Bible verse that is our colouring page today. It is all about how we can choose to follow God , just like the people choosing to go to the banquet. It says,

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. 

John 3: 16

Here's our colouring page. You can download it here.

I filled in the heart in the picture with lots of patterns. You can colour it in or you could design your own heart. Here's a blank version of our colouring page for you to get creative.

Prayer

When we cook food, it makes the most delicious smells. In Psalm 141 : 1 , the Bible says "May my prayers be like special perfume before you". We are going to use some special smells in our prayers today by making a spice painting.

Spice Painting from Flame: creative

You can put a small amount of spice into a cupcake case and mix it with a little bit of water to make a paint.You could use it to paint a picture saying thank you to God that we are all invited to his amazing party.

If we are having our party, we will need some music and dancing! This is the perfect song to have a dance along to.

We hope you have enjoyed our party today. It's an end of term party too as, for most people, the summer holidays start next weekend. Next week we are going to have a new look blog and we have some friends who have popped in to say "Hello!". They are called Larry and Joy and we are going to see more of them over the summer.

Great Big God!

Hello! It's Wiggle Wednesday and we have one of our favourite songs from Sunday mornings at F@CT. It's been a little while since we've sung it together so I've found somebody to help us remember the actions. 

I hope you have fun having a wiggle along with the actions today.

The Good Samaritan

Hi everyone and welcome to Christchurch Kids. Today we are looking at  a story Jesus told called the Parable of the Good Samaritan and we've got a special guest too. Our video comes from 'The Diary of a Disciple: Luke's Story'. It's a great version of the book of Luke from the Bible told in the style of 'The Diary of a Wimpy Kid'. It's definitely a Christchurch Kids recommended read.

We're really excited to tell you that we have a special message from Supergranny. She has had some unexpected help this week.

Thanks Supergranny. We hope you are feeling better soon.

A challenge

Today we have a challenge for you. How can you think about your neighbour? Who is your neighbour? Is it the person who actually lives next door to you? Is it your friends and family? Could it be people living in another country? 

In our parable today, the Samaritan stopped and helped someone who needed help. Can you think of a way to help someone today? Maybe you could use your talents we talked about with Supergranny a few of weeks ago. That could mean helping someone in your house. You might like to cook something for someone in your road. You could write a letter or draw a picture and pop it in the post. 

Would you like a bigger challenge? Just like the man who needed help in the parable, there are lots of people around the world who need help. Poverty is a word that means people don't have enough. That means they don't have enough food or water. They might not have enough money for their children to go school. If you would like to find out how you can help people living in poverty, have a look at the website for Tearfund. It's a fantastic charity working alongside people around the world and making a big difference. 

The first thing that Tearfund asks us to do is pray. You can find a guide to praying for Tearfund and their many projects around the world here.

Another thing that Tearfund asks is that we do something to help. Have a look here to see ways they suggest we can act.  You could take their plastic pledge to try to reduce the amount of plastic we use.

Jesus told his disciples that people would know we follow him if we love others. That's our colouring page today and you can download it here

We have a great Chat Mat about our parable today. You can download it here, colour it in and chat about it with your family.

  

Prayer

We are thinking of others today in our story and in our prayers. You can draw an outline of a person and write the names of people you would like to pray for. Spend a moment sitting quietly. If you start thinking about someone, that may mean God is asking you to pray for them. Spend a little while praying for the people you have written down. You could put your picture up on a wall and when you see it, you could say a prayer for those people.

We've got a great new song to sing today. It's called One Way Jesus. There are some fun actions to join in with so have a listen to the song and then have a go at joining in. 

Thanks for popping by today. Don't forget you can still take part with our Prayer wall at church. We would love to see your prayers appear on the net. You can find out more about it here.

We hope you have a great week and we will see you again on Wiggle Wednesday.

Oh Wow!

Hello! It's Wiggle Wednesday today and we've got a treat today. We've got the Cheeky Pandas to play us a song about how awesome God is! 

Have a dance, have a wiggle and enjoy this song.

We'll see you on Sunday