The Story Keepers - Episode 3

 Hello Story Keepers and welcome to Christchurch Kids! We hope you've had a great week. Today's episode of The Story Keepers is called "Catacomb Rescue". The catacombs are underground passageways in Rome and you can still see them today. They would have been a great place to escape from the Roman soldiers.

Here's Episode 3...

It's great that we can be Story Keepers too. By watching the video and learning the stories from the Bible we can share them with others and pass them on. Today, maybe it's enough to watch this video. If you would like to find out a bit more, keep reading...

There is a page for you to have a look at all about Episode 3 in the back of your Story Keepers Activity booklets. 

In today's episode we heard three stories from the Bible. They were stories that Jesus told called "parables". They were stories that had a special meaning.

The Good Samaritan

The Parable of the Sower

The Unforgiving Servant

Jesus told us to love and help each other and our enemies. That can be really hard sometimes. For The Story Keepers it included showing love to Nero and and those Roman soldiers who were out to get them (not all Roman soldiers were their enemies). The children in the episode choose to show love to a Roman soldier by saving him in the tunnel. How do you think the Roman soldier felt about Christians after the children helped him? 

Our BIG question today is... 

How can we show love to people that we find it difficult to get along with?

Prayer

In the story of the Good Samaritan today we heard about showing people love who are different to us. 

We have our last Sunday today looking at the work of Open Doors. Here's a video about how the charity got started and it all started with Brother Andrew who wanted to help other people.

Open Doors have made some fantastic colouring pages. Maybe you would like to print one and colour it in. You could put it up in your house to remind you to pray for Christians around the world. 

You can download them here.

Our song today reminds that God's love is BIG! It's big enough for everyone!...

Thanks for joining us today . We'll be back here next Sunday with F@CT Online but we will also have F@CT in church too. 

F@CT will look a little different in the church at the moment but we will still be having lots of fun and learning about God. 

Here are some of the ways that it will be a different:

• Anyone over the age of 10 will be wearing a face covering unless they are medically exempt.

• We will be sanitising our hands.

• We won't be having our usual pastries and drinks.

• We will be sitting in "Sheep Pens" with our families!( These will be tables and chairs but we are calling them Sheep Pens and you will have a sheep to make friends with). We will stay in our Sheep Pens to keep a distance from other families.

• We won't be able to sing but we will have lots of fun joining in with actions.

• Each Sheep Pen will have it's own set of resources as we will still be making things to help us learn about our story. 

• Everyone will need to book ahead so we know who is coming. You can book your Sheep Pen for F@CT on October 4th here.

The Story Keepers - Episode 2

 Hello Story Keepers! Welcome to Christchurch Kids and we hope you've had a great week. We are continuing to watch the adventures of The Story Keepers today. There's secret messages, Roman soldiers and poison pastries!

Here is Episode 2...

It's great that we can be Story Keepers too. By watching the video and learning the stories from the Bible we can share them with others and pass them on. Today, maybe it's enough to watch this video. If you would like to find out a bit more, keep reading...

We heard three stories today...

John the Baptist and Jesus' baptism

Calming the Storm

Healing the wild man

Can you imagine what it would have been like if you had been there when one of these stories happened. 

How would you have felt when you saw these things happen? Shocked? Amazed? Surprised? Excited?  

It was becoming obvious that Jesus was amazing and could do wonderful things. People started to ask "Who is Jesus?"

Our BIG question today is... 

How would you describe Jesus to one of your friends?

You can find an activity sheet all about Episode 2 in your Story Keepers booklet. 

Prayer

There are lots of places in the world today where it is still dangerous to be a Christian just like it was dangerous for the Story Keepers. This month we are praying for a charity called Open Doors who help Christians around the world. If you would like to know a bit more, you can watch the video below about what is like to be a Christian today in North Korea.

We can pray for Christians around the world. Open Doors have made a prayer passport to help you pray for different places on different days.

You can download your prayer passport here

Our question today is "How would we describe Jesus to our friends?"  

I think this song is one way we can describe him...

We hope you all have a fantastic week and we will be back next week with the further adventures of The Story Keepers.

The Story Keepers - Episode 1

Hi everyone. Over the next few weeks, here on Christchurch Kids, we are going to be watching episodes of  The Story Keepers. It's a great series following a family in the year A.D.64 as they try to spread the good news about Jesus. This is tricky for them as they are living in a time when the Romans were in charge and being a Christian meant that you could be thrown in prison or facing the gladiators - as we will see in our first episode. 

Here is Episode 1...

The whole of the church are looking at the book of the Bible called Acts for the next few weeks. Our stories are set a little bit after the book of Acts but it was a similar time. Churches didn't meet in big buildings but in small groups in people's homes. They were groups of people who looked after each other and learned about God together. We aren't in our big building either at the moment but God doesn't wait for us to be in a big building to talk to us and help us. He is there with us every day.

It's great that we can be Story Keepers too. By watching the video and learning the stories from the Bible we can share them with others and pass them on. Today, maybe it's enough to watch this video. If you would like to find out a bit more, keep reading...

There were three stories in the episode today where Jesus helped people in a surprising or unexpected way.

Feeding the 5,000

Jesus took the boy's small lunch and made it feed over 5,000 people - with leftovers!

Meeting Zaccheus

Jesus surprised everyone by choosing to spend time with someone that everyone else thought was doing the wrong things.

Healing Jairus' daughter

Just when everyone else had given up hope, Jesus healed the little girl.

Our BIG question today is... 

Who is Jesus asking you to help?

Maybe it is someone in your own family, maybe it is someone at school or it might be a neighbour.

Have you received your Story Keepers activity book this week? 

In the back is a page all about Episode 1. You can fill it in and think about what we heard in the video. 

If you haven't received a Story Keepers Activity Book and you would like one, please get in touch with Emy at sundaychildrenandfamiliescoordinator@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk

Prayer

We are so blessed to live in a country where we can talk about being a Christian. We can meet together and we don't have to hide our faith like those early Christians in The Story Keepers.

 This month we are going to be looking at a charity called Open Doors who work around the world helping Christians in countries where it can be dangerous to follow Jesus. We will be finding out more about what is like for Christians around the world and praying for them together. 

Here's an introduction to Open Doors. They show us that even in the most difficult situation, God is with us and sends people to help us. 

In our prayers today we can say Thank You to God that we live in a country where we can tell everyone the good news about Jesus without trying to keep it a secret. 

We can pray for Christians around the world where it is difficult or dangerous for them. We can pray for the work of Open Doors who help these Christians.

Let's finish today with one of our favourite songs. It reminds us that Our God really is a Great Big God.

We hope you all have a great week and we will be back next Sunday with more adventures with The Story Keepers. 

September Fact

Hi everyone and welcome to F@CT Online. We can't meet together yet for our F@CT service so we thought we would bring it to you in your own home. We've got some familiar faces and favourite songs. We'll have craft ideas to help us explore some fantastic Bible stories and prayer suggestions for you to try at home.

Today, Emy spoke to Lizzie online. Maybe you've been speaking to friends and family like this too. 

Let's see how they got on...

Here's one of our favourites. You can join in with the actions and sing along.

Here's our Bible story for today. Look at all the changes that Moses faced in his life. God was with him every step of the way.

(If you want to know more about Moses, you can read all about him in your Bible. There is also a fantastic film about Moses called The Prince of Egypt. It's currently available to watch on Amazon Prime.)

Here's our new song. You can sing along with the words and maybe you can make up your own actions. 

Make your own Lighthouse

" My Lighthouse" is great song to sing with really fun actions. It is also a fantastic picture to help us think about God. The lighthouse never moves and it is always there to help anyone out at sea. It's there when the seas are calm and it's there when a huge storm is raging. It is a steady light to help people stay safe.

Just like the lighthouse, God is always there whatever is going on around us. We can always trust Him that he will show us the way. In Psalm 119 the Bible says...

Your word is a lamp to my feet 

and a light to my path.

You can have a go at making your own lighthouse to remind you that God is with you every day.

You could have a go at making a model. 

(These children have used battery operated tealights so their lighthouses re really safe.)

You could draw a picture.

You could even make a lighthouse from Lego.

If you do make a lighthouse we would really love to see pictures of what you have made. It would be great to share the pictures on here. 

You can email your pictures to Emy at 

sundaychildrenandfamiliescoordiantor@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk

Prayer

We can talk to God about anything at anytime. Sometimes it helps us to have a suggestion for what we want to talk to God about. Today we are going to use some dice. You probably have a dice tucked away in a game somewhere.

We can use the numbers we roll on the dice to give us a suggestion for what we would like to talk to God about. You can pray on your own or as a family.

1 - Your family

2 - Our church

3 - Our town

4 - Your nursery or school

5 - Our country

6 - Our world

We hope you have had lots of fun with us for our first F@CT Online. 

Next week we are going to be starting to watch a series together called The Story Keepers. It's a great story about Ben the baker and his family. They live in the Year 64AD and the Romans are in charge. At that time nobody was allowed to be a Christian so we follow the adventures of Ben and his family as they spread the good news about Jesus while avoiding the Roman soldiers.

We hope you have a great week.