Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We are continuing our adventures with Moses today and we have the most dramatic part of the story to look at. We saw a little part of it at the end of last week's video but it was so amazing we're going to look at it again.
Last week, we saw how the 10 plagues that God sent finally made Pharaoh agree to let the Israelites leave Egypt. They left the country and made their way into the desert.
Pharaoh looked around and realised that all his slaves were gone and he became angry. He decided that he was going to go and get the Israelites back.
God had appeared to the Israelites as a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night to lead them through the desert and they were now camped by the Red Sea when they saw the Egyptians approaching.
We've got a clip from the amazing film "The Prince of Egypt" to show us what happened next...
Can you imagine how the Israelites felt when they saw the Egyptians approaching? Just when they thought they were free, the Egyptian army was chasing them and the only place ahead of them was the sea.
God had an amazing plan for his people. They prayed for help and God helped them in the most incredible way. The Israelites could be brave because God was with them. Nobody could have imagined how God was going to solve this situation as it looked impossible.
But, as Jesus said...
“For men this is impossible. But for God all things are possible."
Matthew 19 : 26
The Bible tells us that God is always with us too. He promises to be with us forever because he loves us so much. If we listen to God and follow his ways, He will always help us.
Our Activity Book
If you are new to the Christchurch Kids blog and would like an activity book, please email Emy at childrenandfamilies@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk
We can have a look in our activity books now and find the pages about crossing the Red Sea.
Prayer
When the Israelites reached the shore after crossing the sea and saw that the Egyptian army had been washed away, they prayed and danced and sang. They praised God because he is AMAZING!
We have a prayer of praise today and it's a prayer we can make with our whole body.
You can stand up tall and tell God how amazing he is using these words and actions...
(3 deep breaths)
God, you are above(reach toward
the sky),
below(touch your toes),
inside (hands to heart)
and all around(big
arm circles).
I worship you(reach toward the
sky),
and give my life to you (touch your toes).
And I love you(hands to heart)
with all that I am (big arm circles).
(3 deep breaths)
We can continue our praising with one of our favourite songs to dance to. God is amazing and we want to follow Him and make Him part of our every day lives.
We hope you have fun dancing along with this one as we sing to God together.
Thanks for joining us today to find out more about the amazing adventures of Moses.
Next week we have F@CT online and we have lots of fun planned with Lego, games, stories, prayers, songs and a familiar face or two popping in to say hello.
Christchurch Kids - we need you!
At Christchurch, we would love your help this week as we are going to be sending out parcels to residents of our local care homes for Valentines Day. In a time when visits are very restricted, we want to send out messages of God's love to those residents and staff. We are sending out chocolate hearts and we would also love to send out 130 Valentines cards! This is where we need your help.
Please could you make some Valentines cards and drop them round to Emy's house (email childrenandfamilies@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk for the address) by next Sunday (7th February).
They could have hearts on the front, with the message "With Love". You could use paper folded in half if you don't have card. You don't need to write anything inside the cards as we will add a message from Christchurch.
We hope you have fun making the cards, but maybe not this much fun!...
Hello and welcome to Christchurch Kids. We're glad you could join us online as we carry on exploring the story of Moses.
Moses appears in the Bible in the book of Exodus. The word 'exodus' means the movement of a lot of people or things away from a place. In our story today, we hear about how the Israelites began their own exodus as they left Egypt. It wasn't easy to leave though as Pharaoh didn't want them to go.
Let's watch the video and find out what happened
How do you think Moses felt when he had done everything God had asked him to and all the people around him just got upset with him?
The Israelites were upset with him as he had said God would free them and they were still stuck in Egypt. Pharaoh wouldn't listen and kept saying :No!"
Moses listened to God and kept going back to Pharaoh to try and warn him but he wouldn't listen. Did you spot all of the 10 plagues that God sent? What do you think it would have been like to live in Egypt when the plagues happened?
1) The river turned to blood 2) Frogs were everywhere 3)Gnats (tiny annoying , biting flies) 4) Flies 5)Cattle became ill and died 6) Boils - these are large sore spots 7)Hail storms 8) Locusts - insects like grasshoppers that eat all the plants 9) Three days of total darkness
Some of the plagues sound a bit weird. I quite like frogs but in the Bible it says that the frogs were on the people and in their beds and even in their ovens. I don't think I like frogs that much!
In the first plague the river turned to blood - what would the people have to drink?
In the 5th plague, the cattle died and in the 8th plague the locusts ate the plants. What did the people have to eat?
After all of these plagues, Pharaoh's heart was still hard. He refused to do what God was asking him. There was only one plague left and it was terrible. God said that all the firstborn sons would die.
God told Moses to tell the Israelites to paint the blood of a lamb on their doorposts and to eat special bread and so the plague passed over their houses and their sons did not die.The Jewish festival of Passover is still celebrated today when Jews remember when the plague passed over them and God rescued them.
The last plague was the one that finally changed Pharaoh's mind.
What does this story tell us about God? He didn't send the plagues because he felt like doing something weird. He did it because his chosen people had cried out to Him for help. It shows us how powerful God is. He gave Pharaoh lots of chances to change his mind too. The Israelites needed God to be the powerful God they knew him to be and He answered their prayer.
It's interesting that the Israelites grumbled at Moses when they weren't freed straight away. Sometimes God's plans take some time to happen and we can get impatient. At those times we have to remember that God has good plans for us and we can trust Him.
In the Bible it says...
I say this because I know what I have planned for you,” says the Lord. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.
Jeremiah 29:11
Our Activity Book
If you are new to the Christchurch Kids blog and would like an activity book, please email Emy at childrenandfamilies@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk
We can have a look in our activity books now and find the pages about the 10 plagues.
If you are in Splash, you have a frog and fly game you can make in the back of your books.
If you are in Xstream, you can have a go at making origami jumping frogs.
The instructions to make a jumping frog are in your activity book, but if you need some extra help, here's a little video.
Prayer
In our story today, we heard about how God protected and rescued the Israelites. He is a powerful God.
God protects us too and so today we are going to stick our prayers onto an umbrella.
In the Bible, it talks about God being our shield. We don't use armour very much anymore so a shield isn't something we can easily imagine. An umbrella is a great symbol of protection for us today.
You can write your prayers on post-it notes and stick then on your umbrella or you can draw a picture of an umbrella and write or draw your prayers on there.
Dear God
Thank you that you love us and protect us. Thank you that you have good plans for us. Help us to listen to you with soft hearts so we are open to hear you.
Amen.
We've got one of our favourite songs today. It's 'Our God is a Great Big God'.
We've heard how powerful God is and that he is a great, big God but he still knows us and loves us. Let's praise God together as we sing and do the actions.
Thanks for joining us today on our blog. We hope you can pop back next week to find out what happened next in the Exodus and Moses' incredible journey.
Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a good week.
We're continuing to look at the adventures of Moses and today God talks to Moses in a fantastic way.
Did you notice in this story that God spoke to Moses but that He also listened. God listened to the prayers of the Israelites as they asked God to rescue them.
When we think about the big heroes of the Bible, like Moses, we can sometimes forget that they weren't always brave and strong. They didn't always follow what God asked straight away.
When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, can you remember what Moses said?
He didn't say yes straight away. He told God that he was worried and that he wouldn't know what to say. God listened to Moses and helped him in his worries. He gave Moses a powerful sign to show others so they would know he came with God's words. He even told Moses' brother Aaron to go with him and help him.
When God asks us to do something, he listens when we talk to him about it. He knows us and he knows how best to help us. Maybe, just like Moses, we might feel that we aren't good enough. When we feel like that, we can remember that we are children of God! God says that he knows us and that he has amazing plans for us
The Bible tells us how well God knows us in Psalm 139
Lord, you have examined me. You know all about me. You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts before I think them. You know where I go and where I lie down. You know well everything I do. Lord, even before I say a word, you already know what I am going to say. You are all around me—in front and in back. You have put your hand on me.
Psalm 139: 1-5
Our Activity Book
If you are new to the Christchurch Kids blog and would like an activity book, please email Emy at childrenandfamilies@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk
We can have a look in our activity books now and find the pages about the burning bush.
In our prayers today, we are going to write God a letter. What would you say in a letter to God? What questions would you ask Him? God loves it when we talk - or write - to him and he loves to answer us. God can talk to us through the Bible, through things we see and hear at church or in our everyday life and with our family and friends. Look out this week for how God is speaking to you.
Father God, thank you that you know us so well. Thank you that you know just the right ways to help us. We're sorry for the times when we have thought that we aren't good enough to follow you. Help us to listen to you and look for those around us who are helping us.
Amen
We've got a great song now about how God knows us. Let's praise God together that He is amazing and He knows us and loves us.
Thanks for joining in with us today at Christchurch Kids.
We'll be back next week with more amazing adventures with Moses.
Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We are spending more time in our homes again at the moment but we are glad that we can still learn about God together here online. We can also talk to God any time and any place.
We are starting a new adventure together today as we begin to look at the life of Moses. He led an incredible life with God. It is full of surprises and adventure and we are looking forward to sharing the stories with you. What do you think of the new look blog? Moses's adventures involve quite a lot of water so it's a good background to have as we start finding out about him.
Moses first adventure began right at the very beginning of his life when he was still only a baby and water plays a big part in this story as it happens on a river.
Let's watch the video and find out...
There's a song about this story too. You may recognise some of the tune.
What an incredible beginning to Moses' life! How do you think Moses' mum felt when she decided to put him into the basket on the river? It must have been a very difficult decision and I think it must have helped that his big sister stayed close to see what happened. Moses' mum must have trusted God that her baby would be alright.
How do you think Moses' big sister felt when she was able to run home and fetch her mum? She was able to say that her little brother was safe AND that he was being looked after by the princess AND that the princess wanted her to come and look after him. How amazing is that!
God had good plans for Moses.
Moses's mum showed that she trusted God. We can trust God too even when we don't know what is going to happen. God will always be there for us as he loves us so much.
Trust the Lord with all your heart. Don’t depend on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5
Our Activity Book
Have you received you Moses activity book yet? If you haven't got one yet and you usually get post from church then it will be with you in the next couple of days. If you are new to the Christchurch Kids blog and would like an activity book, please email Emy at childrenandfamilies@christchurch-clevedon.org.uk
We can have a look in our activity books now and find the pages about the baby in the basket.
We can talk to God about anything and we can trust Him that he knows what is going to happen next and he will take care of us.
Today, as we are thinking of Moses floating in the river in his basket, we are going to write our prayers on cupcake cases. You can just write a word or draw a picture. Maybe it's something to say thank you for, maybe it's to ask for help if you are worried about something or maybe it's to say sorry for something.
Take your cupcake cases and float them in a sink or bowl of water. We can talk to God about what we have written down as we think of how He looked after baby Moses in the basket on the river.
We've got a great song with some fancy footwork now based on the verse from Proverbs above. We can trust in the Lord! Maybe you would like to have a go at the actions and do your own fancy footwork.
Thank you for popping by today. We hope you've had fun finding out about Moses. Join us again next week for the next part of his incredible journey.
Hello and welcome to F@CT Online! We hope you all had a joyful, peaceful Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus.
Today we are going to be looking at two people who never appear in a Nativity play but were there just after Jesus was born. They are called Anna and Simeon.
Let's watch this to hear who they were.
Anna and Simeon were both amazing, faithful people. They believed that God would keep his promises to them. They both got to meet Jesus, just as God had told them they would.
Can you imagine how excited they must have been? People had been waiting hundreds of years for Jesus to arrive and they actually got to see him.
It's the beginning of a new year and last year was very unexpected. We had lots of strange, difficult moments. As we look towards this new year ahead of us, we can be absolutely sure of one thing, just like the story above told us.
It's this...
God keeps his promises.
What do God's promises look like for us? God has promised us lots of things in the Bible.
You can download, colour and cut out the sheet above. Maybe you would like to stick God's promises up somewhere in your house. You could stick them near a mirror or maybe on a notice board.
Maybe you could decorate a promise jar like this...
This year you may hear new promises that God is making for you. You could add them to the jar.
Prayer
Two of the promises above are about prayer. They say that when we pray God listens to us and is close to us.
Choose one of the promises on the sheet and spend a quiet moment thinking about it. Maybe you could draw your own picture about what that promise means to you.
Thank you God that you are with us as we travel together into the New Year.
Help us to remember your promises for us.
Amen
We've got a song we can sing together called "All through History". We know God is faithful and keeps His promises as there are lots of stories in the Bible when He has shown that.
This song looks at some of those stories.
Let's praise God that he is faithful and trustworthy with singing and maybe some dancing too...
Thank you for joining us for F@CT online. We hope you've had fun today finding out more about God.
Next week we are going to be starting to look at the amazing story of Moses. He went on lots of adventures with God. We're going to have lots of fun finding out all about him.
