Palm Sunday

 Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a great week and that you are enjoying being back at school. 

Today is a day for celebration! It is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of a special time on the church called Holy Week, which is the week before Easter Sunday.

Here's the story of what happened on Palm Sunday.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be in the crowds in Jerusalem when Jesus rode past on a donkey? 

There was cheering and waving of branches (just like when we wave flags at sports matches or when the Queen arrives for a visit). People were excited as they realised that Jesus was the one that they had been waiting for for hundreds of years. They knew what was written in the Old Testament and they could see it happening right before their eyes!

Towards the end of the video, we can see that the religious leaders were very uncomfortable with what the people were saying about Jesus. This was the start of what eventually led to the events of Good Friday.

We can celebrate with our own palm branches today - but we are going to make them out of newspaper!

Here are some simple instructions to make your palm branches (newspaper trees)

This video also shows you how to make newspaper trees. Look how tall they made one!

Prayer

Today we are celebrating that Jesus is our Saviour, the one who was promised in the Old Testament, but we are also looking ahead across the week. Holy Week is full of drama and it eventually leads to Good Friday but then also Easter Sunday.

Take a moment today to share with your family what Easter means to you. What does the word Easter make you think of? Are there things you remember about Easter celebrations past, things you did, things you ate or maybe a part of the Easter story itself that sticks with you? 

We can pray a prayer of thanks with our family today. We can thank God for sending Jesus.

We've got a great Palm Sunday song to share together today that tells us the story. We hope you have fun dancing around to this one. Maybe you can wave your newspaper branches as you dance.

Thank you for joining us today. We are looking forward to our Easter Sunday celebrations next week with a visit from No Strings Attached and a new play from the children at Christchurch as we join in with the rest of the church at www.christchurch-clevedon.org.uk

The Walls of Jericho

 Hello Christchurch Kids and welcome to our blog. This Sunday is our last look at the exodus of the Israelites. They escaped slavery in Egypt and have spent years in the desert. The land God promised them is nearly in sight.

First there is a river to cross... but we've already seen that water doesn't get in the way of God's plans.

The Israelites have crossed the river and so now the only thing in their way is a wall but it's not just any wall. This was the wall surrounding Jericho.

Wow! What an amazing story. How do you think the Israelites felt when Joshua told them the plan to take the city of Jericho? Do you think they wondered how God was going to make it work? They had seen God do incredible things  already so maybe they didn't doubt it. 

God can do amazing things when we listen to him and follow his ways. Sometimes God's way might seem strange to those around us but this is what the Bible tells us about God...

Yes, God’s riches are very great! God’s wisdom and knowledge have no end! No one can explain the things God decides. No one can understand God’s ways.

Romans 11:33

We are going to have some fun building and knocking things down today as we remember the story of the walls of Jericho.

Our challenge today is to see how tall a tower you can make with Lego BUT you have to stack the bricks on the smooth sides not using the bumps! How high can you build your tower before it falls over?

or  you could play a game of Jenga - another great game of building and knocking down.

Prayer

Father, You are the God who can do anything. You can even make shouting at a wall work to bring it down. Help us believe in You and follow Your instructions even when it seems weird to other people.

Amen

Here's one of favourite songs from F@CT and we can sing it today as we have heard that God is bigger than big, stronger than strong and mightier than mighty. God can do anything!

Thanks for joining us today and we hope you have enjoyed following the adventures of  Moses, Joshua and the Israelites. Next week we begin our journey towards Easter, starting at Palm Sunday.

Joshua and the Spies

 Hello Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a great week back at school with your friends. Happy Mothers Day! We hope you have a lovely day celebrating with your family.

Today, we are continuing to follow the Israelites and they are getting very close to the land God promised them. Moses has had some incredible adventures with God but he is now coming towards the end of his life. He passed the leadership of the Israelites over to Joshua and we are going to find out more about it.

We have another part of the story to watch as well. Joshua needed to find out what was happening across the river so he sent spies to find out. Do you think they used secret codes and fascinating gadgets or were they just really good at hide and seek? 

Let's watch the video to find out more.

Rahab helped the spies when they were in Jericho and we are going to hear more about her next week. Her story doesn't end there though. The book of Matthew starts with the genealogy of Jesus, which means his family tree, and Rahab is on the list. 

This is amazing as we heard in the beginning of the video that she was someone who made bad choices in her life and she was also a Canaanite - who were fierce enemies of Israel. It is even more amazing as, at the time that Jesus' family tree was written, it was usually only men who were on the list. She is one of the few women who were included. She heard the stories of God and the amazing things He had done and she believed in him. God made Rahab part of his plan. 

Remember that I commanded you to be strong and brave. So don’t be afraid. The Lord your God will be with you everywhere you go

Joshua 1:9

God spoke these words to Joshua when he began leading the Israelites. Rahab was also brave when she hid the spies in her house. She must have been worried about what the king's guards would do if they found them.

We can remember these words as well when we are feeling worried and scared. 

We are going to pretend to be spies today and we have a secret code to crack.

You can download it here or click on the picture to enlarge it to complete it on screen.

If you have had fun with our secret code, there are lots more spy activities over at Frugal Fun 4 Boys.

Prayer

Today we are going to use a game to help us pray and it's a game I expect you might have played before. We're going to play I Spy! It's a great way to say Thank You prayers to God.

You can play with colours or letters and after everyone has guessed your object, you can  thank God for what you spotted (maybe with a big AMEN from everyone).

We've got a song today which is always popular when we sing it at church. This song is based on our Bible verse from Joshua.  

Have you got strong arms ready for this one? 

Thank you for joining us today and come back next week for the last installment of our adventures with the Israelites as they make their way to the Promised Land.

Christchurch Kids - We need you!

Thank you to everyone who made wonderful Valentines cards for the residents in our local care homes. We have had messages to say how much they enjoyed receiving them and it was such a great way to reach out into our community and show people God's love. 

We are going to be sending cards and chocolate eggs to the residents to help them celebrate Easter and we would love your help.

Grab your pens, pencils, paper, card, glue, scissors (and maybe even feathers, stickers or wobbly eyes!) and get creating! We have over 100 cards to make together so any you can make would be brilliant.

Please can you drop your cards to Emy's house by Monday 22nd March (email her at childrenandfamilies@ christchurch-clevedon.org.uk for her address). 

Magnifying glass picture from Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash 

March F@CT

 

Hi everyone and welcome to F@CT Online. We are so glad that you can join us here as we have fun together learning more about God. 

We love to sing and dance at F@CT so let's start with one of our favourite songs. You can join in with the actions and singing as we praise God. We can always trust Him to lead us through troubled times as He is our Lighthouse. 

We've got a special visitor to F@CT today and she is called Barbara. She hasn't been to F@CT before but she has heard lots of good things about it. She spoke to Emy over Zoom to find out more.

Thanks Barbara and Emy. That helped us understand a bit more about Lent. 

(Emy would like to point out that she only gave up television for Lent and that she does still watch it. She particularly enjoys watching The Deep on CBBC.)

Lent is a time when God is inviting us to get closer to him. When you hear about people giving something up for Lent or trying something new, that is the reason. Sometimes there might be things that are getting in the way of getting closer to God.

 

We have a story to watch together about someone who was excited to hear about Jesus coming to visit and Jesus invited him to come and meet with him. The surprising thing about this story is the person who Jesus was inviting. He had lots of things in his life which could have stopped him getting close to God. His name was Zacchaeus.

What a great story and it's a fantastic story to hear in Lent. Jesus is inviting EVERYONE to come and meet with him at Easter and to hear the good news of Easter day. He knows when we get things wrong but he loves us anyway and he wants us to say sorry so nothing will get in the way of our relationship with our amazing Father God. 

Activity

We love getting creative at F@CT to help us remember a story so today we are going to be making climbing characters, just like Zacchaeus climbing a tree in today's story.

You can find out how to make your own climbing character here. Maybe you can make a Zacchaeus to climb or maybe you could draw yourself and imagine you were there, climbing the tree to try to see Jesus.

Prayer

Today we are going to have a go at making our own prayer station. A prayer station is an activity or a collection of objects that help us to think about our prayers. 

We can make a Lego prayer station. This a great idea from the Flame:Creative blog. If you don't have little Lego, you could use Duplo or Playmobil or you could draw a prayer station.

Start by making a cross shape on the base to help us remember we are bringing our prayers to Jesus.

Now you can use your Lego to pray. You could use different colour bricks to represent different things you would like to pray for. You could build bricks together to represent a family or a group.  You can use figures and accessories too, such as trees and flowers for prayers for the environment.

When you have assembled your prayer station, take some time to be still and talk to God about the things you have on the board.

We've heard how awesome God is and so we're going to praise God together again with this brilliant song. Here are some cheeky pandas to help us sing it...

Thanks for joining us to celebrate F@CT together today. We hope you have a great week and at Christchurch we are praying for all of  you who are going back to school (or continuing going to school but with lots more friends). 

Please pop back next week as we continue to follow the adventures of the Israelites as they make their way towards the Promised Land.