Hello and welcome to our final week on Christchurch Kids.
We are going to be taking a break over the summer holidays and we are really hoping that in September we will be more able to meet back in church for fun on Sunday mornings.
We hope that our blog has helped you learn more about God and have fun too. We hope that is has started some conversations with your family about what it means to make God part of your every day life.
A big part of making God part of your day is keeping in touch with prayer.
We've looked at all sorts of things about prayer over the past few weeks...
We can...
...tell God how amazing He is.
...ask for God's help.
... say the Lord's prayer.
... say sorry.
...say thank you.
...listen to God.
... talk to God about our worries.
Have you got a Bible in your house? Have a look at the stories in there and see if you can notice where people pray.
In a den of lions! (Daniel) Inside a giant fish! (Jonah) In a garden or on top of a mountain (Jesus)
In a house (the disciples), in a palace (Nehemiah), on a ship and by the seashore (Paul).
We can pray ANYWHERE
and we can talk to God
about ANYTHING!
The Bible says
Never stop praying.
1 Thessalonians 5 : 17
Activity
We can make a prayer poster today. You can use a big bit of paper or card as your background and cut out pictures, draw pictures or write words on it about anything you want to talk to God about.
You could make your own prayer poster and put it up in your room. You could add to it over the summer as you talk to God about all sorts of things.
or
You could make a family prayer poster and put it up where everyone can see it and you can add things to it together and then pray about those things together too.
Prayer
Did you receive your "101 ways to start a conversation with God" in the post?
Hello and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you have had a good week and aren't feeling too tired as we come towards the end of term - It's nearly the summer holidays!
We are continuing to look at prayer this week. We've looked at lots of different things we can pray about and today we have a story about a king called Jehoshaphat. He faced a difficult situation and he prayed to God for help.
We may not be facing 3 armies about to attack but we might have situations that spring up in our lives that make us feel worried , upset, or scared. We can talk to God about it and ask for his help.
Did you notice that Jehoshaphat didn't just ask for help? He said thank you to God for the good things God had done and he praised God. When the army went into battle, the sent the musicians ahead to sing songs of how great God is.
Jehoshaphat and the people didn't just ask for help, they kept their thoughts fixed on God with thank you prayers and songs too. They knew God was with them.
Activity
When we find ourselves in an unexpected ,tricky situations we can say a quick prayer to ask God for help. Sometimes these are called arrow prayers.
Today, we are going to make paper aeroplanes to represent our arrow prayers. You could write your prayers on them before you fly them.
Give your worries to the Lord. He will take care of you.
Psalm 55 : 22
We can talk to God about our worries and any difficult situations we face. If you do have worries, it's also great to talk to an adult you trust as well. God puts people into our lives who can help us.
We are going to use bubbles to help us pray today. If you have things that you are worried about, you can talk to God about them and blow your bubbles and watch them float away.
If we feel nervous or anxious, taking deep breaths can help us feel calm. If you feel like this, you can imagine that you are trying to blow an enormous bubble. If you have your bubbles with you, you can give it a go. How big a bubble can you make?
We've got a song that we love singing at F@CT. The words come from the Bible when Joshua and the Israelites faced a battle they thought they couldn't win. God told them they could be brave as He would be with them.
We hope you enjoy joining in with the actions.
Thanks for joining us today here on our blog.
Next week will be our last post on here and our last Christchurch Kids group in church as we are then taking a break for the summer holidays. We hope you have lots of fun over the summer. If you would like to come to church in the holidays with your family, there are activity bags available for anyone who would like one.
Hello and welcome to F@CT Online! Thank you for joining us for dancing, crafts, fun and learning more about God.
Let's start with a song as we love to get up and moving at F@CT as we praise God. This song helps us celebrate that God is our amazing creator. We can sing, clap, dance and do actions to join in...
This year at F@CT, we are looking at the God's promises to us. God always keeps his promises so what are those promises? Today's promise is...
God Forgives Us
We've got a story about a time that Jesus showed forgiveness. When Jesus met Matthew, he was a tax collector and in those days, that meant that he would have been very unpopular as he was working for the Romans and he might well have been stealing some of the money for himself. Let's see what Jesus thought when he met Matthew.
Just like Matthew, we get stuff wrong too. The Bible calls this sin and that word means anything which isn't perfect, just like God is perfect. In this story, Jesus called Matthew and he stopped what he was doing and chose to follow Jesus. Jesus didn't walk away because Matthew was making wrong choices, he asked him to stop and follow him and Matthew did.
When we pray and say sorry to God and choose to follow Him, God forgives us.
It says in the Bible
There is no God like you.You forgive people who are guilty of sin.
You, Lord, will not stay angry
forever.You
enjoy being kind.
Micah 7 : 18
Craft
When we pray we can use a teaspoon to help us. Does that sound a bit strange? When we are cooking and following a recipe, we might see the word teaspoon shortened to TSP. We can use this to help remember the sort of things we can pray about.
T = Thank you
S= Sorry
P= Please
When I pray, we might find it easy to say "thank you" and "please" but it's important to remember the "sorry" bit too. We are going to make a teaspoon to help us remember to add the sorry into our prayers.
If you don't have a wooden spoon, you could draw around a spoon onto some paper and card.
It's bit boring to have a spoon stuck up on your wall, or next to your bed to remind you about prayer so why don't you create your own spoon character.
Can you remember Forky from Toy Story 4? You could create someone a bit like him to help with your prayers.
You could use any crafty bits and bobs to add to your character or use pens and pencils to design your own spoon character.
Prayer
We've got a prayer we can say together to say sorry to God and we can remember God's promise that He forgives us.
Saying Sorry prayer
Make a fist
We are sorry for the times we have got angry with other people.
Point away from yourself with your index finger
We are sorry for the times we have blamed others and seen things wrong in others without recognising we get things wrong too.
Close up your hand and hold it close to your chest
We are sorry for the times we have kept things selfishly to ourselves .
Put your hand over your mouth
We are sorry for the words we have spoken which have hurt other people.
After a pause, hold out that same hand with an open palm upward, as if you are waiting to receive something.
Jesus says, 'If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest'. So we bring all that we are to Jesus - all our sins and our failure to love. Thank-you that you died for us so that we might be forgiven and start a new life in the power of your Holy Spirit.
As a way of remembering that it is through the cross that our sins are forgiven, trace the shape of a cross with the index finger of your other hand across the palm of the hand you are holding out.
Amen
We've got another great song to join in with now. God's love is so BIG, GREAT, and STRONG and it goes on and on. We love to sing and dance about it.
Thanks for joining us for F@CT Online. We hope you've had fun finding out about God's promises today.
For the next two Sundays (11th - 18th July) we will be asking more questions about prayer here on our Christchurch Kids blog and in our Christchurch Kids sessions in church. If you would like to come to the group at church, you don't need to book anymore which makes it even easier to pop along and join in.
After the 18th July, it is the summer holidays - Hurray! We won't be posting on here and our Christchurch Kids group will be taking a summer break too but F@CT will be happening in church on August 1st.
