The Story Keepers - Roar In The Night

Hello Story Keepers and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We have an exciting episode to watch together today called "Roar in the Night". Marcus finds some lion cubs hiding in the stable and it looks like it might lead them into a dangerous situation...

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...

Our  BIG question today is... 

When we do a little, kind thing, does it really make a difference?

In today's episode we saw lots of people working together, each playing a part to help save the lion cubs: Marcus looked after them in the barn; the family went to see the circus master; the circus master introduced them to the ship's captain and the ship's captain took the lion family home. Each of these actions on their own wouldn't have helped as much as putting them all together.

When we do a small, kind thing for someone, we might not know how much that helps them by the end of the day but God knows. He can use our little acts and help them work together to achieve good things. 

In the story we heard today, Jesus told the disciples about the woman who brought her two coins to the temple. She didn't bring as much as others but it was all she had. God could see her heart and knew she loved him so much by doing all she could.   

Psalm 139 tells us that God knows our thoughts. He knows what is in our hearts.

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.

Psalm 139 : 1-4

When we do small, kind things for other people, we are showing God that we love him. He can use those actions to make amazing things happen.  

You can hear the whole of Psalm 139 here

A secret sign

Did you notice the secret sign in today's episode? The ship's captain drew a line in the dust on the table and Ben drew another line to make a fish symbol like this...

This is called the "ichthys". It was a secret symbol that early Christians used to communicate to each other when the Romans were trying to stop them. It was used to mark meeting places and when two people met they took it in turns to draw the two lines of the fish to show that they were Christians - just like in the episode today.

The early Christians took the first letters from the phrase "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour" in Greek and this spelled out ICHTHYS, which is Greek for fish.

Christians still use the fish symbol today as a sign of their faith. Maybe you could make your own Ichthys symbol today. You could draw it on a piece of paper and decorate it. You could arrange some sticks or leaves when you go for a walk to leave a symbol for another Christian to find. 

Prayer

We are continuing our October prayers about being thankful today. Can you think of something to say thank you for for every letter of the words THANK YOU? This is called an acrostic - just like the Ichthys symbol.

Here's my prayer. What does your prayer look like?

Thank you God for

Tortoises - who go slowly but get there in the end

Helping others - for people who help others in our town

Avocadoes - they're really yummy

Night time - for a comfy bed to sleep in

Kindness - for my kind friends

Yoghurts - they're so yummy too

Oranges - for delicious juice for my breakfast

Umbrellas - for keeping me dry in the rain

Amen

We've got a song today about how God knows us and loves us. Have a listen, you can sing along and have a little dance too. 

We hope you all have a great half term. Come back here next week for F@CT online or you can now join us at Christchurch for F@CT at church. 

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 November 1st here.

The Story Keepers - Episode 5

Hello everyone and welcome to another action packed adventure with The Story Keepers. We have lots of unexpected twists and turns in today's episode. We hope you enjoy watching it.

(Some of you may notice that this episode is labelled Episode 8, but it matches with the week 5 worksheets in our activity book)

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 5 in the back of your Story Keepers Activity booklets. 

Our  BIG question today is... 

What is God's unexpected Good News for us?

In today's episode so many unexpected things happened. 

• Justin didn't think very highly of Cyrus' circus skills but they helped save the children from the Roman soldiers. 
• Cyrus thought he was going to treated badly by Flavius but he was treated like a prince... to start with. 
• It was very unexpected that Cyrus chose to stay with Flavius when Ben and the family come to rescue him. 

Did you think it was unexpected when the Story Keepers forgave Cyrus and Justin gave him his cloak?

Today we heard the parable of the Prodigal Son. A parable was a story Jesus told that tells us more about God. What does this parable tell us about God?

In this parable, God is the father and we are like the Prodigal Son. Every day we get things wrong, choosing to go our own way instead of relying on God. When we say sorry and turn back to God, He is always there waiting for us, running towards us for a big hug.

This is the unexpected good news. 

We will all get things wrong, because everyone does, but God will always forgive us. He doesn't just "forgive and forget" - it's even bigger than that. God came up with a rescue plan and that plan was Jesus. When Jesus died, he took the punishment for all the things we had done wrong. God loves us so much that his Son died for us - and then came back to life three days later!

This is sometimes called the gospel, which means GOOD NEWS.

This video explains that Good News really well...

Prayer

This month we are looking at Thankfulness in our prayers. We can say a huge THANK YOU to God for sending Jesus to be our rescuer.

If you want, you can say a special prayer that invites Jesus to be your friend forever. This is what we mean when someone says that they are a Christian. It means that they have prayed that special prayer.

There aren't any special words to become a Christian and you can talk to God about it using your own words. These words are an example of the prayer that you could pray.

Jesus – I know that you made me and want me to obey you with all my heart. 

I know I have disobeyed and wanted to go my own way. I have thought and done things against your directions. I am sorry. 

I know that you gave up your life to save me from these sins and make me your child again. 

I accept your promises and ask you to please save me now and forever. 

Amen.

God's Good News is so amazing it makes us want to jump up and down and spin right around! 

We can do that right now this song!

We hope you all have a fantastic week and we'll be back next Sunday with more adventures with the The Story Keepers.

 

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 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.

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.

The Unforgiving Servant

Hi everyone and welcome to Christchurch Kids . Today we are talking about forgiveness. It's something the disciples were finding difficult and so they asked Jesus "How many times do I have to forgive someone? Seven times?"

Jesus replied with "Seventy times seven". That's a really big number. In our video, some children are going to tell us the parable that Jesus told to explain forgiveness. It's called the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.

In this parable Jesus was reminding us how much God has forgiven us. When Jesus died on the cross and came back to life on Easter Sunday, he was taking the consequences of all the things we get wrong. 

Jesus forgave us for everything. 

If someone does something wrong that upsets us, it can be hard to forgive them but if we remember how much God loves us - and them, then it can become easier. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and forgiveness of each other is an amazing way to show love in our families and with our friends.

Sometimes, people can get things wrong and they need help to know that they are making the wrong choices.  If we are being bullied at school, we can forgive that person for their wrong actions but it doesn't mean we have to let them carry on. We can ask adults we trust to help that person make good choices. God can help us forgive that person, which would mean that we wouldn't be carrying around anger and upset towards them in our hearts.

Our colouring page today has a Bible verse about forgiving each other. It asks us to BEE kind and loving.You can download it here

Target games

When Jesus replied to the disciples that we should forgive others seventy times seven (not really a jillion and twenty!), he wasn't really talking about Maths. We could remember our story today by making some target games. Maybe we could make the points from the 7 times table? Maybe the highest score could be seventy times seven. Do you know how much that is?

Here are some great ideas to make target games...

Basket targets

Target Golf

Maybe you could go outside and make a nerf target game?

Nerf targets

Prayer

Today, we are going to spend some time thinking about what forgiveness is like. 

If we choose not to forgive someone, it can be like carrying around a big weight in our hearts.

Forgiveness experiment

You will need:

Two people

A backpack

Some food tins (or something similarly heavy)

One person will put the backpack on their front. The other person will say "Will you forgive me?" and the person wearing the backpack says "No". Every time they say "No", the person wearing the backpack adds a tin to the bag. Repeat a few times until the bag is feeling heavy.

Now the second person asks "Will you forgive me?" and the person wearing the backpack replies "I forgive you" and removes a tin from the bag. Repeat until the bag is empty. What does it feel like now all the tins have gone?

If we choose not to forgive, we are carrying that upset, hurt and anger around inside and it is a like a big weight. It can be hard to let it go, but God is there to help us.

Spent a few moments quietly talking to God about forgiveness. We can say sorry to God for things we have got wrong. We can thank God that he has forgiven us. We can ask God to help us say sorry to the people we might have hurt or upset. We can ask God to help us forgive people who have upset us.

We've got  new song today about when things don't go well we can trust that God is bigger and stronger than anything that could go wrong. Could you make up your own actions to this song?

We'd love to see pictures of your target games. You can send them in following the instructions in the right hand column. Thanks for joining in us today and we'll be back for a dance on Wiggle Wednesday.

The Prodigal Son

Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch kids. Today we are looking at a very well known parable that Jesus told called The Prodigal Son. I have heard this parable lots of times but only recently I realised I didn't know what 'Prodigal' meant. I looked it up in the dictionary and it means 'someone who spends large amounts of money, time, energy etc, particularly in a way which is not very wise.'

Let's listen to the parable and find out about the son who wasn't very wise.

There are so many parts of this story. 

There is the prodigal son who thought he knew better than anyone else and made some very unwise choices with how he spent his money and his time. Eventually, he realises he needs to come home and say sorry.

There is the father, who is patiently looking out for his son and is overwhelmingly excited when his son comes home.

There is the older brother, who feels a bit grumpy that his little brother is getting lots of attention!

Parables tell us more about God and about us. What does this story tell us?

The prodigal son is someone who chooses not to follow God but then realises that they want to come to God and say sorry. What does God think about that? God is like the father in the parable. He is looking out for people to come to him. When people pray to Him and say sorry, He is so excited that he wants to throw a huge party and give them lots of presents! The big brother feels like he has been trying his best all along and is jealous that his little brother made mistakes and gets a party when he says sorry. Do you think the big brother had never made mistakes? Do you think the big brother should forgive his little brother too? Maybe we can all be like the big brother sometimes. What do you think?

The prodigal son goes on a big journey. He leaves his home and travels to another place (maybe a big city) where he spends all his money. He leaves that place and ends up working on a farm with the pigs before he realises he wants to go home. We can make a board game about going on a journey. You could base it on the parable of the Prodigal Son. You can add instructions to the squares as you go round. Find a dice (or two), write some rules and find some playing pieces. Get playing!

The father in the parable shows us God's amazing love and forgiveness. What does God's love look like? It's better than even our best tries at loving each other. The Bible describes what God's love is like in 1 Corinthians 13. It's our colouring page today and you can download it here

There's a great Chat Mat about the Prodigal Son that can be downloaded, coloured and chatted about with your family. You can download it here.

Prayer

We are going to be using some kitchen foil to help us pray today. 

From Flame:creative

Take a piece of kitchen foil (not too big)

Hold your foil shiny side up and thank God for all the good things you have in your life.

Gently scrunch the foil up (not too tight as we are smoothing it out again). Think about the times when we have got things wrong and say sorry to God.

Smooth out your foil again. Thank God that he forgives us and loves us so much.

Scrunch up your foil into a shape that reminds you of someone or something to want to pray for. Maybe it could be a letter to remind you of someone's name.

Our Prayer Wall

We have a  brand new Prayer Wall at Christchurch. Have you seen it? You can find out all about it here.

Our song today reminds us that God is bigger than big! He made the sky, the oceans and the trees and His love is bigger than it all. Can you remember the actions?

Thanks for joining in today. We would love to see your board games and foil prayers. You can send us pictures using the instructions in the right hand column. We hope you have a great week and pop back for a dance on Wiggle Wednesday.

The Lost Sheep

Hi everyone and welcome to Christchurch Kids. Today we are looking at the parable of the Lost Sheep. Jesus told a story about a farmer who had 100 sheep but one went missing. Here's a lovely animation to tell us the story.

How did the farmer react after he had found the lost sheep?

Jesus told this parable because religious leaders had started to complain that Jesus was spending time with people who made bad choices. They didn't think he should welcome people like that. Jesus told them about the farmer who left his 99 sheep to find the one that was lost. The farmer was so happy to find the sheep that he ran and told all his friends and neighbours that the sheep that was lost had been found.

Jesus was comparing the people who made bad choices to the sheep who had lost his way. He said that God is excited when people who have forgotten about God choose to come back to Him and make good choices in their lives. 

Jesus was telling us that everyone is welcome with God.

A Game

Have you ever played "Hunt the Thimble"? It's a traditional game and you may not have a thimble to play it with nowadays but you can use any small object to hide. Maybe you could hide a small sheep?

To play the game, one person hides the sheep and everyone else playing the game covers their eyes. 

No peeping now!

When everyone starts looking for the sheep, the person who hid it will give clues. If the seeker is getting close to the hiding place, the hider says, "Getting warmer" and if the seeker is getting further away, they say, "Getting colder. If they are far away, the hider can say "You are freezing cold!"

When the seeker gets really close, it's fun to say "You're really hot now!" or "You're boiling hot!". 

Jesus talked about himself as The Good Shepherd. He said that he knows his sheep and his sheep know him. He wasn't talking about actual sheep. He was talking about his followers. We are Jesus' sheep! He said that we will listen to Him and follow him and he knows us.

This is the verse on our colouring page today and you can download it here

There is a fantastic Chat Mat about the Parable of the Lost Sheep. Chat Mats are great to download and colour and talk about with others in your family. You can download it here

Prayer

We are going to spend our prayer time today listening to God, our Good Shepherd. When we spend prayer time being quiet and listening for God it can be easy for our minds to start to wander. Here is a word cloud you can look at as you are spending time being quiet. You can ask God to speak to you through the words from the parable. Maybe you can talk to someone in your family about what the words mean to you.

You can look at the word cloud on the screen or you can download it here

Our song today reminds us that God's love is big! It's big enough for everyone to join in.

As we have been talking about sheep again today, we thought it would be nice to see the singing lambs again! Look out for the cheeky grey one!

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you have a great week and we'll see you on Wiggle Wednesday.

The 10 Talents

Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. Today, we are going back to the parables Jesus told. We are looking at the parable of the 10 talents. Our story today comes from the book 'Diary of a Disciple'. It's a retelling of the book of Luke in the style of the 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid'. It's a great read and at Xstream on Sunday mornings we have been completing a fun activity book based on it.

Here's our parable for today.

What was Jesus telling us when he told this story? We are all given talents (things we enjoy and are good at) from God. Did you notice that each servant wasn't given the same amount of coins? God gives us different talents from each other. The King in the story was pleased when the servants had used the coins and made them grow. God wants us to use our talents so that we can spread His love to others.

Who's this sharing her talents? It's Supergranny! She's sent us a message all about how we can share our talents too.

Thanks Supergranny!

While we are thinking about what our talents are, you could draw a picture of yourself and write down all the things you enjoy doing around it. You could add ideas of how to share your talents with others too.

We know we are all different and have different talents to share. There is a great guessing game that is based on the idea that we are all different. You can make your own version of this game!

The instructions are here

Sometimes it's not an easy thing to use our talents to help others. We might be feeling really tired when God shows us someone we could help. Maybe we feel a bit nervous standing up for someone else and being a good friend to them. The great news is that God doesn't give us these gifts and then leave us on our own. He is always there to help us. Here is our colouring page for today that tells us that with Jesus' help we can do so many good things.

You can download it here.

Prayer

We are going to use our prayer time today to thank God for the special talents he has given us. 

You can make an envelope from a heart shaped piece of paper (or wrapping paper) just like this...

Write down the things that you know you are good at and pop them into the envelope. You can ask God to show you new ways to  use these talents to help other people and spread His love to others.

Our song today is all about how God created us. He even popped the freckles on our faces! Sing along and see if you can do the actions too.

Thanks for joining us today. We would love to see your crafts you have been making. You can email pictures to us using the instructions in the right hand column. We hope you have a great week and we will see you again for a dance on Wiggle Wednesday.