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. 

The Fruit of the Spirit

Hello! It's Wiggle Wednesday and I hope you are ready for a silly song! On Sunday, we were celebrating Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came to the disciples. We've got a happy song today about the Fruits of the Spirit. We hope you have fun singing along.

Pentecost

Hi everyone and welcome to Christchurch Kids. Today is a special day for the church. It is called Pentecost and it's when we celebrate and remember the day that the Holy Spirit first came to the disciples. Here's the story of that amazing day.

Can you imagine what it would have been like in Jerusalem on that day? There were lots of people from lots of different places. All of a sudden, the disciples came out into the crowd and everyone could hear God's message spoken in their own language. 

What does is sound like to hear "God Loves You" in different languages? Have a listen here...

We have a fun song about everything that happened on the day of Pentecost.

It sounds like a huge party  happened at Pentecost with 3000 people joining the disciples after they had heard God's message for them. We can make our own party hats to join in the celebration and these hats look like the flames that rested on the disciples' heads.

Pictures from mykidcraft.com

Start by colouring in a paper plate. If you choose orange, red and yellow colours, your hat will look more like flames.

Carefully make a hole in the centre of the plate ( you may want to ask an adult to help you with this bit). Cut straight lines from the hole in the centre to the edge of the flat bit of the plate , leaving the rim intact. Pull the triangles up to make your party crown.

The Holy Spirit is described as a gift from God. It is the best gift as it says in the Bible that as we stay close to God, the Holy Spirit works in us to help us to grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are called the Fruits of the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples went out and shared God's love with many other people. As we grow with God, the Fruits of the Spirit shine out and help us to share God's love too.

Our colouring page today features the Fruits of the Spirit and you can download it here

Prayer

Make a paper prayeroplane! The Holy Spirit is described as being like a strong wind and a dove. We can make flying prayers today by writing a prayer and folding it up into a paper aeroplane. How far does it travel? Our prayers travel all the way to heaven!

 If you want some help making a paper aeroplane, there are instructions here

We've got a fantastic song from Spring Harvest about the Holy Spirit to listen to and it's a great one to dance too as well. 

To finish our celebration for Pentecost we have a message for you all from everyone on the children's team at Christchurch. We have been playing a long distance game of catch!

We hope you have all had a fun half term and have enjoyed our Pentecost celebrations today. We would love to see any pictures of crafts, colouring and prayers. Did you spot Supergranny playing our game of catch? Come back next week to hear more from her.

Standing on the rock

Welcome to Wiggle Wednesday. On Sunday, we heard the parable of the Two Builders and about how as we learn more about God and spent time talking and listening to Him, it is like building a house on a rock with strong foundations.

We have a great song today to sing and dance to which is all about standing with our feet on the rock. It says that when things get stormy, we can stand firm with God. 

The Two Builders

Hello everyone and welcome to Sunday on Christchurch Kids. 

Today we are looking at the Parable of the Two Builders. One was good at building a house but the other one didn't follow the instructions. 

Parables are stories that Jesus told to tell us more about God and how we can follow him. What did the story of the Two Builders tell us? 

The buildings in the story are like our faith in God. 

If we take our time to listen and learn about God's word in the Bible and talk and listen to Him in prayer, then we are building up strong foundations just like the builder building a strong house. When things get tough then we have a firm base to help us and we will find it easier to rely on God. 

Our colouring page today looks at a Bible verse from Ephesians that talks about our lives being built on God's love.

I pray that your life will be strong in love and built on love. And I pray that you will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ's love. I pray that you can understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is.

Ephesians 3: 17-18

You can download the colouring page here

We have a Chat Mat too this week. These are great for colouring and chatting about!

You can download it here

You can have a go at building something yourself this week. How about making your own paper building blocks? The instructions can be found here I wonder how tall a tower you could build with them? Starting with a wide base for a foundation would help the tower grow taller. 

You could have a go at retelling the story with Lego just like our video. There are great free apps around to help make short stop animation films, such as StopMotion Studio.

Prayer

Lego prayers from Flame:Creative

Today we are going to use Lego to help us pray. 

Find a Lego or Duplo brick.

Hold the brick in your hand and take a moment to be still and quiet. Pray for yourself. What would you like God to help you with this week.

Count the bumps on the brick. Pray for someone else for each of those bumps. Pray that God would help them this week.

Find a brick that is a different colour. Thank God that we are all made differently and we all have special things we are good at. 

Find a brick that is the same shape. Thank God for our families and friends and those who look after us. Ask God to help us be friends to people who might be feeling lonely.

Use a few bricks to build a small tower. Thank God for our church and our community. Ask God to show us how we can include people in our community and help them feel loved. 

Our Bible verse today talked about how wide, high, long and deep God's love is. Here's one of our favourite Sunday morning songs with high, wide and deep actions...

We hope you've had lots of fun building today. We would love to see some of your building projects or animations. You can send pictures in using the instructions in the right hand column. We hope you have a fun half term and we will be back on Wiggle Wednesday.

Half term fun

Following the success of Spring Harvest Home over Easter, the Spring Harvest team are back for half term. 

You can look forward to an episode of Virtual Sunday School on Monday at 9:30am, two brand new editions of Big Start Extra on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:30am, a ‘Thought for the Day’ from Bob Hartman Tuesday to Friday at 10:15am, Bible Buds for toddlers on Thursday at 9am, Doug Horley on Friday at 11am and much more.

You can find all the Spring Harvest Home videos on their YouTube channel here

All around the world

Hello! It's Wiggle Wednesday today and we've got two songs to listen to today. The first one is a quieter song and the second will have us dancing around the house. 

Our first song has been made by children all over the world, including the UK, France, Germany, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Thailand, China, and Kuwait. We can't meet up in our church building on Sundays at the moment but the church family is still loving God and following him together online all over the world. Isn't it exciting to know that we are part of that huge family. 

Isn't that an amazing song!

Are you ready for a dance now? This is a song we usually play before F@CT on a Sunday. It is so much fun. 

Join us again on Sunday for more adventures with Lego.