Prayer - We can ask for help

 Hello and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. Today, we are going to be continuing to talk about prayer. Have you talked to God this week? What did you chat about?

Today we are talking about asking for help. We all ask for help all the time. What do you need help with during your day?

Tying your shoelaces?

Getting a lift to football?

Being given a packed lunch?

Reading a tricky word in a book?

I love it when someone helps me as shows they are thinking of me, even when it's a little thing like making me a cup of tea.

The Bible tells us that God loves us. He loves us so much that he sent Jesus so we could be friends with Him forever. God wants to help us because He loves us. 

When we pray, we can ask for help. It could be for a little thing or a really big thing. Peter's friends asked for God's help in a really big way.

 Let's listen to the story and find out....

Did you notice that when God answered their prayers, Peter's friends still didn't believe it had happened! God is more amazing that we can imagine and will do more than we expect.

Prayer

God loves to help you with things - big and small. This week, if you find something you need help with, remember to ask God. Look for how He answers your prayer. Maybe someone will come along to help you, maybe you will find that lost thing. God can answer our prayers in the most surprising ways - just like in our story today.

We've got a song to join in with now and it's so much fun and we've got some friends here to help with the actions too. God wants to help us and he is always there and always listens and always hears me when I talk to him...

Thanks for joining us here on the blog this week. We have exciting news! Next week, on May 23rd, we will be starting a Christchurch Kids group in Christchurch on Sunday mornings - Hurray! It will be happening in the hall during the morning service for primary school aged children. We will be sitting at tables with our siblings with resources on each table. Adults will be wearing masks but primary school aged children won't need to. We will be having lots of fun finding out more about prayer with stories, games and crafts. 

If you would like to come along, you will need to book a place as we have a maximum number of 15 places each Sunday. You can book a place by clicking here.

We're really sorry that we can't run Bubbles or Rapidz at the moment.

We will still be here on the blog too until the summer holidays so you can find out more about prayer here as well and chat about it with your family.

Picture used from

<a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/boy">Boy Vectors by Vecteezy</a>

Prayer - God you are amazing!

 Hello and welcome to Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a good week. 

We are starting to look at something new this week and we're going to be talking about it until the summer holidays as it's a big one... PRAYER

What does prayer look like to you?

Does it look a bit like this - in church with our hands together and eyes closed?

Does it look like this? Asking God for help when we need it? (Maybe he's just lost his bucket and spade and would really like to make a sandcastle!)

Does it look like this? Talking to God when we are feeling sad?

The AMAZING thing about prayer is that it can be all those things and lots more things too. Each week we are going to be talking about a different bit of prayer and this week our prayers might look a bit like this....

Jesus taught us how to pray when he told us what we now call "The Lord's prayer". It starts...

Our Father in heaven, 

Hallowed be your name

Jesus is telling us that when we pray we can tell God how amazing He is. "Hallowed be your name" means "May your name be special". There's a word for this and it's...

Worship

Worship is saying how great and good God is. It isn't about stuff He's given us or things He's done for us, it just saying how fantastic He is!

What can we say when we want to worship God? Maybe you have a favourite song in church that talks about how amazing God is? You can use that as a worship prayer.

We can use words from the Bible as a prayer too. These are words from the Psalms

Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord.

    Let’s shout praises to the Rock who saves us.

2 

Let’s come to him with thanksgiving.

    Let’s sing songs to him.

3 

The Lord is the great God.

    He is the great King over all gods.

4 

The deepest places on earth are his.

    And the highest mountains belong to him.

5 

The sea is his because he made it.

    He created the land with his own hands.

6 

Come, let’s bow down and worship him.

    Let’s kneel before the Lord who made us.

7 

He is our God.

    And we are the people he takes care of

    and the sheep that he tends.

Psalm 95 : 1-7

We can sing some of those words too. People have been using Psalms as prayers and songs for over 2,500 years and we are still using them today. 

Here's a great version of those worship words...

Prayer

Now it's your turn to have a go at a worship prayer. 

It's great to use our senses when we pray. The Bible quite often talks about smells, fragrance and aromas. Incense is something that was burned in the temple which had a good smell to make the place feel special and holy. God even gave Moses a recipe for a special perfume to only to used in the tabernacle (their holy place).

Find a smell you like today. What would you choose? A nice soap? A freshly peeled orange? A scented flower from your garden?

Smell what you've chosen and tell God how amazing you think he is!

Here's another way to worship God - with a song! We can sing and jump around and dance and tell God how fantastic we think he is. He's an Awesome God - Wow!

Thanks for joining us here on the blog this week. We have exciting news! In a couple of weeks, on May 23rd, we will be starting a Christchurch Kids group in Christchurch on Sunday mornings - Hurray! It will be happening in the hall during the morning service for primary school aged children. We will be sitting at tables with our siblings with resources on each table. Adults will be wearing masks but primary school aged children won't need to. We will be having lots of fun finding out more about prayer with stories, games and crafts. 

If you would like to come along, you will need to book a place as we have a maximum number of 15 places each Sunday. You can book a place by clicking here.

We're really sorry that we can't run Bubbles or Rapidz at the moment.

We will still be here on the blog too until the summer holidays so you can find out more about prayer here as well and chat about it with your family.

May F@CT

 

Hello and welcome to F@CT online! We are feeling excited today that we can come together and celebrate online AND in church! 

Let's start with one of our most favourite F@CT songs, My Lighthouse. God is our lighthouse, showing us the way when things get stormy. In church, we aren't allowed to sing at the moment but we will be doing the actions. If you are at home, I hope you sing extra loud for us!

This year, our theme for F@CT is...

God Keeps His Promises

We started looking at this all the way back in January when we heard the story of Anna and Simeon.  Each month we will be looking at a different promises that God has made.

This month, the promise is 

God is always with us

How do we know that God made this promise? Jesus said it! Let's watch the video and hear what happened to Jesus and the disciples after the amazing events of Easter Sunday.

Isn't that amazing! God is always with us. 

Jesus said...

Do you feel like God is always with you? 

That can be a tricky thing when we can't see him. We have a guest today who is really good at explaining things we find tricky about God. His name is Douglas. Let's listen to what he has to say about this.

At F@CT, we love to make things and play games that remind us of what we have learnt about God.

Today we're going to make pop-up puppets that can say "Peekaboo!"

Just like Douglas was saying about remembering that God is with us even though we can't see him.

You can use a paper cup and a paper straw or lolly stick to make your puppet and you can create whichever character you like to be hiding in your cup. Maybe you could make two characters and stick them back to back on the straw so that nobody knows who will pop up and say "Peekaboo!"

Here are some ideas...

I like how they have decorated the cup as well.

I like the paper grass they added to this cup.

https://www.craftprojectideas.com/pop-up-bunny/

Prayer

We can talk to God in lots of different ways, We can talk out loud or in our heads. We can say what's on our minds and just chat or we can use words that other people have written. 

Our prayer today is actually a Psalm in the Bible. People have been using the Psalms as prayers for over 2,500 years. Psalm 139 is all about how well God knows us and that he is always with us - even if we go to space! We can listen to the Psalm and say a big AMEN to agree that God is amazing.

This version of Psalm 139 comes from the book "Always Near Me" by Susie Poole.

AMEN!

We're finishing F@CT today with another favourite that we know well - Our God is a GREAT BIG GOD! We can sing to God that He is more amazing than we could imagine but He still knows us and loves us and we are part of His amazing plan. 

Thank you for joining in with F@CT Online today. We hope you have had fun and learnt more about God.

Next week, we will be starting to look at prayer. We hope you come back each week and find out more about talking and listening to God.

We hope you have a great week.

Jesus meets the children

Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a great week in school. Have you been playing in the sunshine? It's been lovely to be outside. 

This week, Jo from The Little Worship Company has another story from the Bible for us to listen to. I wonder what she has in her story bag this week?

Talk Time

The stories in the Bible point us towards God. They tell us so many things. Now you have heard the story about Jesus meeting the children, have a chat to your family and see what you all think about it.

Here are some questions you can talk about...

How did Ben and Abi's family feel when they heard Jesus was coming to their town?

How did Ben feel when Peter and Andrew told him to stay away?

What did Peter and Andrew think about what Jesus said about children?

What did Jesus tell Ben?

Have you had a day when you felt how much God loves you?

This story tells us that we are never too small to be known and loved by God. In the Psalms, it tells us that God knew us even before we were born. Even the tiniest baby is already known and loved by God. 

I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.
    What you have done is wonderful.
    I know this very well.
 You saw my bones being formed
    as I took shape in my mother’s body.
When I was put together there,

    you saw my body as it was formed.
All the days planned for me
    were written in your book
    before I was one day old.

Psalm 139 : 14-16

Prayer

Today we've been thinking about those children who were so excited to see Jesus that they pushed their way through the crowds. What do you think they wanted to tell Jesus when they saw him? Imagine you were there in the crowd. What do you want to tell Jesus? We can talk to him anytime. 

Take a moment to be still and quiet.

You can talk to Jesus in your head or out loud.

You can talk to him about what you thought about the story. 

Thank you Jesus that you love us all, no matter how big or small we are.

Amen

 

We have a great song today all about our story and what is what like waiting to see Jesus. We hope you enjoy joining in.

,

We hope you have enjoyed listening to the story today and talking about it with your family. 

Next week, It's time for F@CT. We will be bringing you F@CT Online right here and we are also able to meet in church and have fun and learn about God together. If you would like to come to F@CT in church next week, 

click here to book your place.

 

Jesus catches fish

 Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you've had a lovely Easter holidays and have been able to get outside in the sunshine.

 Did you spend anytime at the beach this week? Our Bible story today takes place just by the water's edge. Jo from the Little Worship Company is going to tell us the story. I wonder what she has in her story bag today?

Talk Time

The stories in the Bible point us towards God. They tell us so many things. Now you have heard the story about Jesus catching fish, have a chat to your family and see what you all think about it.

Here are some questions you can talk about...

How do you think Peter felt when he hadn't caught any fish all night?

Why did Jesus hop into Simon's boat?

What would it have been like when the nets were so full of fish and the boats were filling up?

What do you think Jesus was showing everyone when the fish filled the nets?

Jo asked a great question at the end of the video...

Can you imagine Jesus popping into your school, or home, (or boat) saying "I'm here for you!" Would you be excited to follow him?

You may not recognise the name Simon as Jesus changed Simon's name to Peter. The name Peter means "The rock". Jesus changed Simon's name as he knew that Peter would be one of the rocks on which the church was built after Jesus had gone back to heaven. Jesus knew that God had amazing plans for Peter.

God has good plans for us too.

 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

Prayer

Today in our prayers we can thank God for how amazing He is. He can even control the fish in the seas. Take it in turns with your family saying "Thank you God for...". Keep going and thinking of more things we say thank you for as you each take your turn.

Our song today is about following Jesus and there are some great actions to help us join in and praise Him.

We hope you all have a great time back at school this week. We'll be back here next week.

Jesus calms the storm

 Hi everyone and welcome back to Christchurch Kids. We hope you had a fantastic Easter Sunday last week. Have you eaten all your eggs yet?

This week we are trying something a little different. We're going to hear about Jesus and Jo from the Little Worship Company is going to tell us the story. What will she have in her story bag today?

You can listen to the story with your family and then you can have a chat about the questions below. 

Talk Time

The stories in the Bible point us towards God. They tell us so many things. Now you have heard the story about Jesus calming the storm, have a chat to your family and see what you all think about it.

Here are some questions you can talk about...

What things make you feel worried? 

Do you think there are times when you need to feel peace?

What do you think the disciples felt like when the storm started? 

Why do you think Jesus wasn't worried by the storm?

What do you think Jesus wanted to show the disciples?

How does this make you feel about Jesus?

Are there any worries you would like to talk to God about and ask for his help to feel peace?

We have a Bible Chat Mat for you to download and colour today too. This is another great way to help you chat about the story with your family. 

You can download it here

Prayer

The story today showed us that Jesus is with us when things seem scary or difficult and he can bring us peace. We can feel calm because we know Jesus is with us.

Talk to God today about anything you are worried about, or maybe you know someone else who is worried about something. We can ask God to help us know He is with us whatever happens.

Our song today is about trusting God. Do you have your pointy fingers ready? This is a fun one to join in with the actions.

We hope you have a great time this week in your Easter holidays and we'll see you here next week. 

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter!

Today we are joining in with the online service on the Christchurch Clevedon website so we can celebrate Easter together, just like we would if we were in church. 

In our Easter service, the children from Christchurch and Kenn Road have put together an Easter play to tell us all why Easter is such an amazing day.

We hope you enjoy it.

The play comes from this fantastic picture book. It's available to buy here.

Happy Easter!