What I forgot to say yesterday.

I woke up this morning thinking about yesterday’s blog post on Lifestyles and Wellbeing and suddenly realised that I did not finish it off properly. If you haven’t read it then please do but add this little bit to the end, so that you can really see how I tied it all together.

After all the general discussions, I randomly handed out some white slips of paper with bible verses on them, these are those verses:
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Proverbs 14.30
A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

Mathew 6:34
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

1 Corinthians 6:20
For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Mathew 18:9
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

1Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Matthew 4:4
But he answered, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”.

Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him.”

Each verse was then read out and the group decided what elements of well-being were being addressed by each verse. It was good to be able to link the whole session in to how God wants us to look after ourselves and has even left us some instructions in the Bible of how we can do it.

Youth Group Session on Lifestyles/Well-being.

This term at our friday night youth group is looking at lots of issues around looking after ourselves and each other.  Last friday I did a session on lifestyles and wellbeing.  We only have a 15 minute slot to do this in so it was quite a challenge.  I started off by showing them this diagram.

 

I went around this explaining what the four different circles represented and started to get them thinking about how our health has all these different areas that all link together.  I then went on to show them a series of pictures that I got off google images to get them thinking about what aspects of health they could be showing, these are the pictures:

These caused a great deal of discussion and I sent up a power point so that we could try and put them into the categories of well-being in the first image that I used.  It was great to see them getting to grips with how much things were linked.

The picture of anorexia was one that I prayed over using as we do have some youngsters who might have been disturbed by it.  However it caused a great discussion about mental illness.  The other good discussion that occurred from the young people was one about bullying, they were able to recognise how this can fit into at least three of the categories, psychological, physical and social well-being.

It was also interesting to see how they did not immediately think of the fruit as being to do with physical well-being, this lead to a discussion about the other substances (drugs, tobacco, alcohol, overeating) that can affect our physical well-being, rather than just exercise or lack of it.

The session was planned for 15 mins but went on for some time longer.  We have a few quite disruptive young people, I was able to use the example they were displaying of disruptive behaviour to show them all how it was making the session last longer than necessary as I kept having to stop and ask them to listen to others.  While it was not bothering their own well-being, it was bothering the other young people’s (social well-being).

The session was finished off with a recap of the Top Ten Tips for Surviving Youth Group which the young people drew up themselves back in the Autumn.

The next session in two weeks time will be all about First Aid and we have a first aider coming in to do the talk and then to do some practical sessions with the young people on the sort of things they might encounter while out and about, at home and at school.

What will this year hold?

I thought I would spend a few moment catching up with all the groups that I oversee in some way or another.  The amount of input I put into these varies from term to term depending on what else I am doing, starting from the youngest age groups here we go:

1. Chatty Tuesdays – this is a community outreach group, run like a mums and tots group, the two ladies that head up this group work tirelessly to keep it going with a great band of volunteers.  I occassionaly go in and do little sessions around festival times, this term I am hoping to go in and talk to the parents/carers about nurturing their childs spirituality in the same way as they look out to nurture their emotional and physical growth.

2.  Praise and Play – this is a church ‘service’ however it is specifically geared for under 5′s and their parents/carers.  Along with the clergy and colleagues my input is generally to do one or two sessions a term.  I also look after the admin side of things, ordering small gifts which we give to the youngsters on their birthday and providing craft materials, etc.

3.  Sunday Creche facilities – I have been very fortunate, that after setting up a creche at both our churches for their morning services they are both now run by a volunteer who has a band of other volunteers who give their time to take turns on rotas.  Again my role is very much administrative when needed, though all know I can also be called on to go and do creche when there is no one else available.  Our new church service which has started in on Sunday afternoons is completely overseen by my colleague along with all the other childrens groups, which is a great relief as there really is no more time in my schedule to fit in any more.

4. Junior Church Groups – even though I am not responsible for the Sunday afternoon service I am for the morning ones.  One of our groups is very self sufficient and I just do admin support.  The other group I have been very involved in revamping it along with the leaders, my input now is hopefully more administrative again.

5. Youth Group – I have been blogging quite a bit on this as this has been the main area that I have been concentrating on last term and it continues into this term.  We provide a youth group every other week for school age Year7 plus.  All the plans and changes are still bedding in at the moment.  There is still a lot more to organise for this age group.  We do one off groups now and again such as Youth Emmaus, however the thinking cap is still on at the moment.

6.  Activity Days – last year was the first full year of having events for school age children (upto year 6).  I have arranged them so that there is something on about every 2 months counting the summer holiday club in this as well.  I am currently working on our lent activity day.  It is great to have a colleague working with me on these now and having a growing band of volunteers helping, which is providing some great continuity for everyone.

7.  Holiday Clubs – Last year I tried doing the same holiday club twice, once at the beginning of the holidays and once at the end.  There were some benefits, however they did not really outweigh other needs that I feel we need to be able to address.  I will blog more on this later as this years plans need to be passed by our church council before they become definite.  Needless to say it is going to be more work rather than less, but it is exciting to be trying to reach out into new areas.

8.  Family service input – This is an area that has not had to much of my attention in the last 6 months.  However I am hoping that I will be able to get back involved in this through 2012.

9.  Non-church groups.  These are groups that I do something Christian themed for either at their meeting place or in our churches.  I have had the chance to do cubs, beavers and rainbows in the last 12 months and hopefully might be able to expand this a little more this year.

Obviously as well as the all these groups there is a lot of administration and communication that needs to occur within the parish so that everyone knows what I am up to.  I cherish the moments when I get to sit and have coffee with someone and must make sure that I get plenty of them in my diary.  I am also hoping to sort out some more training/courses to attend to keep me fresh and on top of current thinking.

When I write it down like this I suddenly realise why my 20 hours a week often seem to just disappear!  I am very grateful that my new colleague is also working on expanding our schools input in the Parish, this is something that I have longed to do but not had the time.

A Donkeys Tale

This year I decided for our Unders 6′s Christmas eve crib service to tell the story of the nativity from the donkeys perspective.  I remembered that a friend had a lovely donkey puppet that we used many years ago.  With this in mind and discovering that I could find no stories that I liked, I decided that I would make my own up.

I made the decision that I would not have the donkey speaking as I have never done anything with a puppet myself before (but knew from those that do that it is a skill).  So instead I gave a reason for the donkey not talking and did the talk for him.  Below is the outline that I used, though it is not exactly what I said on the day:

Donkey  wants to say Hello to everyone, he is not shy but he speaks in a little whisper for me to hear, he does not think it is very good to he haw loudly in a church.

(Donkey whispers) No they are not all here just to see you though I expect they are happy to meet you they  have come to think about and celebrate when Jesus was born – that is what we do at Christmas.

(Donkey whispers) Yes that is why I have been asking you lots of questions recently.   Donkey has been telling me an old donkey tale that is passed on from one generation to another – it has to be told as donkeys can’t write.

(Donkey whispers) That’s right donkey hooves just were not made to hold pens.  Donkey would like to tell you that donkey tale.

(Donkey whispers) No not tell them about your donkey tail (swishes tail), tell them about the donkey tale – the story you have been telling me.

(Donkey whispers) That’s okay donkey, now do interrupt me if I get any of the details wrong.

There was once a young donkey – (donkey points at himself) – no not you donkey the donkey in the story!

There was once a young donkey, he had been on a very hard journey that had taken days.  What had made it even harder was that the lady on his back looked as though she had eaten far too many pies! (donkey nods).    Though the man was very kind and encouraging to the young donkey.

Eventually they arrived in the town of Bethlehem, it seemed to take them a very long time to find a stable for the young donkey to settle down for the night.  They knocked on so many inn doors and got turned away.

When at last a stable was found for the young donkey, he was very surprised to find that the lady and the man decided to sleep with him in the stable!

Just when the donkey thought there could be nothing else that would surprise him, a baby boy was born to the lady stranger, right there in the stable. (donkey looks surprised and nods).

The young donkey went and put his head out of the stable to get a bit of fresh air – all these surprises were making him feel a little faint. (donkey pretends to faint).

That was when the young donkeys eyes nearly fell out of his head, in the sky was the most enormous, most brilliantly shining, can’t keep your eyes off it STAR. (donkey points to a star)  Not exactly like that star, far bigger and far brighter donkey (donkey – mouth wide open).

It was casting light down over the stable making it shine (donkey whispers) yes I imagine it probably was like a light house. 

Before the young donkey could gather his thoughts he saw a great big heard of cows coming towards the stable. (donkey whispers) oops sorry thanks for that donkey – he saw a great big flock of sheep coming towards the stable.

 Behind the sheep were their shepherds, they came right into the stable and bowed down to the little baby.  They told the man and the lady  they had been visited by singing angels telling them to come and worship the new King that had born. 

(Donkey whispers), yes donkey I think I might have been frightened if I had met angels singing in the sky)

They admitted that they were quite surprised to find them in a stable, but they knew that they needed to find the place where the star was shining in order to find the baby Jesus. (donkey whispers) yes I think I would have been very surprised to!

The young donkey didn’t understand everything that was happening that night  (donkey nods)– rather like a lot of us might feel we don’t understand much  about that story today. (donkey nods some more).

 But he did know that it was the beginning of a new story – a new story about just how much God loves us. (donkey whispers) – aww thanks donkey I love you too.

 I hope you enjoyed hearing that old donkey tale (donkey swishes his tail and whispers) Donkey says that he enjoyed listening to it again.  He says it doesn’t matter how many times he hears it, he loves it, just like God loves us.

I ended up adding some repetition into it as we have a very packed service (over 80 tots!) and I always that one way to get them to quieten down is to get them to make some noise!  So I over emphasised lots of things,  like,  a long, long, long, long, long, long, etc journey,  shiny, shiny, shiny, etc star.  This worked a treat and getting the donkey to do a funny action while we did it got lots of laughs. I  did the story while walking up and down the aisle of our pewed church, this enabled donkey to make lots of eye contact with the children and was a good alternative to getting the children to come to the front so that they could see.  They would not have fit and having the projector out is just one obstacle too many that might be knocked.  Doing the story like this did mean that I could not use any notes (I only had one hand left and did not want to hold anything in that!)

I then went on to do the talk with the donkey puppet which I based around Shining like a star, which is the topic that I covered a few months ago when doing stuff in Germany.  This again is an outline of the talk:

Donkey how surprised do you think you would have been if you had seen a star like that when Jesus was born? (donkey whispers) you know I think I might have been very very very surprised like you as well.  That story is reminding me of another star story that we find in the bible.

(donkey whispers) where about’s in the bible? In the book of Philippians in the New Testament.  It’s a book that was written after Jesus had lived for 30 years and died on the cross (donkey whispers) that’s right and Jesus had risen again and gone to heaven to be with his father. 

Jesus had left instructions to all the people that were left behind that had been following Him, they had to keep telling people about how much God loved them.

That is why the book of Phillipians was written by a man who wanted to tell everyone this (donkey whispers), yes that is why is put it in a letter to followers in Phillipi.

In that letter, Paul told the people that they needed to shine like stars (donkey disappears for a moment and comes back with a big star on his chest).  That’s a very nice star donkey.  I don’t think that is what Paul meant though (donkey disappears and comes back with an even bigger star round his head)Donkey I really don’t think Paul was saying we needed to look like a star.

(donkey whispers) what did he mean then?  He meant that if you followed Jesus, and let the Holy Spirit help you to behave like Jesus then you will shine like a star, people will notice you, maybe people might even look to see who you are following so that they can follow and be stars as well!

(donkey whispers)  yes I think I would rather like to shine like a star, it isn’t always easy and I still get things wrong, but I know that because of Jesus, I can always start again. 

(donkey whispers)  I think you are quite right there donkey, if everyone here today, the mums, the dads, the grandma’s, grandpa’s, aunties, uncles and friends were to decide that they wanted to shine like stars today we might all shine together like that brilliant star shone over the stable telling everyone that Jesus has arrived.

At the end of the service I provided a simple craft – one star, one sticker with the verse typed onto it, a few bits of curly ribbon to make a hanging loop and some to put at the bottom of the star.  That was very simple, cost me less than £15 and encouraged all the adults to stay around and chat.  I also kept Donkey out to chat with the children as well which was great fun x.

What Young People Need from Church.

It is not too often that I find a post that makes me think – I just gotta share this, however this one seems to just hit the nail on the head.  It is a great starting point for anyone looking at working with teens within a church environment.

Christingle for Cub Scouts.

Yesterday I got to have a fab hour and a half with 24 local cub scouts.  I had the same group last advent and spent time with them talking about the Advent Wreath you can see what I did with them with this post.  This year I decided to talk to them about the Christingle.  There were a few reasons for this which I did prayerfully consider

• I am preparing some bits for our Christingle service later in the month.
• this is an age group that may have been to a Christingle service in the past but may be feeling that they are too old for it now and we have a service coming up that they could attend.
• There are lots of great resources on the net.
• The youngsters are very charity aware through their cub scouting and this would profile the Childrens Society.

This is the plan that I made:

Cub Scouts

6.30

Welcome, prayer,

Christingle, show big foam one and discuss the symbols.

6.45

Game – Christingle swap game

Kneelers

7 oranges/balls

7 candles

7 boxes raisins

7 ribbons

Sit in a circle on kneelers,hand out one item to each person. Have one person without a kneeler, they can be in the centre to show how to play.  One person in the centre has to shout out, orange, fruit, candle or ribbon, those holding those items stand up and swap seats with someone else who has stood up.  The person calling must try and get a seat as well.  The one left standing does the next call.

 

7.00

Split into 4 groups and give them the information sheets to read.  After 10 minutes take the sheets back in and give out the question sheets.  When completed, get them to swap the answers with another team and read out the answers so they can mark them.

 

7.25

Stop for drink and a biscuit.

 

7.30

Make Christingle biscuits and help tidy up.

 

Extras

light and dark game, word search.

We had a great time, the games went down particularly well. I did consider whether I would go down the route of making Christingles however decided that I wanted them to be encouraged to come to the service to do this.  It also meant that I did not have to fill out lots of risk assessment forms as well!

If you would like to find more details about the activities I did have a look at the Childrens Society Christingle web page here .  They do not only provide resources for services but also great ideas like the ones above!

Advent Adventure 2011.

It was very exciting to do my second ever Advent Adventure activity day last saturday.  We had the most children attending a single event all year 43 under 11 year olds.

Our programme ended up like this:

Advent Adventure Sat 26.11.11			Today’s Focus – 1.Learn about God’s promises in the Bible and for us today 2. Understand we can trust God – Mary’s song.
9:30 to 9.45 In hall Laura		Register at tables Activities at tables. Decorate take home bags Introduce everyone to each other.
9.45 to 10:15 In church Jane		Welcome, introduction and prayer What do we know about Advent Today looking at promises – what has that got to do with Advent? What promises do they make Wiggle Song Bible Reading – Mary’s Song Luke 1 46-56 Memory Verse
Key Stage One	10.15 to 10.55 Discussion/ Prayer/ Craft Time In hall			10.55 to 11.30 Refreshments and Games. In church
Key Stage Two	10.15 to 10.55 Refreshments and Games. In church			10.55 to 11.30 Discussion/ Prayer/ Craft Time In hall
11.30 to 12.00 In church Jane		Trust Video clip Song Trust in God Memory Verse
12.00 to 12.30 In Hall Jane and Laura		Lunch Discussion and questions at tables.

You might have noticed that it is not just my name that is in the programme, it was great to work with our new children’s minister who is with us for a year.  It made the work load in the preparation and on the day much easier for me to manage.

I have learnt so much about these activity days since I started them this time last year and is has been very rewarding being able to follow a plan and not have to start panicking about having to cut things out.  For the reading of Marys Song from Luke I had a volunteer read it out slowly while playing a short power point of pictures to run along side it.  The pictures were taken from google images.  I also used this to talk to our Youth Group about promises and it went down well with both age groups.  You can view this along with the rest of the sides used here:

Advent Adventure 11

It was great getting the children to think about how Mary might have been feeling after being visited by the Angel and then  thinking about how she must have been feeling to write her song.  We also watched a short film on the story of Abraham and Sarah which gave a clear account of who the ‘ancestors’ Mary was remembering.  I took just a 4 minute snip from an episode in the video ‘Theo from the story ‘saving faith’, it worked well and it was great to look at the children and volunteers faces from the front to see how enthralled they all were.  I will definitely be using this video again and will look out for more.

The best part by far for me was listening to all the children say the memory verse while I didn’t speak but just did the actions that we had all learnt.  And the giggles I got when explaining what descendents were – the thought that they might one day have babies!