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What's been happening

Samuel series Christmas special

Over the Winter term, we used the Samuel series at our local church. The kids loved these epic stories, especially some of the ones about Jonathan and the Ark v Dagon that don't often make their way into children's Bibles.

We adapted the last session on the significance of the town Bethlehem Ephrathah (birthplace of Samuel's great-great-great-great-grandfather and of David) into an all age Christmas service. We even used the musical statues game in the middle of the service with everyone on their feet jiggling away, which went down a treat! Beautiful to look at the history of Bethlehem and how Jesus enters the world in this town that had started out so sorrowful, but become a place of hope.

Ellie (Dec 2021)

Jesus the Righteous Judge

We just finished our Jesus the Righteous Judge series at Easter. Spending the last few sessions on the events of Holy Week was a very fitting lead up to the Easter celebrations. Wonderful to see the kids deepening their understanding of why Jesus died and rose to life and how that affects the way we are to love and forgive one another.

As a parent, the lesson on us forgiving others, because we have been forgiven, has been particularly helpful as a reference point for disputes in the home!

Ellie (Apr 2022)

We all love games!!!

After a bit of creative thinking, we tried out a games morning with the kids at the end of the Easter holidays as a fun way of recapping the series that we had just done together. We took the kids outside to the field and used a selection of active games from the sessions in the series. We did a little recap of the lesson of that session, then played the game associated with it and then, the next session's game, etc.

The kids loved it and I think the helpers liked being out in the sunshine too!

We ended with a relay around the perimeter of the field to demonstrate the great commission. The one with the baton had been entrusted with the message about Jesus, everyone spread out around the edge of the field. Then the first runner passed it to the next, then the next, then the next until it had gone round the whole field. We talked about how that is how the gospel goes round the whole world, one person passing on the good news to another. It was a powerful moment!

Ellie (Apr 2022)

School witnessing

At the end of our games session last week, we prayed for each other to be bold and tell our school friends about Jesus. On the way into school, I could hear my son in Reception asking his friends "Do you know about Jesus?" His teacher was asked the same question. I suspect he will conduct a pretty thorough survey by the end of the day! Praying it bears fruit!

Ellie (Apr 2022)

New series - Creation!

We started a new series at church this week on Creation. (It will be published online very soon) The creation stories were actually a bit daunting to try and teach well to youngsters. Their significance and what they are and are not trying to tell us can be hotly debated within the evangelical church and within RE lessons at school! However they are foundational to understanding the rest of the story.

Having taken the plunge and decided to go for it, the main lessons we are bringing out over this series is that we are made in the image of a God who chose to create and love and we get to choose whether to do these things as well.

For a more complete discussion on the debates around the creation stories and my heart behind teaching them, see this article.
Ellie (May 2022)