communion crafts revisted

Ok...communion crafts. . .

Make bread, break bread, eat it, share it...
Find out all you can about bread. Once, it was a staple.

Age appropriately, talk about the role bread played in the culture of the people in the scriptures from gathering the seed to planting to harvesting to storing to grinding to baking and eating ...talking about the market would be another topic for another story.

Visit a vineyard. Learn about grapes & find out how wine is made. Again, age appropriately explore the process that the people of the scriptures were familiar with from planting to tending to harvesting to making and drinking the wine. Invite a vinedresser or take a field trip. Where did they get the plants to start with? Wine represents the blood of Christ...

We live in a culture vastly separated from the process and hands-on interaction with the foods that nourish our bodies. People in ancient cultures (even my culture 50 years ago) were on more intimate terms, if you will, with the life of the things they ate and drank. Why did Jesus choose bread and wine? Why not fish and water? Herbs, salt? Or lamb? I don't know...

Learn about blood...

Learn about blood in the scriptures or as part of Jewish tradition...Learn about the role of wine & bread in the scriptures.

Make a clay challis and a clay plate.

Act out the story... talk about how all the characters are related - the experiences they shared over the three years they spent together. . .How much did they see each other? What did they do together? How long is three years to your audience? Is there someone you've known for 3 years? Is there someone you've known for 3 years who has had as dramatic an affect on your life as Jesus did?

The men with Jesus celebrated Passover every year of their lives. What was that like? How was this time different? What did Jesus say to them?

If a friend asks to use a room in your house what do you do to get ready?

Any of these possibilities with give you more material than you were looking for. You can either explore it on your own first and think about what you might want to focus on with the particular group you have. Or go in cold with your kids and offer open-ended questions for your kids so they can ponder and share their experience with one another and see what God shows you that you didn't see before.

In it's simplest form? God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Jesus is God. God the Father made man and grain and grapes. He gives us food to eat. He gave Jesus, His own Son to us. Jesus said, This is my body, this is my blood. Eat it and remember me. He said Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no part in me...wait...that wasn't the communion story. I'm paraphrasing. Go back to the text...

...but you get the idea...if you want to catch a grain harvest or grain planting or  grape pruning or grape harvest you have to plan ahead and time your field trips or speakers to catch the process in season...like now...

from Brian Maddux: Children's Ministry Live. Podcast interviews with experts in the area of Children's Ministry. I believe he has finished two interviews and has 3 more scheduled so far. He's just starting out - interviewing experts in the area of Children's Ministry.

Actually, I think the link you want is his sitemap

Check it out!

Another blog for you. Tainted Canvas. I'm a lousy business person (not into marketing. music, worship, yes...) but I found this post worth reading as an expression of "emergent" thinking...

If you don't follow David Wakerley at kidinspiration (Hillsong) check it out and add your comments. He recently posed a question that started an interesting discussion: "Should we be teaching/telling our kids the ultra-violent stories found in the Old Testament?" You'll find some good comments & diverse points of view.

I find that very much a cultural question but a pivotal question, if you will. I'd venture to say that our answers reflect the role scripture plays in our lives, in our world views, and how we wrestle with them when culture as we know it clashes with our faith. I'm not condoning violence nor am I condoning picking and choosing what we take from the scriptures and what we ignore. How we share those stories with kids reflects how we perceive children...but the wrestling is an on-going process if you're willing to wrestle with God.

Having those particular questions to wrestle with is indicative of something much much bigger that I'm trying very hard to get my head around and maybe when I do I'll try to put it into words and post more...

...go check it out...he also has a great list of resources...

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Not the best lighting but here is a picture of all 3 variations on the last post:

yellow tissue paper
white printer paper
green wrapping paper

Hopefully, they don't look like they're hanging...I mean they are...but. . . you can also tie the string around their waist & behind their arms and knot it well above the hat then it looks like someone is hoisting them up up up ...

If the wind doesn't cooperate you can take something big and flat and make your own...or blOw...or use a hair dryer... you get the idea...or do it during your windiest season . . .

Too much wind and they get pretty worked up...if it weren't for the tape and the screen they'd probably just blow away like Elijah did ...

You can also make kites and use kites during kite-flying season to talk about the wind and the Holy Spirit...

craft to teach about the Holy Spirit

Here's a craft for kids about the wind & the Holy Spirit.

You can use white paper, colored paper, thin tracing paper, wrapping paper, tissue paper . . . .

Cut 1 square head (or round if you want 3 different shapes). Cut 1 triangle hat. Fold the bottom edge of the hat up if you like. Cut a larger square for the body. Cut 2 arms as long as the width of a piece of construction or white paper. Cut 2 legs as long as the length of a piece of paper. Everything can be 1/2 to an inch wide.

Glue hat to head and head to body. Make a face with googly eyes or pencil or thin markers.

Fold each arm & leg accordian-like.

Glue arms & legs to the body or punch holes & use brads to attach them.

Securely attach a string or piece of yarn to the head. (glue, tape, or tie it to the brad)

Take the paper person outside in the wind or hang him in an open window and wait for the wind to blow.

We Made the Top 100 Children's Ministry Blogs! Ok. The only reason I know is because when lots of people on my site meter come from the same site I go and see what they're saying about us. This was a neat surprise! The badge is cool but I guess they recalculate each year. If I don't put it up, I don't have to take it down again... :-)

The big reason to click on the above link, out of 100 sites, there's bound to be one you haven't seen yet - lots I haven't seen . . . Enjoy!

If you regularly frequent my site, thanks for coming! :-)

After you read the post before this one...Here's a project for you...sit down alone or with other* parents, teachers, & volunteers and ask yourselves,

"What do I remember from the years before I started kindergarten?"

"What are the things (good & bad) that make me who I am that have roots in my early childhood years?"

"What are the things I did as a child that I still do today, a way of thinking, a passion?" What lingered through the years? If you'd grown up in a different location, with people around you who loved or worked at different things, with different social opportunities or playthings would you be different? We don't really know but I bet you can find connections. I'm not talking about making excuses for ourselves. I'm talking about climbing into the skin of a preschooler. You can specifically apply this to faith and the faith community, if you like but don't limit yourself...

Sure, you could sit and read a lot of scientific journals on the subject but you might find this approach much more fun ... plus these are your kids and you're the ones given opportunity to influence them...



*Not sure if it's best to have a variety of adult personalities, gifts, skills & interests for this or whether it doesn't matter. I'm not focusing on nature vs nurture here, I'm asking what lingered over the years and what would have been happening between 3-5 yrs old to make those roots run so deep? Something I remember from early sunday school when my grandmother was teaching: the finger game "here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, see all the people" and a book that's still a Mennonite children's book God's World and Johnny. Gosh! I remember this one too! I remember being in choir of older kids and trying to sing louder than all the other kids. I remember lots but maybe another time...have fun with this...

Ahab & Elijah

"King Ahab for preschoolers"...

My first response when I saw this search on my site meter was..."King Ahab isn't somebody I really want my preschoolers to know" but then there are lots of Bible characters like that...so what's in the story of Ahab for preschoolers? How much of Ahab's story is appropriate for this age? If they're in scripture, at some point in time they are people God wants us to know...

He was a king. Lots of visual images for kings and dress up and play and puppet potential.

How about we tell Elijah's story & his interaction w/Ahab. We have the little cloud, the ravens, and the hide & seek/chase part of the story. Both Ahab & Elijah are very stubborn characters. Preschoolers know about being stubborn although they may not be able to label it as such or understand it the same way we do. But these are some elements in the story that a preschool audience might relate to and enjoy.

God is speaking to Elijah. Always a potential "wow" factor to use with kids. God said....and Elijah responded...

The ravens come and feed Elijah. That image is right up there with Disney. Ok...don't laugh, I still believe the literal of these stories.

With preschoolers, I wouldn't take all the side journeys through all the stories that you'll find in Kings on the way to the ending. I think I'd treat them as separate stories once you've introduced the character Elijah (or Ahab). Stick to the rain story for now. If you're an exceptional storyteller, you have a rapt audience and the time, you might be able to tell a side story & go back and a side story & go back - leave them hanging, tell a side story, then return to continue the story. With older kids you might be able to start a story and tell it over a couple weeks but only if you can leave them hanging each week.

Three years! What's 3 years to a preschooler? A lifetime. That means that the 3 year old kids who were around when this story was happening had never seen rain. Someday I will tell you my water story.

Do you want to explore the interaction between Obadiah & Elijah? Obabiah found Elijah. But instead of going back and "telling on him," Obadiah was afraid to go back. What if Elijah & Obadiah were kids - preschoolers? What would this interaction look like? If preschoolers wouldn't do it or understand it, skip it, for now but I think you can use this scene.

The ending is dramatic. You have Elijah facing off with priests who worshiped and served other gods. What does God do? In our present culture it's easy to skip over controversial parts of scripture that seem less than "politically correct" but don't be afraid of God's stories. Look and ponder. Look carefully. If you tell the stories & you're true to God's stories you can let them do the talking and be a listener just like your audience. I don't mean didactic moralizing story-telling either... Learning to fear God, whatever your denomination, is the beginning of wisdom...handled appropriately, kids are ripe for this...

Anyway...have fun with this...I'm just scratching the surface, here. I think you will find definite possibilities here for preschoolers.