Skip to main content

Innovation in Calverley Junior Church

Junior Church in Calverley's Garden.

One of the problems we often find in Junior Church is that we have a small number of children, but with a wide age range. So for this reason, we thought we would try Scripture Union’s Mosaic, which is designed to cater for small groups like ours. In our first 5 sessions, we have been looking at Creation.

One of the high spots of Session one was when we piled junk and collage materials on the table and reminded the children that God started with nothing and created something beautiful. We then asked them to create something beautiful out of the junk on the table. In Session two, we looked at God making the land, sea and plants and for this session we prepared pots of bulbs. At the time of writing this, they are now flowering in our church windows to brighten these dreary winter days.
Session three was ‘God makes the sun, moon and stars’. For this session, we made rockets out of cardboard and imagined we were sitting in them, looking out of the windows at all the stars, and we remembered that God knows the size and shape of every star and planet, because he made them all. We then decorated the church balcony with the rockets with coloured ribbons to represent the flames from the rocket engines. (Remembering at this point health and safety - one adult per child at the balcony edge!)

The final session ‘Creation Praise’, we decided to create an area of the church garden for God’s smaller creatures. So we have built a bug refuge for insects and other creepy crawlies out of plastic tubing, old branches and other bits of rubbish. We also built a hedgehog house - no tenant has moved in at the time of writing! And finally we made a bird feeding station, so in the coming months, the children will be able observe God’s smaller creatures up close.

Rodney D, Calverley

















Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Circuit Talents Challenge

"For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money ..." Matthew 25:14-30 Why don't you take up the Circuit Talents Challenge by taking a £5 note and making it grow for the Circuit? More details ...

The wind among the trees

I sat among the trees once. And a wind was blowing. Quite a strong wind; I could hear it in the trees –   rushing, rushing. A lovely sound, soothing to my ears. I stopped what I was writing and began to listen. I remembered that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was like   the wind. You could hear it; see its effect. But you couldn’t see the wind itself. You couldn’t see   where it was coming from, nor going to. And I wondered, “Are you showing me something about your Spirit, Lord?” So I sat, and I listened, and I watched. They were big, old trees where I sat. Tall they were, in an ancient wood, well-branched,  shapely. Beech, grey bark against the clear blue of the sky. And leaves: they were leaves that knew the wind;   leaves that let the wind know them. They looked, like beach leaves look in a wind: full of life –   and with a certain beauty all their own. I watched the great crowns of those great trees. I watched the branches sway and the ...

For such times as these! - A good news story from Windhill!

For such times as these! (Esther 14:14) On June 1st James Stannet (from e:merge , a Christian Youth organisation) began his youth work for Christchurch LEP in Windhill. He says, "Well! June has been a really busy but very productive month. On Wednesday, in the park, numbers are climbing week by week, now averaging 25. Good partnerships have been made with local organisations. this has been a blessing: enabling us to deliver varied sport activities and build good relationships.' 'The Hope Revolution, youth event, based at Christchurch LEP was a massive hit. A BIG Thank you is expressed to the Church for the support, encouragement and prayers. 200 people attended the Fun Day. Despite the rainy weather, 100 young people took part in local projects: two house clear-ups, school garden project (Windhill Primary) and running the Fun Day. 10 Christian Organisations working together resulting in several families requesting Christian children's activities.' ...