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Posts Tagged ‘Church’

Possible Solution for Musicianless Churches?

Posted in Church, Fun, tagged , , , , , , on 5 March, 2012| 1 Comment »

A friend recently linked to this excellent video on Facebook and suggested it might be the solution in small churches where musicians are thin on the ground. We’ve been blessed recently by musicians playing in our services and replacing the cds and midi files, but one (Rocky, our Ministry Trainee) is leaving in the summer, so we’re praying for reinforcements. If you know any musicians, or even some helpful robots, do please send them our way…

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Runabout Games for Sunday School Kids

Posted in Church, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We normally have about ten kids in our Junior church. Their ages range from 4 to 12, so we have readers and non-readers. We often have some very wriggly childen with us. So as well as creatively teaching the bible through story telling and crafts (we’re currently looking at the life of the prophet Samuel) we try to include a runabout game which reinforces what we’ve been learning.

I reckon that there are three ‘games’ that be readily adapted for any bible story and include some bible reinforcement along with fun and (hopefully) enough physical activity to keep the kids engaged.

Roundabout games can be lots of fun

1. The first game I use is an adaptation of Port Starboard Bow Stern (PSBS). I used to play PSBS when I was in the Girl Guides – you label the ends and sides of the hall and run between the walls and do various actions as commanded by the leader (in PSBS eg ‘Captain’s Coming’ = stand straight and salute).

What I do is adapt PSBS to the bible story. So when we were looking at Samson the other week, we had the kids running from Gaza to the temple, to Delilah’s house and then to the country of the Philistines. They had to stop to scoop honey from the lion or pretend to drink wine. They brought down the temple columns and had their hair cut. I think they all remember the story of Samson pretty well now.

2. A big favourite with the kids is any adaptation of ‘Simon Says’. We might play ‘Samson says’ or even ‘Jesus says’ (cos you should do something if Jesus says it!). And then they can all be encouraged to run around or to do silly actions or some based on the story. Very simple.

3. The other game option I sometimes employ is a relay race with some tangential allusion to the story, but I use these less now, as the first two games are easier to prepare and also give you more opportunity to reinforce the teaching. Also the first two games ensure that all the kids are running all the time and get nicely tired out. And there are not really any winners so everyone stays happy.

How do you help your active Sunday schoolers use up their energy?

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Another Good Reason to Come and Hope with Us

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 9 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Thinking about getting in touch about our Ministry Trainee scheme? The scheme is going to be even better next year, as we’ve just had the go-ahead to renovate the chilly attic where our Ministry Trainees are housed. The excellent local Walter Stanley Trust, which supports ministry in our deanery, has agreed to lend us the money for the renovations so we can go ahead and make the space more comfortable.

We will also be able to house two MTs, instead of just the one, in a comfortable apartment with two bedrooms, a shower room and a living/dining room with kitchenette. And it will have central heating! Rocky and Happy have bravely lodged here in more austere conditions, but we pray that these changes will enable us to train more folk for ministry for the benefit of the kingdom of God in this parish and beyond.

The local paper has recently featured an article about the renovation project – with a couple of good pics of the Vicarage and the Vicar.

Rocky has met all sorts of interesting people in his time as an MT with us

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Champions of the Snow

Posted in Church, Sandwell, tagged , , , , , , , on 8 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Last year Sandwell Council offered to send shovels, salt and bright blue vests to anyone who offered to become a ‘Snow Champion’ and clear local paths. So I offered our church as champions and we were given three sets. They’ve been lurking in a cupboard at the back of church ever since, but this weekend they were deployed for the first time.

We had a good dump of snow on Saturday night. The Vicar had to cancel our 9am service and a choir who were due to sing for us at 6.30pm postponed their visit. That left us with our 10.30am Education Sunday service which went ahead as usual, tho’ with a few snow-induced absences. One excellent church member had cleared the main paths into the church before the service.

Afterwards, as the temperature rose slightly but the snow still lay slushy and icey on the ground, we coralled a team of kids and managed to clear the pavements on the whole block right around the church. The kids enjoyed themselves very much and neighbours looked on with approval. I’m quite looking forward to some more snow now and the chance to serve our community and work as a team.

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Come and Hope with us

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 25 January, 2012| 1 Comment »

This summer our lodger Rocky is marrying Bee and leaving the delights of our chilly Victorian vicarage for theological college to train as a vicar himself. When he leaves a space will open up in our attic for another Ministry Trainee (or hopefully two). Our Ministry Trainees are involved with all aspects of church life, leading work with children and youth and small groups, they visit parishioners and have many many opportunities to exercise their gifts. They truly get to see ministry from the inside. If you think you (or anyone you know) might like to spend time living in our house, serving our community and learning about God, with the added incentive of plentiful cake and some lively children for company, do get in touch.

More details are on our church website.

Lovely living accommodation

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Faintly Hoping

Posted in Faith, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 24 January, 2012| 1 Comment »

We’ve had some great encouragements so far this year – new folk in church on Sundays and signs of spiritual hunger in all sorts of places. And yesterday we were reminded of the Lord’s presence and promises as we walked home from school: a fragile rainbow appeared right over the houses opposite the Vicarage. I managed to take a photo through our landing window, but you’ll have to look carefully to see the rainbow against the dark clouds.

Sometimes it can seem that hope here is fragile – there are challenges ahead aswell as encouragements. I need to keep reminding myself that the Lord is not fragile and that hope in him does not fade like a rainbow, but is living, secured by the resurrection of Christ.

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope 1Peter 1v3

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A Vicar Raps: Beatbox Nativity

Posted in Faith, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , on 14 December, 2011| 1 Comment »

Just caught this on YouTube and although I’m sure tons of folk have already seen it, thought I’d share in case you hadn’t…

Wish my Vicar could rap like this!

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Lecrae – I Am Second

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 11 October, 2011| 1 Comment »

Just caught this great testimony on I am Second from the Christian rapper Lecrae – he’s a little easier to follow on this than on Chase That.

He reminds me of a good few of the young men we see around here in the parish. Our prayer is that some of them experience God’s transforming love in the way Lecrae has.

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Plastic and Puppets

Posted in Church, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 2 September, 2011| 5 Comments »

This week I finally put into action a project that I’ve been wanting to organise ever since our friends the Rocks showed us their fantastic puppet theatre constructed from PVC plumbing pipes. After a bit of internet research we decided that we’d try and make a fairly large theatre, as we usually have two puppets in the sketches that we do in church and school.

A quick trip to our local plumber’s merchants and £34 later (after they gave us a special discount) and we had the piping for a theatre that’s about 2m high at the back, 1.4m at the front (for a kneeling adult or standing child) and 1m deep. Our plumber’s merchant didn’t advise gluing the thin-walled 32mm piping we had, so we had to cut small joining pieces to connect the T-pieces and 90 degree bends.

Yesterday morning we had one of our holiday Cake and Chat sessions. These are pretty much the same as the ones in term time, except they start later (for holiday lie-ins) and we have more kids with us. So we took all the pipes and connecting pieces down to the church hall, together with a couple of hacksaws, and got down to work. Rocky was the man with the saw, and we had a team which included his fiancee Bee and her mum, and various children who particularly enjoyed applying washing up liquid to the joints to make it easier to connect the pipes in.

Once we’d assembled everything, we found that the frame was still a little wobbly (especially at the beginning when we were still missing the strut for the middle of the front). We will be applying some silicone (the sort you use to line the side of the bath) to the T-pieces, which should stop the rotation that caused the wobble by fixing the connectors to the pipes.

Bee and her mum have kindly offered to make some proper curtains (today’s were a random selection from my materials box) and also a kit bag to carry the rather unwieldy piping, so we are hoping to have everything looking pukka in the next couple of weeks. I’ll blog the first official appearance of the theatre so you can see the final product.

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Five (or More) Ways to Encourage a Vicar’s Wife

Posted in Church, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 14 July, 2011| 19 Comments »

A lovely parishioner visited me yesterday and brought a bunch of flowers, knowing that I’d had a pretty stressful few days. Sometimes being the Vicar’s wife can feel lonely. You’re in a weird situation that not many people understand and people keep on calling at your front door asking the Vicar to mend their bikes (amongst other things last night). So when someone from our congregation thinks of me and lets me know they’ve been thinking of me, it really warms my heart. A little encouragement goes a long way and helps me to persevere.

And then a Vicar’s wife friend on Facebook asked for some help in drafting a talk on ‘Five Ways to Encourage a Minister’s Wife’ (she’s not just speaking to Anglicans). There were lots of great ideas there – and they’ve inspired me to write my five:

  1. Treat the Vicar’s wife as a real person, a normal member of the church family. Don’t give her too many messages for the Vicar as she’ll feel horribly guilty when she forgets.
  2. Be a pew buddy – sit with her on a Sunday morning – if she has kids give her a hand with them.
  3. Let her know if you’ve been thinking of her or praying for her (maybe in writing).
  4. Make sure she regularly gets on the Minister’s Wives conference, or a retreat, or something spiritually refreshing, and try to ensure she gets enough time with her husband.
  5. Flowers, wine and chocolate, obviously, or even an invitation to Sunday lunch for the whole family.

Many of these things would encourage any church member, but I’ve tried to highlight some of the things I’ve found especially encouraging myself. What do you think?

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