Let love shine through you

This morning we talked about what it means to follow Jesus, and the things we can do to show God's love to other people. 

We heard the story from the bible about Moses and the burning bush... and made some 'burning bush cupcakes' which were delicious!

Each of our Awesome Kids received a special little notebook (hand-made in Nepal).
We wrote notes to remind us of ways we can live in God's love, and let God'

We asked members of the congregation to write messages in our books...
to help remind us how special and loved each one of us is.

 

Funny Little Circus Clowns

This morning at Musikool Kids we sang Julie Wylie's song, Funny Clowns. It was great fun dancing with our partners, wobbling side to side, to and fro and tumbling to the floor! Afterwards, some helpers used mini puppet clowns to help us sing the clown song again. Well done everyone!

"See the funny laughing clowns, see the way they wobble,
side to side and to and fro, over they topple!"

You ROCK!

Sometimes, we feel about as special as an ordinary rock. But God made us this way, and uses very ordinary 'rock-y' people to do God's work in the world. This morning Richard told a story about Peter (his name meant 'rock'). A rock is something strong that can last through any storm... just like God's love. 

When we love others, when we forgive, when we share, we are building our lives on the foundation (rock) of God's love. And that love is everlasting!

To remind us of this, our Awesome Kids made pet rocks. Check out these amazing creations in the photos below!

Music and mischief at Musikool Kids

Storylines Family Day

The annual Storylines Festival Free Family Day is on this Sunday, so if you're looking for something to do after church this week head along to the Upper Riccarton Library.

There is a treasure hunt, face painting, authors reading their stories, artists in action and drama groups performing.

Julie Wylie will be performing musical story sessions at 12.30pm and 2pm.

Click here for more information

Rave reviews for Joseph!

This morning we were treated to a brilliant performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The star-studded cast's modern interpretation of the age-old story of Joseph and his jealous brothers received rave reviews from the Awesome Kids.

"It was hilarious!"    "It was really good."

"They sounded like they knew the lines off-by-heart."

"Dave's acting skills were superb!"

"Joseph's coat was... um... well... colourful..."

"I think Grandad might have pushed Dave a bit too hard!"

"We wouldn't like to have 11 brothers!"

"It was really cool to see all the men up there!"

"They were awesome!"

In actual fact, these very good-natured gentlemen were pulled up out of the congregation and handed a script only a minute before the show commenced. No warning, no rehearsal, and none of them said 'No!' 

What great sports they all were, huge thanks to all of them for helping our Kids' Ministry this morning.

Joseph's colourful coat

This morning we explored the story of Joseph and his brothers, and his amazing colourful coat. 

This is a story about family, conflict, happy times, sad times... and that no matter what, God loves us and stays with us always, helping us get through tough situations.

You might have heard of the spectacular musical based on this story (from the book of Genesis in the bible) called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Well this morning I pulled up a few unsuspecting gentlemen from our congregation and we put on our own version (no less spectacular!) I will post some pictures of this soon.

During Awesome Time upstairs, we made some wooden Joseph figures but I think the edible versions with coats of hundreds and thousands went down a treat!

A treasure in the box!

Amanda and Annabel presented us with a gorgeous little knitted cat, handmade by Amanda. His name is M-K-Cool Cat and he enjoyed his first ride on the parachute today.

After music, Ben helped with the cleaning up - and look what treasure we found in the toy box! Emelia had climbed in among the toys and was in no hurry to leave!

Young Leaders

Monica, Emma and Izak led the congregation in prayer on Sunday. Well done guys, you were awesome!

Musical fun today

Our youngest Musikool Kids' members...
Kyla and twins Louise and Thomas

Top: Rainbow ring & Shaking our Maracas
Bottom: Takahi means stamp; moe means sleep

Check out these wonderful home-made maracas!

Bubbles pop!

Rainbow Promise Bands!

This morning, our theme was promises. Sometimes promises are hard to keep, but we remember that God promises to love us and be with us always, no matter what. We can ask God to help us keep the promises we make to our family and friends. To help us remember this, we made rainbow promise bands (rainbows are a symbol or reminder of a promise.)

During Awesome Time in church, Melanie gave the Awesome Kids a series of tasks to do. They had to jump up and down five times, twirl around, run up and down the aisle giving members of the congregation hi-fives, and finally pick up a heap of rubber bands Melanie had fired about the place.

Melanie promised that after they had completed these tasks, she would give them some sweet treats from her cake tin. BUT... to their horror, she tricked them - and when the tin was opened, it was full of onions! Melanie handed out an onion to each child, but they were very quick to point out she had broken her promise. Fortunately, Melanie was convinced by the children that it is important to keep a promise, so she swapped the onions for the chocolate lollies. Phew!

Would you like a hat?

Work is to begin soon on rebuilding our Chapel Street church, and we are fundraising to help with costs. 

One of the ladies in our parish has knitted these beautiful woolen hats. Just the thing for these frosty mornings! There is one adult sized, and two teeny weeny baby/toddler sized hats.

If you would like to purchase a hat, or two, or all three - just let me know; we would just ask for a small donation towards our building fund. I will bring them along to Musikool Kids on Friday for viewing!

Maori Language Week

To celebrate Maori Language Week we sang a new song, and learnt the Maori words for parts of our body. Melanie stuck stickers on a rather unsuspecting Bob, to help us remember:

Upoko = head

Puku = stomach

Turi = knee

Waewae = feet

Bob broke out the guitar and we sang Takahia means stamp.

We also met a new puppet friend, and sang a very old song (which was new for many of our group!), The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

Congratulations to winners of our photo competition; Noah, Maddy & Rose, Caleb, Dominic, Laura & Amelia. You all win some bubbles to blow, so you can sing 'Bubbles Pop!' at home. We hope the Bunn family will share their shakers with us next week at instrument time!

Emma and Hamish make music together

Emma and Hamish making crazy, joyful noise - by the looks of it! Wow!

Enthusiasm abounds!

Rose and Maddy row their boat

Cute!

Rose and Maddy singing 'Row, row, row your boat!' What a joyful duet!

Joyful Noise Competition closing...

I'm accepting a few late entries for our musical photo competition... get yours in by Wednesday to be in to win!

Check out our leading photos here...

Where is your happy place?

This morning the Awesome Kids heard the story from the bible about a man called Jacob, who had a dream about a fantastic place. We all thought about where our 'happy place' is... where do we like to go? What makes us happy? Who do we like to be with? No matter who we are, or where we go, God is with us, loving us always.

William and Jamie working on their Jacob's Ladder

Make and Shake those Maracas!

Dominic, Amelia and Laura shaking their maracas!

When Dominic, Amelia and Laura asked, "What can we make with the toilet rolls mum?" Mum's reply was, "Musical shakers is what we can create!! Decorate, fill with small stones and bolts, seal the ends and let the noisy party begin!"

Thanks to the Bunn family for sharing their splendiferous shakers with us!

Caleb's musical treasure

Caleb's beach percussion

Caleb found some big sticks planted in the ground, and discovered he could make some interesting sounds and rhythms hitting them with a drumstick of driftwood.

Caleb, it reminds me of Julie Wylie's song, "Down at the beach, we found treasure..."

Thank you for your entry in the 'Joyful Noise Holiday Challenge'!

Andrew and Spencer keep the beat

Andrew and Spencer make their own joyful noise... the drum and the tambourine are playing on the beat!

Well done boys!


Keep your 'Joyful Noise' photos for the Holiday Challenge coming in... competition closes at the end of this week.

Noah's Joyful Noise!

Noah

Noah enjoys shaking maracas to 'Baa baa black sheep' in the mornings. Thanks to mum Katrina for sending this in... I'm sure everyone will agree this is a real contender for the 'cutest' musical photo! (I love the wee tongue sticking out!)

JOYFUL NOISES! Parish Concert

Emma

Monica

Here are our first two entries in our JOYFUL NOISE Holiday Challenge. 

Our mid-winter Parish Concert at Northwood Villas was a great success, with wonderful performances from the very young to the not-so-young!

Here are a couple of photos... and you can view more by going to the following link:

Parish Concert Photos

You can view some snippets from the concert on YouTube by clicking here:

Parish Concert Video

Does your family drive you crazy?

Let's face it, we all have someone in our family who drives us nuts at times! This morning our Awesome Kids talked with Carol and Marie about our families... and we heard that there are stories in the Bible about brothers and sisters not getting along, and sometimes it can seem like our own family is in a MESS - but God loves us anyway, and calls us to be God's people.

Here is the prayer our twins, Ella & Keegan shared with us:

God, we thank you for filling our lives with so much love, and giving us love to share with others.  

Lord, even though we love the people in our family, there are things about each one that drive us a little nuts.  Hear our prayers for the things in our family that drive us a little nuts.

Help us to be patient and kind, and make good choices. Help us to be courageous,  and scatter our love everywhere we go, In Christ's name we pray. AMEN.

Here are some shots of our Awesome Kids with their siblings - showing that we can all drive each other a little nuts sometimes, but we really love our brothers and sisters and with God's help we can learn to get along.

Isabella and Sophia

Monica and Izak

Corban and twins; Ella and Keegan

Livvie and Liam

Tamu and Tia

Twins; Rachel and Vanessa

We all drive each other a little nuts sometimes...

Thank you God for filling our lives with so much love!

And because today's bible story had some soup in it, Marie kindly organised for some delicious soup for our Awesome Kids to share! Yum!

Jacob and Esau
from our bible story today

The Awesome Kids try to guess what vegetables Marie put in her marvelous soup!

Check out the reactions to the brussel sprout!