Thanks to all of you who came out to our inaugural FISH: Lego Edition, tonight down at the Chapel Street Centre. What an awesome night!
The teams rose to every challenge, tackling each activity with grim determination, fabulous creativity and engineering skills, and wonderful teamwork.
From the 'Find the Lego' Memory Cup Challenge, to the Colour Tower Challenge, to the Lego Quiz to the penultimate Grand Design Challenge... you were stars.
Click below to watch a short video with some of the highlights. Photos will be coming soon!
Last Sunday our Awesome Kids gave thanks for the special people in our lives who have shown us how to live in God's way. Perhaps they are a family member, friend, teacher, Awesome Time teacher, Youth Group leader, minister, or a special friend at church.
They are the people who get to know us, who care about us, listen to us, show us understanding and love. They might be someone who prayer for us, or tells us stories from the Bible, or someone who brings us to church. It might be someone who talks about their faith with us, someone we can go to when we have a curly question that needs answering, or just someone who takes the time to be with us. But in all this, they are someone who teaches us about God's love by the way they love us and by the way they love others.
You'll have to watch the video by MaTCH to find out the answer to the riddle, how is faith like WIFI?
Bring your own dinner for you and your family. Ice-cream and chocolate fish provided afterwards. Enjoy all-age games and challenges, with the inaugural FISH - Lego Edition!
(No previous Lego experience necessary. All welcome - all ages!)
On Sunday our youth and young adults led our worship service, to which all animals were invited. We celebrated God's wonderful creation, all creatures great and small, weird and wonderful, bright and beautiful.
Rev Anne led the Blessing of the Animals. The youth led the music, readings, prayers and reflections. We had a drama based on the fable of the Lion and the Mouse. We were reminded that we are each unique and perfectly planned and created by God, and no matter how small we are, we can do great things... sharing the love of God with others.
Today was Storm Sunday and we celebrated that through all life's storms, big and little, God is right here with us - giving us love, care, shelter and strength.
We performed a skit, based on the book 'Underneath a Cow' by Carol Ann Martin.
The rain came down, lightning flashed, thunder roared (and thanks to percussionists Izak and Jack, we had all the awesome sound effects!) and the animals ran to find shelter. Maude, the brave and kind cow, offered a dry, safe place to shelter, underneath her. So, all the animals squished in to shelter from the storm.
At the end of the story Maude said, 'It's good to be in a safe place, but sometimes we have to bea safe place.' We thought that this was a bit like God asking us to show hospitality to others, and share kindness, caring and love to help others through the storms in their lives.
Our ukulele group, AbsolUKE (together with help from percussionists) led the congregation in singing Tūtira mai ngā iwi, which talks about standing together, in love.
I particularly like this translation, from the Ministry of Education website, which has the words let us enfold each other.
Stand together people, in unity
Stand together people, in unity
Seek out the clearest vision and our love so strong
O our people, let us enfold each other
That we may all be one
It makes me think of Madge the cow, with all the other animals in her warm, loving care, sheltering from the storm. It reminds me of the way God embraces us with loving arms, holding us up and helping us through our troubles.
Last Saturday night at FISH, we enjoyed some of our old favouries, such as GIANT PICTIONARY, If You Love Me Honey Smile, a puzzle race and an interesting version of Hockey.
A new game was GOBLIN, where one person was the tagger and chased everyone all around the complex. Spencer was our speedy goblin, and we had to be quick and clever to evade him. If he tagged someone, they had to freeze and could only be unfrozen by two people and a zippy sound effect.
The only way to defeat the goblin, was to locate the pieces of a torch, which were hidden all around the building, assemble the torch and shine it onto Spencer. It took a lot of teamwork, but eventually Peatalisa 'saved' everyone from the cackling Spencer with the torch. A lot of fun!
Today was Spring Flower Sunday. The church was beautifully decorated with flowers, and as we were also celebrating animals, some of our children had brought soft toy animals along to add to the display too.
Peatalisa, Angie, Sophia and Bella helped Rev Anne in leading our Call to Worship, with a dramatic reading about the plants and animals.
In Awesome Time. Richard and Jillian organised a BIG game in the hall, with a giant dice, and a playing board large enough to have people as the playing pieces. We talked about looking after our plants, animals and environment - by not wasting water, not littering and remembering to turn that bedroom light off in the morning!
This morning Smith & Co. led our worship once again, with Yet Not I, But Through Christ in Me. Enzro on guitar and vocals, Roslind on vocals, Monica on keys, Ruard on percussion and Dave on trumpet. Awesome! What a beautiful start to our worship service this morning.
Last Sunday was the first Sunday in our Season of Creation. Our Awesome Kids, and in fact the whole congregation, celebrated Ocean Sunday. We followed the fish into church, through the waves, and sang Julie Wylie's beautiful song, Listen to the Waves, Jesus is Lord.
In Awesome Time the young people made pearl and shell necklaces for someone special, and some goodie bags filled with delicious treats to give to a Dad, grandad, uncle, or caregiver, or another someone special on Father's Day:
Popcorn - because you are my 'Pop'
Pretzels - because you love me and teach me through all life's twists and turns
Raisins - because you are 'raisin' me to love God
Kisses - because you give me the best kisses
Carol told a great story in church...
Have you noticed that when you walk along the beach you find things that have been washed up, after rolling around deep in the ocean? Seashells are often washed up and the crashing of the waves sometimes leaves these seashells broken, chipped, or less than perfect.
Life can take all sorts of twists and turns, and ups and downs, and we might feel a bit like we are a seashell crashing about in a storm on the sea. The winds are violent around us, the waves crashing and bashing and it might feel like we may drown. But then, just like the waves of the sea are calmed, God steps in and calms our own storm.
When we put our trust in God, we can see that even in the murky waters of trouble, God is with us. Like the seashell that washes up on the shore, that has withstood the violet waves, so shall we. The treasure that we see in that lovely seashell is also how God sees you and me... a treasure that is beautiful and worthy to hold on to!
And, no two shells are exactly alike, just like no two people are exactly the same. Each shell has its own individual markings and identity. Just like us - we all have our own unique beauty..
So, when you see a seashell, let it be a reminder to you that you are special and unique and that God is faithful, even in the storms of life.
Check out the 'Library Lion' themed artwork, created by our Awesome Kids. The lions remind us of the story we heard on Sunday, and that God loves us every day, everywhere, all of the time. Jesus wants us to show God's love to others, wherever we go, each day of the week. We need to be BOLD and be KIND, living in God's love every day.
Thanks to MaTCH - Izak and Jack, for the awesome video!
We read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen. When a lion visits the library, no one knows what to do: there are no rules about lions in the library. But soon he's indispensable - "What a helpful lion," people say. "How did we ever get along without him?" But one day the head librarian falls and breaks her arm, and the only way the lion can get help is to roar. And that is breaking the rules. The next day the lion doesn't come to the library, nor the next day, nor the day after that - until Mr McBee finds him and tells him that sometimes there is a very good reason to break the rules - even in the library!
In the bible story from the book of Luke, chapter 13: 10-17, we read about Jesus healing a bent over woman on the Sabbath, breaking the rule.
We were reminded that God loves us all the time, every day, and Jesus wants us to share God’s love with others - every day too.
We talked about being BOLD like the Library Lion, going out of our way to help others, show kindness and the love of God - anywhere, any day, anytime.
Last Saturday at CHYPS we had an epic game of Hide'n'Seek. We played some variations on the traditional 'oldie but a goodie'. The blackout edition, where we turned out all the lights in the complex was awesome. And eventually everyone was found!
Enzro told us some stories of when he was a child, including how he was afraid of the dark for many years. We heard some really bad Dad jokes, and some good ones too - thanks to Ruard and everyone who contributed! Roslind and Enzro finished off our God-time with an awesome song, and it was great to see some of our youth singing along.
Thanks to Anne (Jack's Mum) and Carol for serving up a delicious supper of hot savouries, chocolate fish and chocolate cupcakes - delicious!
Hope you all have an awesome month, until the next CHYPS... go well and remember that you're pretty special, and God loves you just the way you are. :o)
Enjoy this, and other great games, along with a scrummy supper, God-Time and chillin' with the CHYPS crew. Oh, and Ruard might have a few Dad-jokes for us during suppertime.
A couple of weeks ago we had our annual Parish Concert at the Chapel Street Centre. It was great to see and hear an awesome range of talents shared by members of the Christchurch North Methodist Parish.
A couple of months ago, our Youth Group, CHYPS (Chapel Street Young People's group) met at the Chapel Street Centre for a fun night of games and challenges, not to mention a scrummy supper!
One of the many challenges for our teams at FISH last night, was to create the best album cover. The teams had ten minutes to come up with a name for their album, create an image and photograph it. Here are three rather awesome looking covers. I wonder what their music would be like?
Our Awesome Kids talked about how we communicate with God. Is there a special way to pray? Do you have to have big, long words? Do you have to be in a certain place, or sit or kneel a certain way? Eyes open or closed?
Do you have to use a special code to talk to God? Mel tried walkie-talkies, cell phone, a big thick thesaurus, a code-cracker and secret spy writing... but the Awesome Kids had the answer:
You don't need any of these things to talk to God. You just need to say, "Hi God, it's me." God knows us, everything about us, and all that is going on in our life. All we need to do is to check in with God, tell Him how we're feeling, chat to Him just like you would your best friend or family member. God is always listening.
Check out the cool artwork in the Chapel Street Gallery - we experimented with different ways of communicating, using crayon resist and watercolour paint. We also tried some secret spy lemon juice writing, but Mel learnt the hard way not to hold the paper too close to the flame! Oops!
A few weeks back, we had the story of Jesus visiting with Mary and Martha. Our Awesome Kids learnt about hospitality, and especially enjoyed the M&Ms (Marys and Marthas).
This morning we celebrated Matariki, with music and art. Our wonderful ukulele group, AbsolUKE, led the congregation in the Matariki Macarena (complete with actions) and we created some Star Jars and Starry Night paintings.
Check out the video from MatCH. Thanks to Izak and George for the filming and production.
Here is the prayer, which was read so beautifully by Bella:
Loving God, You are an amazing God, and the stars remind us of how awesome you are. Thank you for loving us, for being our friend and never giving up on us. Thank you for the special people in our lives, who have guided us, shaped us and loved us. Those who have encouraged us along the way and helped us to become the people we are today. We thank you God for what they have given to us - wisdom, guidance and love. Help us to shine Your light and Your love into the world. Amen
Make sure you check out the marvelous Matariki art in the Chapel Gallery!
Instead of having FISH, our Family Fun Night on the weekend, we were invited to attend a book launch! Our families headed off to Bishopdale to help Belinda celebrate the launch of her picture book, They Day the Plants Fought Back!
There was a competition for the most creative vegetable person / character, a 'name the veggie character competition', colouring-in and some cool prizes.
Congratulations Belinda, and thank you to everyone who came along and made it such a fun night!
