Happy Christmas from the Youth!

Last Sunday, our young people led a Christmas Youth Service. The focus was on peace, but there was a fair amount of joy involved too!

Thank you to all who helped make this such a special start to Christmas.

 

Bubble fun!

 This morning, we heard a story in church about a king, who wasn't bothered about shiny crowns, fancy clothes or having servants. This king had holes in his jeans and his crown was dull and dented. He would rather do work himself, than make servants do it. He was kind and generous and shared what he had with others. This reminded us of Jesus, who always shared and wants us to show God's love to others by being kind and generous too.

We heard another story out in Awesome Time about a greedy king who wanted to keep all the bubbles in the kingdom for himself. This led to some bubble play and bubble art. We experimented with bubble solution, paint and straws to create some bubbly art, then went on to paint with brushes whatever we felt like. There were some fantastic paintings created, which will be photographed for our Awesome Art Project.

They have also been framed and are on display in the Chapel Street Gallery for you to enjoy!

Mountain Sunday collages

 Check out our awesome mountain collages we made for Mountain Sunday!

Walking Trees

Last Sunday was the second Sunday in our Seasons of Creation Celebrations. 

We read the beautiful book, Walking Trees by Mary-Louise Gay. We talked about looking after our planet and showing care and love for one another too.

We created some beautiful nature crowns, and looked a bit like a walking forest as we went back into church to share with everyone!

 

The Awesome Art Project

 Carol is leading our Awesome Art Project, which is very exciting! Our Awesome Kids are creating some artwork which will be scanned and printed onto greeting cards. These greeting cards will be available for sale as a fundraiser for our Parish. 

Check out these amazing artworks below and one of our artists, Maryross, in the process of adding her artist's signature to one of her pieces.

Seeds of Peace and Justice

We heard two parables Jesus told about seed planting. In one the farmer scatters the seed and God makes the seed grow. In the other, a tiny mustard seed is planted, and grows to become the tallest in the garden. 

A tiny seed can become a massive tree.

Seeds and people have a lot in common. Every flower, leaf, vegetable, plant - is different. Each looks different and has a different purpose. Each grows at different rates, times and has different needs. Just like us. 

We can plant seeds of compassion and kindness and seeds of peace and justice.  These seeds may be small acts, but with God they can become huge.

Prayer: God, you love each of us, no matter who we are or what we can do. Encourage us to share love with others this week and welcome those who don’t always feel included. Amen.

Women in the Bible

Carol and Maureen researched some of the women in the Bible - and more about the lesser known women - including a sister, a grandmother, and a mother. Here are the posters created in Awesome Time.

Beautiful Family

Today we celebrated Mother's Day, and all the special people - Mums, Dads, Grandparents, Step-parents, Aunts, Uncles and extended family, who love and care for us. 

We talked about what it means to be part of a family, and what it is to be part of the family of God.

We shared the beautiful pukapuka, Tōku Whānau Rerehua/My Beautiful Family. Written in te reo Māori (with the English translation appearing second on the pages) by Rauhina Cooper and beautifully illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White this pukapuka is a wonderful celebration of the diversity and vibrancy of families within our communities. 

We remembered how Jesus showed us that each one of us is loved and treasured by God. 

We created clay people representing the beautiful diversity of people in our families, and our church family / the family of God. 

 

Livvie's is a work in progress. We hope she will share the finished product with us soon!

Prayer:

God of life and love,

who created a world of diversity and vibrancy

Thank you for whānau - for all kinds of family

for the special people in our lives

who love us, care for us, protect us and keep us safe.

Thank you for our church family, for our leaders,

our role models, our guides and our friends.

Thank you for Jesus, who taught us You love 

each and every one of us, just the way we are.

Amen

Say Something!

 Enjoy watching the video created by our tech experts, Livvie and Liam a few weeks back. 'Say Something' was inspired by the book of the same name, by author/illustrator Peter H Reynolds.

https://youtu.be/gKDN-S2iMwk

There are a lot of things that might worry or scare us, but God wants to take those fears away and give us peace instead. 

We can trust that Jesus is near, even though we do not see or feel Him all the time. There are things that are scary and worrisome to us, but Jesus wants to take those burdens and replace them with His peace. He wants us to rely on Him. He can take away those fears and swap them for His peace. 

We don’t have to bear grudges and worries alone. We can have the comfort of His love surround us always. And we can share the love, forgiveness, and peace of Christ with others around us.

Dear God,
Thank you for the peace of Jesus
Help us to rely on that instead of fear
Help us to trust in you and share your love with those around us.
Help us to say something with words, with action, with creativity, to spread peace and love.
Give us the courage to use our voices to inspire, heal and change the world.
Amen!

Easter Sunday Service 10am

Join us for Easter Sunday!

10am 

at the Chapel Street Centre

 

Welcome back!

 

It was a hot day for the first day back at the Chapel Street Centre for 2024! Our Awesome Kids enjoyed some ice blocks to cool off.

We had our Blessing of the Backpacks and there were devotional book presentations to those who were starting secondary school.

We were so happy to see you all! Thank you for coming! You are AWESOME, God loves you and your church family loves you!

Blessing of the Backpacks

Join us on Sunday 4 Feb at 10am for our Blessing of the Backpacks.

Bring your schoolbag, kindy bag, uni bag ... and we'll have a special blessing with Rev Anne to mark the beginning of our school year.

We'll have some presentations for our youth who are beginning secondary school too.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Youth Christmas Service

 Join us on Sunday 10 December at 10am for our very special Christmas Service, led by the Chapel Street Youth. All welcome!

Blessing of the Animals this Sunday

 

Bring your pet along to church this Sunday!

Wilderness Sunday

What better way to celebrate Wilderness Sunday than to make some sand saucer art! Do any of our grownups out there remember doing this as a kid?

In the 'old days' we had sand saucer competitions at Industry Fairs and Parish Fêtes ... 

First ... we took an old saucer ... 'What's that?' I hear you ask! Ah ... long before disposable coffee cups and bubble tea, we drank hot tea from a teacup, which rested on a tea saucer. A little plate, smaller than a sandwich plate. 

Next ... we put a layer of sand on the saucer. (I was using some special 'magic sand' in the photo below).

Finally ... we arranged flowers, greenery and whatever else we fancied, to make a little garden scene. 

I remember making one many years ago for the Greymouth Industries Fair and I used a little piece of broken mirror for a lake. 

If you're interested in reading more about sand saucer competitions, there's a great short story on the Christchurch City Libraries website. You can read it here: https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/new-zealand-childrens-authors/phyllis-johnston/sand-saucer-competition/

These photos show the beginnings of a creation ... I forgot to take a photo at the end, so you'll have to use your imagination! (I got a little distracted playing with the magic sand!) Or, why not make your own sand saucer art at home and send me a picture for the blog!

Prayer:

God of the wild, the beautiful, the mysterious,
We thank you for the wilderness of Aotearoa,
for open spaces, beaches, mountains, forests, bushland,

for lakes and rivers.
Thank you for space to play and be.
Help us to step out of the noise and busyness of our lives,
away from electronic devices;
to be kind to our world, to be kind to each other,
and to be still, breathe and focus afresh on you.
Amen

Garden Update!

 Look how well the little gardens are doing!

Land Sunday

For Land Sunday in our Seasons of Creation, Carol and Maureen talked about how we are all connected to each other and the earth and we need to take care of the earth.

Our Awesome Kids played a board game and planted some little gardens. I hope they are better at watering plants than I am!

Lego and Geese

Do you like playing with Lego or building blocks? You can make all sorts of amazing creations. 

If I gave you one block, do you think you could build an awesome house with it?

No, of course you couldn't! You’d need more blocks. All sorts of blocks. Different sizes, shapes, colours. Blocks that have different functions. What a silly goose I am for thinking you could make something with just that one block.

And that brings me to geese - who aren't silly at all. Do you know that geese fly in a V formation? Scientists have discovered that as each goose flaps its wings, it provides lift to the goose following. It gives the geese 70% more flying range when they fly in a V formation. When the lead goose (who is working harder than the rest) gets tired, they fall back and another goose takes its place. What awesome teamwork! 

You might also have noticed that as the geese fly, they do a lot of honking. They do this to encourage each other. I know when I'm doing something difficult, I often need a lot of encouragement! 

Today, our Awesome Kids practiced 'teamwork' and used their individual gifts and talents to work together to create some cool Lego monsters and amazing backdrops. Check out the photos below, which were also taken by Beth and James.

As we were working, we made sure to do lots of "honking" (encouragement) to help one another along.

Afterwards, our resident Lego master builder, Catherine, shared these photographs of her epic Lego builds:

Awesome!

Let us pray,

Dear Lord, Help us to use the gifts you gave us, to help and encourage one another. Amen.

Awesome Time this Sunday!

 What do LEGO bricks and a flock of geese have to do with this week's message from the bible? 

Join us for Awesome Time this Sunday at 10am to find out! We'd love to see you, and I sure do need your help to do some building!

We look forward to seeing you!

Science with Carol & Maureen

 Who knew that when Carol and Maureen are on deck as Awesome Leaders, you not only get a bible lesson, but a science lesson too!

Jelly

 

On Sunday, Carol and Maureen shared the story of Jesus walking on water. Lukas and Isabella enjoyed the science experiments involving mandarins and jelly!

Worry Beads

Last Sunday our reading from the bible was from the book of Romans, chapter 8, verses 26 to 39. This is one of my favourite bible readings. I love the parts in verses 38 and 39 where it says:

nothing can ever separate us from God’s love
Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow,
or where we are - high above the sky
or in the deepest ocean -
nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God.

In different translations of the bible there are different lists of things suggested that can’t separate us from God’s love. All kinds of troubles and challenges are mentioned.

When I was looking up the children’s ministry websites for resources to help illustrate this bible reading, there were two books recommended. 

The first story was Florence Parry Heide’s Some Things Are Scary!

The book goes through a long list of things that some people find scary… like, stepping on something squishy when you’ve got bare feet or skating downhill when you haven’t learned how to stop.

There are lots of scary things in life, and they will be different for different people. But no matter what, there is nothing that can separate us from God’s awesome love.

The second book was written by Shel Silverstein and it’s called ‘Whatif’. It starts off, 

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?

And it goes on, so many ‘whatifs’ - so many worries. Do you ever worry about green hair growing on your chest? 

When I was younger, one of the biggest ‘What-iffers’ around, was my little sister. She had the longest list of ‘Whatifs’ you could imagine. So much so, that our Mum and Dad put a poster up on her bedroom wall that said, ‘Don’t tell me worrying doesn’t work - the things I worry about most never happen!’

It’s rather fitting that the story I chose to read to our Awesome Kids was written by my little sister. In it, the little girl has a long list of troubles, which she shares with her Great Uncle Arthur. But, as you’ll hear, Great Uncle Arthur has also had his share of fears and woes. 

You can find 'You Don't Know How Lucky You Are', written by Belinda O'Keefe and illustrated by Ross Kinnaird in the library. Or, you can watch and listen to me reading the book during the service by going to our church facebook page.

As it says in The Message version of our bible reading today “absolutely No Way! can anything separate us from the love of God; anything thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love.”

Out in Awesome Time, we traversed through a 'mine field', played giant snakes and ladders - and then made some worry beads, to remind us that wherever we go, whatever we do, God is always with us, loving us always.

Let us pray.
Loving God,
Thank you for your never-ending love. Help us to remember that through the scrapes and scares and in our pain and fears - you are with us, loving us always.
No matter what our worries or our whatifs are, You are always with us.
Amen.

Refugee Sunday

 

Bring a blanket and a soft toy on Sunday. We will hear the beautiful story, My Two Blankets and create a quilt together ... and maybe even build some blanket huts!