Christmas Eve Carol Service 5pm

Hope to see you on Christmas Eve!

5pm All-age Family Service

or 11.30pm Candle-light Service

ALL WELCOME!

Welcome to the Chapel Street Centre!

Here are some gorgeous photos from Sundays' Children's Christmas service.

Click here to view photos

An angelic welcome to the Chapel Street Centre!

A Bizarre Christmas Story

Hi kids! What an incredibly talented bunch of young people you are! Thank you so much for all your hard work in making this morning’s service so special.

You looked amazing, you spoke beautifully, acted with flair and confidence, and sang and played musical instruments with such skill – everyone was AMAZED! You all should be so very proud of your performances this morning, you brought the joy and love of Christmas to so many people.

Sit back now and relax, and enjoy our Christmas video which has now been uploaded to YouTube:

https://youtu.be/-KDmHguevDU

A special invitation...

Rehearsal Friday!

Hi kids!

Our rehearsal is going ahead tomorrow (Friday) at 3pm in the Chapel Street Centre- HOW EXCITING!!!

Look forward to seeing you all there!


A reminder that our Kids' Christmas Service & Nativity Play starts at 10am this Sunday 20 December in the Chapel Street Centre, cnr Harewood Road and Chapel Street, Papanui.

Farewell Hector

Last Sunday we said farewell to Hector, as it was time for him to return home to his family in Panama. Hector, we will miss you so much!

We had a fun photo session with Hector after church.

Click here for photos.

Musikool Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas party on Friday, with lots of festive outfits, treats and even Christmas cake. We had a surprise visit from Father Christmas, in his Rudolph car and he brought a balloon for everyone (even those grown-ups on his 'naughty list'!)

Check out the photos by clicking HERE.

Musikool Kids' Christmas Party

Join us tomorrow Friday 4 December for our Christmas Party and last Musikool Kids session for 2015. Wear something festive!

Also, mark in your diaries Sunday 20 December 10am and join us at our kids' Christmas service & nativity play, including the premiere of our 2015 Christmas music video (starring some of our own very talented Musikool Kids' members!)

Movie shoot this afternoon!

Hi everyone!

We are hoping that this little bit of drizzle will disappear shortly – so at this stage the movie shoot is still on. We will make a definite call around 11am. If in doubt please check the blog for postponement message.

See you soon (hopefully)!

Melanie

Waiting

Last week our Awesome Kids talked about waiting and patience. Who is looking forward to Christmas? I am, and I am really excited about our Awesome Kids’ Christmas Service and Nativity Plan in our new building- and we have all had to have a lot of patience in our waiting for this special occasion and for this place to be ready! 

We made some special advent calendars, to help with the countdown and preparations for Christmas.

Giving

Do you think it’s easier to give if you have lots of lots of money, or if you only have a little? What other ways can you give? How about giving your time... your friendship... hard work... your talents and skills?

Our Awesome Kids talked about putting LOVE into action... the heroes and heroines of the bible stories do not just feel love, they DO love. 

We transformed some dish-scrubbers into puppets, which we will be able to use to help others- giving of our time and hard work.

 Our musicians gave of their time and talents, leading worship with 'The Circle Song'. 

Welcome back Zip!

Thanks to Mark for sending in this photo of Naomi, Zip and Melanie, taken at music last Friday.

The year sure has flown by... in fact, we only have FOUR more Musikool Kids' sessions this year!

Friday 6 November,
Friday 20 November,
Friday 27 November and
Friday 4 December (our Christmas party!)

We hope you will also join us on Sunday 20 December at 10am, for our kids' Christmas service & nativity play, in our new building- the Chapel Street Centre. If any Musikool Kids' children (or older siblings) are interested in taking part and dressing up as angels or shepherds, please let Melanie or Merilyn know as soon as possible.

Go well!

Best wishes to all our Awesome Kids representing their schools at zones athletics over the next couple of weeks!

We know you will all be great sports; remember to cheer on your mates, be gracious in defeat and humble in victory. And thank the officials and your teachers too... they all work hard to make this all happen!

Go well, have fun and enjoy the day! You have done so well to get this far and we are proud of you!

All Saints Day

 On Sunday, Rev Fred Baker celebrated 60 years of being a minister. The Awesome Kids decorated a cake which they presented to him during the service. It was DELICIOUS! Thanks Sue for baking it!

It was also All Saints Day, and we talked about what it means to be a saint- a special friend of God. We can all be saints, by living in God's way, sharing God's love with others.

Monica and Berith - creative photography!

Serving others...

Our Awesome Kids learnt about putting others first... and had a lot of fun in the process! Richard and Bob were very impressed with the wonderful job the Awesome Kids made of their cars.

Richard's camel came to church

 Last Sunday, Richard brought his camel along to church. We heard the story Jesus told about a camel and the 'eye of a needle' and talked about whether or not a camel could fit through the needle's eye.

We talked about the importance of sharing what we have, and doing what we can to help others and share God's love.

Upstairs, Richard and Jillian had lots of challenging puzzles for our Awesome Kids. No camels were harmed during the morning!

The Band

The Band had a fabulous jam session last night, fueled by lots of scrummy pizza we made beautiful worship music together. As you can see we had a lot of fun too!

God loves dinosaurs too

Last Sunday, Awesome Time was led by our very own friendly dinosaur...

In this week’s story from the bible, Jesus told his disciples that he loves all kids – and he told the adults to step back so that all the kids could come to see him.  What’s more – he told the adults that they have to be more like children, and just accept the love that he’s offering to all of us!  WOW kids – looks like you’ve got a really important role to play in God’s world!

So, Philomena and Sue put together some little gift bags:  they had enough for EVERYONE in the church – all we had to do was put our trust in the lady in the dinosaur suit and go and get it!

Sunday was also World Communion Sunday.  People from all over the world shared in Communion together, and remembered that Gods loves ALL of us! (Even dinosaurs.)

Would you trust this person?

Rev Neti joined the Awesome Kids upstairs

Rev Neti also joined the Awesome Kids upstairs. He took a special communion for the Awesome Kids... with crisps for the bread, juice boxes for the wine, and chocolate (for dessert!)

Plant and Bake Sale a success!

The Fletchers arrived in style

The plants sold like hot-cakes... and
the cakes sold like... well... cakes!

What a beautiful Spring morning for our Plant and Bake Sale today!

Thanks to all the hard workers who baked the cakes, grew the plants and manned the stalls... and to all the happy customers for supporting another church re-build fundraiser!

Another famous Petaia family BBQ (with adopted children, as usual!)

Mountain Sunday

A reminder that Musikool Kids has finished for the term, and we start back on 16 October.

This Sunday we are celebrating Mountain Sunday during Awesome Time. Come along for fun, friendship and mountain-themed activities!

Teddy's owner found!

The owner of the left-behind bear has been located. Phew!

Missing!

Is this your teddy?

Look who I found after everyone had left Musikool Kids on Friday!

A much-loved, one legged, gorgeous teddy bear.

Is he yours? 

He is having a lovely holiday at my place, and has made friends with our teddy bears, but he is wondering if his owner is missing him.

Would his family please get in contact with me and we'll arrange to reunite you! :o)

The Band

The Band led our singing... a new song, The Circle Song and a good oldie, Jesus Loves Me.

We were very pleased to have Mikaela and Hamish join our vocalists this morning, and it was a big day for Rosalie who gave her very first public performance on the ukulele - after learning it for only ONE WEEK! Go Rosalie!!!

If you would like to join our band, singing or playing an instrument, please let me know. All welcome! We will get together for a bit of a jam sometime in the holidays.

Sky Sunday and Sky Sundaes!

Sky Sundaes!
Yes... thanks to Hector's brilliant brainwave, we celebrated Sky Sunday by making (and eating!) Sky-themed ice-cream sundaes, complete with popcorn and candyfloss clouds and sky-blue jelly.

We also recycled some old jars and gave them a face-lift by dipping them in a marbled nail polish mix. They will look amazing on the windowsill with the sunlight coming through them, or a tealight candle... or as pen-pots.

ice-cream sky sundaes

Teddy Bears Galore!

At Musikool Kids on Friday we ended our term with a teddy bear day. Everyone brought their favourite teddy bear or soft toy, and we sang lots of songs about bears. How many of these do you recognise?

Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear
When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
We're going on a bear hunt
Teddy Bear's cha-cha-cha (Julie Wylie)
I've got a Teddy Bear (Julie Wylie)
Teddy Bears' Tango (Julie Wylie)
Rockabye your bear
My little teddy bear (Julie Wylie)

Spring Flower Sunday

Spring Flower Sunday saw our Awesome Kids create some unique paper flowers - using coloured paper and sheets of music. I particularly liked the flowers that combined old yellowed antique-looking music with newer music printed on fresh white paper. To me, this symbolised our worship music at Christchurch North - blending good old favourites with new modern music.

Nancy brought in her singing flower to brighten everyone's day :o)

Isabella led our congregation in prayer

The band led the singing.

The boys... and the girls