Amazing Race Camp was Amazing!

We had a fantastic weekend at our Parish Camp, held over the weekend at the Waipara Boys' Brigade Campsite. Young and old* joined together in an 'Amazing Race' themed weekend, with hilarious team challenges, fantastic food, chillin' out time and lots of laughter.

*Our youngest was 3 years old and our oldest attendee was in her nineties! 

Here are a few photos... a link to more will be posted soon. 

Sharing God's Smile

Last Sunday we chatted about our first week back at school and kindy, and shared 'the best and worst' part of our week.

For some, the worst thing was getting homework, not being able to sleep-in, and for some it was hard having a friend or sibling move to another school.

The highlights of the week included playing with friends, getting to know new teachers and learning new games.

We talked about 'terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days' and how to cope with them. We talked about cheering others up when they are having a bad day, and about sharing God's smile. 

Our Awesome Kids made up some decorated boxes which they filled with tasty treats. 

We shared our treats with the congregation, and brought smiles to many faces! 

Musikool Kids' is back on Friday 13 February

If you're coming back for another fun-filled year of Musikool Kids please take a moment to fill in the enrolment form by clicking on the link below. Thanks!

Click here to enrol or re-enrol at Musikool Kids

Back to School

Blessing of the Backpacks 2015

Last Sunday we had our Blessing of the Backpacks.

Upstairs, we made bag tags for our school-bags, and talked about starting the new school year. Most of us will have new classrooms, new classmates, a new teacher, and some are starting new schools or beginning school for the first time this year. Exciting!

“As these students carry these backpacks, may they be reminded of the love and care of this congregation that surrounds them each school day.”

Blessing of the Backpacks

Blessing of the Backpacks 2014

This Sunday - Bring your schoolbag to church!

Wow, the holidays sure have flown by and it's nearly back-to-school time.

Some of you will be starting school for the first time, moving to a new school, new classroom, or have a new teacher and new classmates. Some of you will feel excited, happy, some may feel a little nervous. One thing you can count on is... God will be with you every day at school!

Students, preschool through adult, bring your backpacks, book bag or lunch boxes to church this Sunday, for our special Blessing of the Backpacks. The service will lift up children and students of all ages, with a special blessing as we begin a new school year. 

All welcome!

The Amazing gRace - Parish Family Camp 2015

View Camp Info, Programme & Costs here

To register, click here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gebjYQCtds

Family Camp 20-22 Feb

As you are filling in your diaries and calendars for 2015, make sure you mark in the weekend of 20-22 February for our Parish Family Camp. Open to all families from Musikool Kids and the parish - this is a fun-filled, relaxing weekend away.

More details will follow soon, with costs and programme. Any questions, please get in touch with Melanie, the church office, or type your question into the Comments box on this post.

Sing for Joy this Christmas Eve

Wednesday 24 December

5pm

Sing for Joy

Join us at the Falkingham Centre, Wesley Care, 91 Harewood Road 

on Christmas Eve for a special family, kids-friendly service. 

We will share the Christmas story and sing some favourite Christmas carols.

All welcome!

Santa visits Musikool Kids

Watch the video of our special Christmas visitor at Musikool Kids here.

Awesome Kids' Christmas

This morning our Awesome Kids, together with friends from Musikool Kids presented The Christmas Story. We premiered our 2014 movie, which you can view on YouTube here.

The children and youth from the parish took the service, complete with nativity play, amazing singing and beautiful prayers and readings.

There was a surprise performance by band Note Talent (a group of "old youth" who used to play musical instruments back in the day!)

Jamie, Dylan, Erin, Emma and Michaela sang 'This Little Light of Mine' - beautifully. We had a puppet performance by a gorgeous donkey and a shepherd, voiced over by Jamie and Izak. Our actors were fantastic, and coped with challenges such as untimely toilet stops by lead characters and a tooth falling out! 

Well done kids - each and every one of you is a star!

A Musikool Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas party at Musikool Kids on 5th December. A highlight was the beautiful singing and signing to Silent Night.

We were also treated to a special visit from Father Christmas! Rudolph being out of action with a sore hoof, Father Christmas arrived in rather spectacular fashion. Check out the photos below!

Kids' Christmas Service this Sunday

Join us this Sunday, 14th December at 10.00am 

at St Joseph's Catholic Church (Vagues Rd, Papanui) 

for our Kids' Christmas Service & Nativity Play. 

ALL WELCOME!!

Some of the cast during our 2014 Nativity Movie Shoot

Christmas Party

Join us for our Musikool Kids' Christmas party, Friday 5th December 10am. Lots of Christmas songs, carols, and hopefully a visit from Santa!

Watching and waiting...

Christmas decorations with salt dough

This morning our Awesome Kids finished the salt dough Christmas decorations... there was paint, spray paint and glitter galore - and the finished products looked amazing!

We also had fun practicing our lines for the kids' Christmas service and nativity play, which will be held on the 14th December.

While we wait for Christmas, we are watching and waiting for God's light. Every time we see or hear about someone helping helping someone or showing kindness - an act of love... we see God's light shining through - a 'Godsighting'.

God is all around us, in us, and working in our world today. Where can you watch for God this week?

Silent Night

We are learning how to sing and sign Silent Night.  You can watch the NZ Sign Language for Silent and Night being demonstrated here.

Silent

Night

Getting ready for Christmas

 This morning our Awesome Kids made salt dough ornaments to decorate our Christmas trees with.

Melanie took them home to bake and will bring them to church next week to be painted. 

Sue kindly pre-cooked a batch of decorations so we each had one to spray-paint gold or silver to take home today.

Here are Harry, William, Andrew and Spencer having a blast with the spray cans!

Parable of the Talents

On Sunday morning we heard the parable of the talents. In Jesus's day, a talent was a gold coin. We were each given some gold coins (chocolate!) and card, and used them to make cards to share with others.

We talked about using what we have to do God's work. We talked about the things we are good at, and gifts we have, and what things we can do to share God's love with others.

Izak used his talent for construction and turned his cardboard into a cool car, using the chocolate coins for wheels!

Ready to shine!

On 9th November, we heard the parable (story) of the bridesmaids and the lamps. We learnt that God wants us to always be ready to shine our lights - to share God's love with other people.

Check out the cool lanterns we made, with working (battery operated!) lights inside! Thanks Dave and Heather for a truly AWESOME TIME!

Filming begins!

A reminder that the first film shoot for our Christmas movie is on tomorrow - Sunday 9 November at 2pm. Contact Melanie for details.

Angelic scene from last year's movie

Twighlight Garage Sale Tonight!

Come along to our parish garage sale, in the car-park of the Chapel Street church from 5pm tonight. Lots of children's toys, books (new and second hand) and goodies. Sausages and scrummy bacon and egg pies would make an easy tea - be there early before they all go!

Kyla's baptism

This morning we celebrated the baptism of Kyla.

Kyla's family and friends were there, and all the Awesome Kids to welcome her into our church family.

Emma and Monica read the bible readings and Jamie said a prayer.

Welcome Kyla!

We heard the story of poor little Tom, who received an invitation to the palace for Princess Kyla's birthday. He begged, borrowed and traded for ingredients to make a birthday cake to give her... a two layered vanilla cake, with ten candles and the reddest, ripest, plumpest, juciest strawberry in the land.

On the way to the palace, he faced a terrible troll, a dark forest, a scary bear and a hungry guard... and by the time he arrived at the party the cake has been destroyed piece by piece. He had nothing to give the princess... but offered her the wonderful story of his adventures with the cake. 

The princess thought it was the best present ever. It was her favourite gift and the beginning of her friendship with Tom.

Tom could have given up, turned around and gone back home when things got tough - but he chose to be strong and continue to the party. 

Jesus wants us to be strong, to remember that it doesn't matter how young or old we are, how poor we are, how small we are, or that things don't always turn out as we'd planned... what matters is that we always try to do our best, to live in God's way serving and loving others... not trying to impress others, but showing God's love by our actions.

We made hangings from recycled CDs with mini mirrors, to remind us to reflect the way of Jesus in the world through our actions... and allow God's light to shine through us.

Neti's answers

A few weeks ago, our Awesome Kids enjoyed a White Sunday Party with Rev Neti and Moe. The kids asked Neti a whole heap of fantastic questions, about his childhood, sport, talking to God, favourite colours... and there were a few tricky ones Neti had to think hard about!

Here is Neti's answer to Keegan's question, "How many books in the bible?"

"The bible is divided into two sections, or parts. They are called...

  1. The Old Testament (which has 39 books)

  2. The New Testament (which has 27 books)

This makes a total of 66 books altogether."

Thanks Keegan and Neti for a great question and answer! If any other Awesome Kids have a question for Neti, please let us know!

Isabella's prayer

This morning Isabella led our congregation in a special prayer she wrote herself. Awesome, Isabella!

You can watch it by clicking here.

Crafty kids making thank you cards

Welcome back to Music!

Cups and saucers out; cushions on the floor; name tags sorted; stamps chosen; bubble mix poured; scarves, rainbow ring, claves and parachute ready; Horace the Teddy-bear hiding... all ready and waiting the arrival of our Musikool Kids families on our first day of term four.

We are very lucky to have such a great bunch of volunteers who help make Musikool Kids possible. Thanks guys!

Plenty of bubble fun this morning!

Musikool Kids starts back tomorrow

Musikool Kids resumes Friday 17 October. We look forward to seeing you all for a fun-filled, festive term 4 of musical play.

The Great Feast!

Today was White Sunday, where in Samoan churches the children dress in white, take the entire service and are celebrated. Whilst we didn't take the whole service, Ella and Keegan helped Moe light the candle, Catherine led us in prayer, and the rest of the Awesome Kids helped with a drama.

We acted out the parable of The Great Feast. Spencer played the part of the king, who planned a banquet and invited all his friends. On the day of the party however, the friends were too busy or couldn't be bothered to turn up. The king sent out a servant to find out why they didn't come. They all gave very lame excuses and the king was very sad and cross. He then sent his servants out into the streets to invite everyone they could find to come and share in the banquet. 

Jesus said God has given each one of us a special invitation: to accept God's love into our lives. God is pretty awesome and loves each one of us so much and wants the best for us. What we do really matters to God. So the story Jesus told is to help us understand and remember this special invitation, to try and live in God's ways, showing love to other people.

To help us remember this parable (story) and help celebrate White Sunday, we held our own great banquet. We had invited some very special guests, Rev Neti and Moe. Fortunately they didn't make any excuses, they were very happy to turn up!

The Awesome Kids enjoyed having Neti and Moe to themselves for a while, and we had great fun eating, talking and laughing together. The children posed some thought-provoking questions to Neti, such as: "How do you talk to God?", "How many books in the bible?", "What sports do you like?" and "What is your favourite colour?"