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

Photos and video from last week

Lots of musical fun and friendship at Musikool Kids last week. Looks like Grandad Wayne has accumulated some extra 'grandchildren' along the way!

Musikool Kids fun and friendship

Fun and friendship at Musikool Kids

Some photos taken over the past couple of weeks at Musikool Kids. Enjoy!

Robotics Champs!

Congratulations to Izak and Alex, who won 2nd place at ROBOCUP, the Canterbury Robotics Competition, last weekend. Awesome! (Best wishes for the Nationals in September, boys!)

Band rocks worship!

A video of our band leading worship on Sunday. The sound quality isn't that great - for some reason the microphone on the camera doesn't pick up the bass notes... so, you'll just have to make sure you're there in person next time to fully appreciate it!

We have plenty of room in our band for more instrumentalists and singers - so let me know if you're keen to join! (No audition necessary!)

Best day ever!

What an exciting morning!

Our band led our worship, with two great songs - thanks to our amazing vocalists, guitarists and percussionists!

Our drama team performed a skit which showed how easy it is to make the wrong decisions if we don't let Jesus sit in the 'driver's seat'. We talked about how Jesus wants us to be kind and live in love. Before we act we need to ask ourselves, 'What would Jesus do?'

Upstairs during Awesome Time we were busily working on origami and sticky paper craft when... it started to snow! For some, it was the first time ever seeing snow falling! BEST DAY EVER!

It's snowing!!!

The band

Philomena sang a beautiful solo

One body with many parts

Sharing prayers and our creativity in worship

Rev Neti sharing communion with our Awesome Kids

Many hands...

Look at our quilt taking shape...
What we can achieve when we all work together!

Making hearts and crosses with our hands

Ella leads the congregation in prayer.
Carol talks GIRAFFES with the Awesome Kids!