Are you struggling to re-recruit volunteers since the pandemic? Do you find that people only help for a few weeks then give various excuses not to return? Is it always the same few people who step up to serve?

Our Volunteer Recruitment and Retention workshop will encourage you to take a look at your current practice, discuss ideas with other churches and consider new ways to approach and support your volunteers. At the end of the session each participant will also receive a copy of our Volunteer Handbook.

If you would like to host a volunteer workshop in your diocese – or even just for your own ministry team – please complete the form below and we will contact you to discuss the details.

To enquire about booking this workshop please complete the form below.

If you are looking for an exciting trail to use over Christmas around the grounds of your church or at a local park then this has everything you need. This trail is suitable for families to spend time together, or for Children’s clubs. The trail is editable so you can input your contact details and personalise as needed.

Woodland Trail Map

Woodland Trail Reverse

Christmas and advent newsletter 2021

This is a lovely active prayer which helps to bring focus, peace and calm.

You will need:

• A strong cardboard cut out of a sheep (size depending on what you are using them for afterwards)
• Wool or Yarn (put a call out for leftover wool in your church family to reduce costs here.

How to Pray:

The facilitator will read out simple wondering prayers.  Invite people to sit quietly and comfortably, breathing slowly and thinking about what they are hearing.

When the facilitator says ‘Jesus, you wrap me in your love’, invite people to wrap the wool around their sheep several times.

Prayer:

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

The Bible tells me you surround me,

You indwell me,

You go before me,

You walk beside me.

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

I wonder what the Shepherds were thinking before the angels appeared.  Maybe they felt lonely, isolated and far away from their family and friends.  Maybe they were enjoying the quiet night and they liked tending to their work.  Maybe they were worrying about something.

The promise of Hope, the arrival of Hope, can interrupt our thoughts.  What thoughts do you have that need to be interrupted by the Hope of Jesus?

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

Before the angels appeared, it was dark.  It would have been very dark on those hills.  The light of Christ comes to us in a whisper, a tiny flicker of a light or it comes in a ROAR, a host of angels filling the sky with light and song.  However it comes, it disrupts the darkness and brings comfort.  How can the light of Christ bring comfort to you now?

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

At first, the message of the Good News brought fear – to Mary, to Joseph, to the Shepherds.  But then the fear was replaced by strength and joy as they were invited into God’s plan.

The Shepherds were on the margins and suddenly they were hurrying into the centre of God’s story – hurrying to meet Jesus.

Is fear ruling your decisions and actions?  How can you let go of fear and take hold of the strength and joy that comes with being guided by the Good News?

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

I invite you now to wrap until your wool or yarn is used up.  Notice if the wrapping gets difficult and the wool slips off.  Maybe your thoughts are pulled to fixing it.  Maybe you feel frustrated to be interrupted from your flow.  That’s ok!

Invite God into the interruptions.

Invite God into the frustrations.

Invite God into the blips and bumps of your everyday.

Jesus, you wrap me in your love.

Here you have access to a lovely sheep trail for inside a Church Building as well as the pattern for knitting some sheep!

This was created for Rathfarnham Church but you can use the idea and adapt it to your Church either for Christmas or Easter or any time you feel it would fit.

The Church had knitted / stuffed toy sheep placed around the building for families to find and then learn more about what happens in that part of the church. A fun way to help families to understand more about the church and what is going on.

If you would like help creating a version for your church please email cfm@ireland.anglican.org

Sheep Trail Booklet

Small Sheep Pattern

Advent Series – Service Outlines

Advent 2021 Supplementary Resources

A Crib Service is a chance to tell the story of the Nativity in a different way.  Unlike a Nativity play with characters who are dressed up, it usually focusses on a more traditional Nativity Scene.

The material in this resource pack is intended to give you the tools to construct and host a Crib Service.  There is sufficient material to allow you to lift a service directly out of the resource pack, but there is flexibility in every aspect of the service – from the liturgical material you deploy, to the bible readings you choose, characters upon whom you focus, hymns and songs you select and prayers you use.

Down and Dromore Crib Service Resource Pack: Crib Service Resource Pack

Flame Creative Ministries Crib Service: Crib service Flame Creative Ministries

This all age service helps guide you through the Christmas story in simple ways keeping it interactive and engaging.

With thanks to Down and Dromore and their Children’s Ministry Resource, Jigsaw, here is the outline for the Sweet Christmas Story

All age-family Talk A Sweet Christmas Story

This creative prayer enable focus and calm to encourage prayer, it is also something which families can take away and use in their own time and space.

You will need: pieces of twine or wool to offer to each person/family.

Take a piece of string or cord, and tie five knots in it to represent each of the five people or issues you have committed to pray for. You could carry the knotted string in your pocket, tie it round your wrist or place it somewhere that you’ll see it regularly. Use the knots to remind you to pray for each person or issue, that they would know God’s Hope even in impossible situations.

Adapted from Thy Kingdom Come Prayer Resources.

This reflective family service can be used in a multitude of times – Advent, Easter, Back to Church – any time when you need to focus on Hope.

Jesus said He is the Light of the World. We as His followers are called to be light and hope to others in dark times. When people are waiting in darkness – maybe they are waiting for test results from hospital or are worried because they have lost their job or are fleeing war or are lonely – Jesus calls us.

Just as He is the Light of the world, bringing hope and joy and welcome, we also bring that Light to others at this time.

Talk: God of the Impossible Hope

Supplies – index cards, dark marker, tape
The following tasks are considered (near) impossible for humans to complete.

Try out these ‘simple’ tests to see if anyone can succeed.

– Twitch your nose (without moving the rest of your face)
– Lick your elbow
– Rotate your right leg in a clockwise motion, while drawing a ‘6’ in the air with you right hand
– Wiggle your ears
– Place your palm on a flat surface with your middle finger curled underneath, then raise (only) your ring finger.

*This section is taken from Flame Creative Ministries: www.flamecreativekids.blogspot.com *

Nothing is impossible to God paper cutting illustration

Offer some members of the congregation a sheet of A5 sized paper and some scissors. (or invite people at home to try it themselves.)

Ask them to cut a hole in the paper that they will be able to fit their whole body through.

Some people will immediately decide that this is not possible, while some may have an attempt!

Now take a piece of the A5 paper and follow these instructions…

1. Fold the paper in half lengthways
2 Cut alternating ‘up’ and ‘down’ slits in the paper as shown
3.Cut through the fold of the paper, leaving the fold of the end slit pieces in tact
4. Open the paper out into a big circle that you can pass your whole body through!
You may need to try this a few times before you actually do it for real so that you know roughly how many slits you
need to make for your body to get through.

Talk about the fact that sometimes we are faced with problems that we don’t know how to solve – things that seem impossible to us. Ask if anyone has ever felt like that in their lives. Perhaps give an example of a time when you’ve faced hopelessness and how trusting in God has helped you.

In today’s readings when God’s promises are fulfilled, the impossible happens.  The lion lies down with the lamb.  Peace comes in places where only heartache and brokenness and dis-chord seem possible.  But we can have a firm hope in a God who makes things possible.  It may not look the exact same as what we hoped for because God’s ways are not our ways but God brings peace, even in the middle of crisis!

Mary feels hope bubble up inside her as she proclaims that the hungry will be filled with good things because of Jesus.  As his hands and his feet we can bring that hope and that promise to many people who are hungry – hungry for food, for friendship, and for belonging, this Christmas.

(This reflection is adapted from our 2015 Advent newsletter)