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The Church of Ireland Board for Ministry with Children and Families is delighted to introduce our new Worship and Wonder bags, now available from the Church of Ireland online shop for €3/£2.50 each. You can click to buy them HERE.

Along with our recently launched Child-friendly and Accessible version of the Book of Common Prayer, these bags help children to feel welcomed and valued in our churches.

These are not “distraction tools” nor are they bags to make the children “keep quiet”. They are created to help children engage with worship in age-appropriate ways.

Children are spiritual just as much as adults, but as with all aspects of life they express and explore their faith in ways that are different to adults, so it is important that as a family church encourage and enable them to do so.

Even if you don’t have children regularly attending your church these bags are a key way of helping families to feel welcomed when they do come. We would encourage you to have these bags easily available in the pews, or if you have a welcome team who can give them to the children as they come into the Church even better!

We also have activity sheets that you can download and print from our website, and you might like to think about other items you could add, potentially changing what it is in them during the different seasons.

To download the accompanying activity sheets click HERE 

The bags and books themselves are left in the church and only the activity sheets are taken away by the family.

Some ideas for additional items:

• A wooden holding/prayer cross
• Ribbons
• Finger puppets
• Small sensory toys

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Click image to download the zip file containing Morning Prayer 2 and additional Icons

Click the image to download the online PDF.

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For many families, Lent has become another thing they have to squeeze into an already overflowing “to-do” list. There are so many resources, activities and ways we are recommended to fill the 40 days after we’ve flipped the pancakes that it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming!

Don’t get me wrong – many of those things are wonderful, and indeed we have many active Lent resources on this website too. But for families like mine, where even getting to eat a meal together can be a scheduling challenge, we need to strip things back to basics. That is why, for this year, we have put together Re:Lent, a way to recapture the simplicity of Lent.

Re:lent is a simple pack which can be given to families and helps them to focus on the three core elements of Lent:

Re:Lent: Giving up something we like to help us focus on God.

Si:Lent: Making time to listen to God and lay before Him our worries.

Ta:Lent: Using what we have for God’s glory not our own.

There’s one sheet to use. It begins with ideas to help each person in the house choose one thing to give up, which should flow into freeing up time to be silent, listen and pray, which in turn could flow into inspiration for ways in which they might give to others.

There is no pressure to perform, create or show what has been done, it is just between that person and God. Simples!

Click image to download pdf.

St Brigid’s Feast day is February 1st. One of the ways in which you can celebrate this day is by creating what have become known as a Brigid’s Cross.

Our pack above includes pre-measured strips of paper decorated with the Church of Ireland cross and a symbol of the Trinity and a heart intertwined, step by step instructions, as well as some information about the life of St Brigid. For additional help you can also watch an instructional video created by Rev. Abigail Sines where she makes crosses with all three mediums. https://vimeo.com/504840692?share=copy  

St Brigid’s cross is a distinctive variant of the Christian cross made with straw or rushes, (you can also use Pipe Cleaners or, as with our cross, with paper). While traditions associated with the cross have varied through time, there is still significant interest from school children especially in creating their own St Brigid’s crosses on either 31st January or 1st February. St Brigid is said to have woven this cross to assist a pagan chieftain’s deathbed conversion to Christianity. (adapted from St Brigid’s Cathedral website)

You can read more information about Brigid here: https://stbrigidscathedral.com/life-of-st-brigid/   and here: https://www.churchofireland.org/news/12236/st-brigid-a-powerful-focus

A service of the word was also created for St Brigid’s day and can be found here: Celtic-Commemorations-2017—St-Brigid

Click any image above to download your pack pdf

Step back into the wonderful days when we all played card games and relive the fun of Top Trumps with our very own version “Hope Tumps”

Featuring all the characters from the story of the first Christmas – including some you might not expect! You can download our game FREE and print it onto card (back to back printing will ensure they look best), cutting each card out to form a pack. Then give the packs away to your families to play at home over the Christmas holidays. 

This game is a great age leveller and so a wonderful way to encourage intergenerational connections in your church over advent. You could give out packs to your congregation and have a “Trump-Off” competition at the end of a service. ..be careful how you explain that title though, you could end up with a very different take on how to win!