We have two offerings for you here:

Download your Churchyard Butterfly HERE. 

First up are butterflies for decorating your churchyard and giving those vital signs of life to your local community that this is a place of life and joy.. 

This simple butterfly can be printed back to back. Then challenge the children – or indeed any age – in your congregation, or the school connected to your Church to decorate their butterfly with beautiful patterns and colours.

Gather all the butterflies, cut them out and laminate them, then hang them from the trees in your church yard or from your railings and invite families to come and find their Butterflies. You could even tie it in with the Small but Mighty trail which is free to download on the Sunhats and Wellieboots page HERE.

You could either have this as a come any day activity to encourage people to explore the church grounds, or you could make it a Spring day event and have the church open to welcome families to stay and chat over tea and snacks, have congregation members available to link in with new faces.

Download your Paper Plate Butterfly HERE

The second butterfly is a more delicious sort altogether! This printable can be coloured in and stuck to a paper plate where your group can place their edible butterflies. Little hands can develop their fine motor skills by cutting out the circle.

To make the butterflies we used chocolate fingers, chocolate covered pretzels and mini smarties – all held in place with melted chocolate which hardens when dry. You can of course let you culinary imaginations run wild and use a multitude of foods to make your butterflies, even vegetables (much to my daughter’s disgust!!) It’s fun way to get a wonderful Bible verse back into the homes of your Children.

Download by clicking HERE

This is a super easy and simple activity for children young and old to give as a gift to those who help them to grow be it physically or spiritually or both!
They can be used for Mothers day or as gifts for any day. All you need are some clean jam jars with labels removed – or any jar / pot you choose.
Print the labels and Bible verses. Children can write their names on the labels and draw pictures if they choose. Glue the label to the front of the pot.
Cut out the bible verses, children can then roll or fold them and place into the jar.

You might choose to add small amounts of table confetti into the pot – such as little hearts or if your pots are large you could put some wrapped sweets for the recipient at
the bottom and the verses on top. Children can decorate the pots / jars with stickers etc. You might also choose to tie some ribbon around the pot for an extra special touch.

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)