Children’s Resources for this Sunday: Here are some ideas for a family worship time together from Helen Buick our Children’s leader:

There is a Youtube film of Helen  https://youtu.be/PKqXhFKr0pk  with an invitation to join in worship together on the YouTube channel. You can follow the written instructions from this post or watch Helen talking you through it as a family. Then on Sunday morning there will be virtual Sunday groups for Creche, Sparklers, Connected & Connected+. All our families have been sent an invitation & a link to join in with their group time slot. If you haven’t seen the email and would like to join in, please email children@christchurchdownend.com

We are going to share the Noah’s ark story and how God promised to protect the world and everyone in it. And afterwards we will be able to colour a rainbow or draw your own rainbow and then put it up in a window in the front of your house so people in your street can see it and be reminded of it.  

Worship Time 

I love praising God and dancing and being really noisy and wriggly. So if you have a flag to wave or a little tea towel or silky scarf, will you sing along with this Youtube worship song ?  It’s one we have sung at Church and it starts off with Noah built the most enormous boat…..

There are 2 versions of the song I like on Youtube. One has all the actions to follow  https://youtu.be/4Ixs2l2hzv4 The other one has cartoons to watch while you sing it and lyrics to follow: https://youtu.be/qGbSK5zRTtA  I suggest you watch the action one first and then the cartoon one !

Click on this link to the lyrics to help you sing along from Elevation Music : https://www.elevationkids.com/song/all-through-history

Story Time: 

Let’s watch  the Two by Two Bible story in cartoon format from Youtube (Its from the Bible App for Kids) https://youtu.be/VREzCuiJ75Q

Here is a link to the Bible App for Kids, which has the same little Bible story in cartoon format, with a question at the end and then an optional game (reordering the pictures from the story or a pairs game) I think you will need to install the Bible App onto your phone/ tablet or computer in order to do the games and of course you can read other stories. They are really good.

Now you can read the Bible text from Genesis Chapter 9 v 13 (the bit about the rainbow)”I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”   https://www.bible.com/bible/113/gen.9.11-15.nivuk

If you get really into it and want to read all the actual details from the Noah’s Ark story you can start at Genesis chapter 6, there are lots of facts and figures and numbers. (could become a maths lesson?) We all know bits of the Noah’s Ark story but when was the last time you read it in full ?

The Craft bit: 

Can you make a rainbow ?  Maybe a rainbow out of lego or T shirts or a rainbow pizza? Can you each make one and take photos of them?  or draw one & colour it in ? or glue tissue paper / cut out colour from magazines & glue onto a paper plate in arches ? Or paint a rainbow. Whatever craft / way to make a rainbow will be fine. 

Prayer time

Dear God,

thank you for the Bible and the story of Noah and the rainbow. Thank you that we know you are with us and you are looking after us especially right now while we all wash our hands lots, stay indoors lots and while we do Church and toddlers and school in very different ways. Thank you that you were with Noah when his routine and his everyday life was turned upside down.  And we ask you to help us with all the changes. Thank you most of all for your rainbow in the sky. Amen

What next ?

Can you take a photo of you with your rainbow and send it to me ? / or share it on one of your grown up’s facebook accounts or our Christ Church Community facebook group ? You have no idea how many people will be blessed by you doing this .

Can you put your rainbow up in a window which faces the street ? There is a facebook group who are encouraging people to put rainbows in windows, so lets join them and when other people walk by they can see the rainbow and be reminded of the promise God made to everyone on earth. 

And if you would like to join a mini group time with your child on a website for meetings called, “Zoom” so you can wave to your friends and catch up with each other there is a separate group time for each group and the join codes have been emailed out to our families. If you can’t find the email please contact Helen children@christchurchdownend.com

Sparklers 9am – 9.30am 

Creche 9.30-10am 

Main Church teaching is published at 10am on Christ Church Downend Youtube  Channel

Connected at 10.45am   

Connected + at 11.45am  

Each group chat will be open for you to try and join it 15 minutes before it actually starts, so you have the opportunity to try and work out the tech. And we can sing together the song for this Sunday (see above) share stories of how we are doing and what we have learnt whilst being at home, and if you have made a rainbow perhaps you can show it to everyone too.

You can do Zoom on a smart phone, a tablet or a computer. I’m a bit new to using Zoom, I think if you are using a tablet you may need to install the zoom app before the link code will work, once you have the app, when you join you are asked to allow zoom to have access to your voice / sound and to your webcam.  Looking forward to seeing lots of you on Sunday and praying you are all getting on ok as we do Church and life quite differently.