Festivals
Services, activities and ideas for Christian festivals.
Candlemas
A Common Worship Service of the Word for Candlemas, celebrating those who have been baptised in the past year.
The chain of life - service idea
A service of the Word for Harvest Festival using Common Worship.
Pass it on - service idea
A Christingle service of the Word using Common Worship.
Lent, Holy Week and Easter
Resources ideas for Mothering Sunday, Lent and Easter from National Children’s Officer, Mary Hawes.
Lent
Does your church run a Lent course? Who is invited? Are the children involved? Perhaps there are activities related to Lent in your children’s programme, but you do not think of them as a 'Lent course'.
This booklet is an attempt to capture in our children’s work that sense of structured preparation over a six week period which is a feature of the traditional Lent Course. Some of the material contains practical suggestions for activities with children, but many of the sections are sketches and focuses, rather than fully worked session plans - in this way they could perhaps provide inspiration for parallel adult sessions.
Alternative worship ideas for Easter
Worship ideas for an Easter Communion Service (following the structure of Common Worship, Order One).
Harvest
Here's a roundup of websites and themes:
what would you like to give as a gift this harvest?
food not famine (World Vision)
drought in India (Christian Aid)
drought-stricken countries (Tearfund)
the Amazon rainforest (USPG)
various (WaterAid)
India (MRDF)
There is also ‘Together for a Season – volume 3’ which contains a section on ‘celebrating God’s providence’, including a Harvest Eucharist.
Advent and Christmas
- Loyola Press Advent material
- Bible Reading Fellowship have four downloadable pages about Advent & Christmas and a new volume ‘Easy Ways to Christmas Plays’.
- Ideas for running a Christmas event with toddlers
- Christian Christmas links to a whole range of other sites with stories, activities and resources.
- Lift up your hearts from Canada has a whole bunch of links to explore!
- Paperless Christmas is now up and running – and to complement its brilliantly quirky Mary and Joseph: The Road Movie Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) has produced a range of creative activities and resources to help children explore the Christmas Story.
- The Text This Week is like opening a Treasure Chest! Scroll down towards the bottom for specific items related to children, but pass the link on to those responsible for planning worship to explore as well!
- Fresh ideas from The Children's Society for Christingle Services – with lots of additional activities including a whole Messy Church approach!
Christmas notes
This resource contains notes and a resource list for each of the following four aspects of Christmas: advent, nativity, craft and stories.
Download Christmas notes
Create your own unique Christingle
The Children's Society has worked with Lucy Moore, the Messy Church Team Leader, to produce a Messy Church Christingle. In partnership with the Boy's Brigade a special Youth Group Christingle has also been developed. And Christingle Express has a service outline, selection of activity ideas, prayers, scripture readings and sermon ideas. Find these and all the usual resources on www.christingle.org.
Nativity notes
Here today - gone tomorrow !
We know that these days, often through no fault of their own, some children can’t be relied on to turn up every week over a rehearsal period – or even to turn up for the performance itself! What can be done about it?
