♫ Jesus is Alive 🎝

 I came across this song. It's very catchy! (It's also aimed at preschoolers)

 

Happy Easter 🥚🥚🥚

Was in the corner shop today, and there were creme eggs and biscoff eggs on the counter.

Good Friday

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."

~ 1 Peter 2v24-25

Easter stickers

I'm not very good at updating this blog with my actual art 🤦

I've recently got easter stickers printed.

First, some brand NEW designs, aimed at younger children, or new contacts who know very little about Jesus. Still the focus on Jesus' death and - especially - resurrection. Nice and cheerful and Eastery. Lots of eggs! But avoiding the wall-to-wall pastels and fluffiness that is characteristic of lots of Easter stuff.

 I also reissued my classic Easter designs as paper stickers. Aimed at primary school children. More depth on why Jesus died and rose - probably best for church kids who know the basics. Leaning into the sometimes ghoulish tastes of small boys💀!

 

 

I have other Easter stickers still available while stocks last. Find them all here.

Last Words

Words and music by Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive

All-day sun

Doesn't seem quite the right weather for Good Friday:

 

"Well might the sun in darkness hide

and shut his glories in

when God, the incarnate maker, died

for man, his creature's, sin"

~Isaac Watts

Rainbow crosses

People are putting rainbows in their windows to symbolise hope. So here are some crosses that our Sunday School kids made to remind us that our true hope comes from Jesus.

All done in an appropriately socially-distant manner: They made them at home, photographed them, and WhatsApped them to me. I printed them at church, cut them out and stuck them up.

I love how different they all turned out.

Take, eat

This is beautiful

Christ is risen!

Cuckoo Chicks?

I'm not convinced these chicks hatched out of any of these eggs.

Thomas

This must have been a bad week for Thomas - not only was Jesus dead, but his friends had all gone mad :-)

Christ is risen!

God Rested

I never made this connection before!

Surprise! Believe

I was teaching the kids about the resurrection yesterday. There was a lot in the lesson (The whole of John 20: Mary Magdalene, Peter & John, Thomas), so I wanted some kind of structure to hold it together - and also hold the children's interest, as the resurrection is very familiar to them.

Our book started with discussing some surprising facts, which was a good lead-in.

I pointed out that, while they knew what happened next, Jesus' friends didn't, and got them to try to imagine they were living back then.

We made double-sided  flash cards like this:

Stickers from Poundland.
The only smiley faces in the packet were these ones with heart eyes!

Whenever something surprising happened in the story, we held up the 'surprise!' side, and whenever someone believed we held up the 'believe' side.

This segued really nicely into the conclusion I wanted - this term all our lessons have been from John, so I thought it would be good to finish with the reason John wrote his book:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20v30-31

I got them to look it up in the Bible, and then we filled in the blanks on this worksheet:

(You need the NIV2011 to fill this out)

Emmaus craft

We did the road to Emmaus on Sunday, and I wanted to focus on the bit which says:

"Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself."

Only I didn't word it quite like that :-)

Here's our craft.

I stole/adapted the tagline from The Bible Project - simplified for wee ones.
I got the popout idea from Pinterest.

They could draw any Bible stories they liked inside, or copy out memory verses.

Shameless sticker plug: buy them here. I was pleased that one of the kids said, "I love those stickers" - because he didn't know I drew them!

The Lamb of God was raised

Here's the song :

Calvary was meant for me

Here's the song :

Believe

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’

But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’
Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20 v 24-30

The temple curtain tears

Here's an activity we did last Easter.

The point was to show that the temple curtain symbolised our sin separating us from God, and that Jesus' death made a way for us to get to him.

During the story, I explained:
"Jesus was dying for us. We have all done bad things and don't deserve to be God's friends."
So I got the children to write/draw sins on a big sheet of paper*.

Later, at the point in the story where Jesus died:
"In the temple there was a curtain. God had a special room behind, that no-one** was allowed to go in, to remind people that God is good and we can't come near to be his friends.

"When Jesus died, the curtain tore - "
then I suddenly tore the paper in half. That startled them!

"Now we can be God's friends."

---

*This actually took quite a long time, as they are just beginner writers. I told them it didn't matter how they spelled them, but they still wanted to know. Also they didn't want to stop writing.

**Well, technically not no-one, but one person in the entire world, once a year, is pretty near no-one. Of course, that one person once a year was very significant, but there really wasn't time to go into that.

Greatest Day in History

The greatest day in history,
Death is beaten, You have rescued me
Sing it out, Jesus is alive
The empty cross, the empty grave
Life eternal, You have won the day
Shout it out, Jesus is alive
He's alive!

Oh happy day, happy day
You washed my sin away
Oh happy day, happy day
I'll never be the same
Forever I am changed

Tim Hughes