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.

Quirky Sunday School leaders

Came across this in an old magazine I found lying around in church. I liked it.

Embrace the lady who is not seriously on the Asperger's scale, but is unusual. Part of her unusualness lies in her ability to design a £2 torch out of A4 paper, paperclips and a dumpster dive at the local hardware shop. She wants to do it not just because she can but because she knows that Jesus is the light of the world, and that children who do the torch activity will have the torch and handwritten Bible verse sitting on top of their fridge with the other torches for months to come. (This idea may or may not be based on the observation of the top of the author's fridge.)

Embrace as one of the team the unemployable man who really needs as much looking after as any of the children because of his disability issues, but radiates pure joy at being part of the team. Yes, you had to recruit another team member to look after him. No, any sensible analysis says he should have been gently moved aside to whatever places such men are gently moved aside to. But his heart is for the gospel, and has been for many years, and now he is here on the team, and who really knows how God will use him. Perhaps he will simply be a drain on resources. Is this actually bad for the gospel?

(Sorry didn't take a note of the author, but it was an issue of The Briefing from 2013, I think)

Swallowed a dictionary

Tidying out, and came across a piece of paper from a number of years ago, where I'd jotted down a quote from a kid at Sunday School.

Me:This story will be familiar to all of you

Child: That doesn't look like a story I'm familiar with - according to my calculations 

Advice for Sunday School teachers

As a new school year begins, I thought I’d post some stuff I wrote for the leaders of my old Sunday School class, on the off-chance it was relevant for someone reading the blog.

There are infinite amounts of advice that could be given, but I think these are the most important, and hold true whatever format or style your teaching takes.

 

✝️ Preach the gospel

Children easily learn to parrot 'Jesus died to save us from our sins'. But they often really believe it's about being good, going to church, or having a Christian family.

Tell them it's not - tell them often.

Don't assume they are believers (Saying ‘IF you love/follow/believe in Jesus…’ is a good way to do that simply.)

Use different words or ways of explaining the gospel, that fit with the story e.g. Yes, Jesus died to take the punishment for our sins - but also, Jesus died to make us God's friends, so we can be in his family, to set us free, to beat the devil, to give us new life etc. etc. etc…

 

 

 📖 Teach the truth

They're young - you need to simplify things. But make sure everything you say is true. (Not watered down, but distilled, as I heard someone say once).

Make sure you're teaching what the Bible actually says, not what tradition has added!

Trite 'Sunday School answers' are often unhelpful. Be honest about the bits you find hard to understand.

If it comes up, be honest about things that Christians genuinely disagree about. This could be 'in some churches they believe X but we believe Y.'
Or, for things that we ourselves have differing opinions on (e.g. creation, predestination, eschatology, Hallowe’en), simply 'Some Christians believe X and some believe Y - but we all believe Z, which is the most important (maybe add ‘ask your parents what they think’.)

Be honest about the sins and failures of Bible heroes. Be honest about your own sins and failures (both at a PG level of course 😁)

 

 

🥰 Look out for outsiders

Every child needs to feel they belong.

Pay particular attention to those who don't fit in in some way - those who attend irregularly, are particularly shy, are always in trouble, struggle academically, hate doing crafts, are from a different race or culture, are less well off, have a disability, are neurodivergent, come from a non-christian family, have a difficult family situation… or just that child you really don't like for whatever reason 😬

If they don't know that we welcome them, they won't understand that Jesus welcomes them. 

 

🙏 Pray

The one I'm least good at!

The best planned lesson in the world is no good without prayer. Pray for yourself as you prepare, pray for yourself as you teach, pray that the children will understand, pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to them.

Pray for their families, pray for their schools, pray that they will not believe the lies the world tells them, pray that they will believe, pray that they will keep on going.

Solitary sheep

I'm reading Genesis at the minute, and I got to the bit where Jacob sent a gift to appease his brother Esau: 

🐐 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 

🐑 200 female sheep, 20 male sheep, 

🐪 30 female camels with their babies, 

🐄 40 cows, 10 bulls, 

🫏 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys.

It made me think of the time we did that story at Sunday School and one small boy started giggling.

Because, he said, "180 female sheep wouldn't be able to get married".

A loooooooooong time ago

I was explaining to the children how God has always existed. 

He was there 100 years ago... A thousand years ago... A million... A billion... A trillion...

5 year old: an octillion

7 year old: a googolplex,*

Wasn't expecting that 😆

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*Fortunately I did know this was a real number! Didn't know how big, so I've just looked it up. It's 10¹⁰¹⁰⁰, which means that the mass of the books needed to write the number down would be many times the mass of the visible universe. Fairly large, then.

Analogies are not (necessarily) heresy

Wrote this aaaages ago - finally got round to finishing and posting.

From time to time, people claim that this analogy or that analogy of the Trinity gives the wrong idea of God, or is even heretical. I'm sure that's sometimes true. But sometimes I think it's just that the people criticising it are trying to make an analogy do more than it's meant to.

For example, take the triangle. People say it's a bad way to explain the Trinity because each member of the Trinity is fully God, whereas each side of a triangle is not a triangle. But, I don't think it's bad, just - like all analogies - incomplete. It would only be a bad analogy if you were saying that a triangle says everything that's to be said about how the Trinity relates - and that's not how analogies work.

Craft we made, based on these instructions.

 

I have used the triangle analogy in Sunday school. I'm teaching people who may not yet even know that Jesus is God. So all the analogy is meant to say is that:

• The trinity is a thing.
• There is one God, made of three people, (who are all God).
• They are the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.

It's true in what it intends to teach - it's not the last word on the subject.

Actually, it's the same with the analogies of Jesus which are used in the Bible. He is variously described as our father, future husband, brother, master, shepherd, a lamb, a vine, a gate, bread, water, light... If you took any of those to extremes you could easily make a heresy. And some of them are mutually contradictory.

 

But the point is that Jesus - who is far more than we could ever understand - is a little bit like all those things (and the context usually makes it clear in what way).

Here's a quote:

We have to think about Christ using ideas and images, but if we put our trust in these symbols, rather than in the One they symbolize, we will be making a big mistake. [...] By using more than one image for God, we remind ourselves that any image we use is only temporary; it must be corrected and relieved by other images. These images serve our minds; they do not save our souls. A fork is not food.

~Michael Ward, The Narnia Code

Non sequiturs

First day back at Sunday School, colouring pictures about 'B is for Bible', when the child next to me suddenly asks  - "Did you know that pirates still exist?"

A few minutes later he starts talking about the noise turkeys make, and instead of colouring his picture, fills in all the blank space around it with pictures of two turkeys, a nest, a baby turkey and eggs.

I'm going to enjoy having this child in my class! 😊 * 

 

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*I realise that could sound sarcastic but I mean it literally.

Forks

I've wanted to use wooden forks as kings for aaages! 

King David

We made these yesterday.

With more time, glitter or gold paint on the crown would have been nice.

Colosseum / Herod's temple size comparison

 Answer to question in previous post:

(very simplified plans)

Out of the mouth of babes

 Haven't posted one of these for ages...

We were doing the calming of the storm in Sunday School, and Naresh taught us how to make paper boats.

My boat

One of the kids was struggling a bit with the folding, and said,

"My paper won't obey me, like the sea obeyed God."

A problem with Sunday School materials

I recently had to send this message out to the other leaders in my class, to make them aware of an issue with the Sunday School materials we are currently using (which will remain nameless to protect the guilty). Actually, it's a problem with many different Sunday School materials.

"Hi Explorers' leaders. Just thought I should flag up an issue to look out for with the [Sunday School] materials.

There is often a problem that it assumes the children are believers. We should never assume that!

So instead of saying, for example "the Holy Spirit is with you" - it's much better to say, "If you belong to Jesus/Jesus has forgiven you/you believe in Jesus (or similar) the Holy Spirit is with you."

You don't need to labour the point, but just make sure you're not making statements or false promises that may not be true of the children."

Bearing in mind these are evangelical SS materials, this is quite concerning.

How many times have we heard a testimony from someone who realised at the age of 9, or 15, or 21, that they had just been assuming they were a Christian, and had never believed for themselves? Never mind those we know who were brought up in church but never come to faith?

Of course, for children brought up in a Christian family, this may be a subtle, gradual thing. Not everyone has a crisis conversion. But children need to know that salvation is by faith - not by having Christian parents or being in my Sunday School class.

I still don't have enough S's

The magnetic letters I have been using for Sunday School are the ones I had when I was wee.

I bought some extras recently, but it's still not enough!

 Well, it'll amuse the children.

When the standard answer backfires

In church we have worksheets for the kids, to help them engage with the service. I was picking up those that had been left on the seats.

One of the questions said 'draw or write something from the Bible reading'. One child had written 'God'.

I suppose it seemed like a safe bet. However I'm not convinced the child was actually listening. You see, we're going through the book of Esther at the minute...*

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*Esther is the one book of the Bible that doesn't mention God even once!

Lydia craft

Here’s an idea for a simple, fun craft that brings out a lot of things from Lydia’s story.

All you need:

• Paper towel - I found that cheap stuff is best. If you don't have any plain paper towel, toilet paper works too!
• Felt tip pens
• Water 

What to do:

1. Make sure you are working on a surface that is OK to get wet, and to get pen on! You could put the paper towel on a plate, or on newspaper.
2. Draw rough circles of coloured dots. You can do different sizes - the space in the middle shouldn't be very big, though - 3-4cm max.
   
   I tried a heart in the middle, but you might find that too difficult.
   
   
3. Dip your finger in the water, and touch the space in the middle of each circle.
   
   
   
4. Watch as the water spreads out.
   
   
5. Larger circles will need a few more drops, but wait until it stops spreading before adding more. Use as little water as possible, or the colours will all wash out!
6. Leave to dry.
   
   

Links to the story:

• The dye from the pens reminds us of the dye that was used to make Lydia's purple cloth - but use other colours if you prefer.
• If you draw a heart, that reminds us that the Lord 'opened Lydia's heart'.
• Water reminds us of Lydia's baptism.
• The colours spreading remind us of the good news of Jesus spreading.

The vital component

If you're teaching on Lydia, and you prepare the best lesson in the world, but neglect to pray that God will 'open their hearts to respond' you've kind of missed the point of the lesson you're teaching...

I need to make sure to practise the latter, without leaving the former undone.

Truth

Just sorting through Sunday School photos for our virtual prizegiving. These two crafts, done earlier in the year, seem particularly relevant now...

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.

Quick, easy Christmas decoration craft

Went well with the theme of our nativity being about God's gift.

You will need:

• Coloured foam. I used sparkly A5 foam, from a pound shop.
• Sticky-backed foam (or use glue, but sticky is easier). Or self adhesive ribbon, but I couldn't find any.
• Suitable stickers. The crowns and hearts were actually taken from a fairytale set!
• String
• Single hole punch. Small hole if possible - a leather punch is good, because it can cut through a lot of layers.

Teachers preparation:

1. Cut the foam into 'squares'. A5 gives 6 more or less square pieces. A guillotine is quickest.
2. Cut the sticky foam into strips. 1cm (ish). 

With the kids:

1. Stick two strips to a square. This makes it look like a parcel and also a cross!
2. Decorate with stickers.
3. Punch hole.
4. Thread string.
5. Repeat till parents come!
6. Brush up all the backing paper from the stickers...

Finger clicking

Me: We'll click our fingers on the chorus.
Child: I can't click my fingers.
Me: That's OK, just pretend. No-one will know you're not really doing it.
Child: But my mum and dad know I can't do it.
Me: That's OK, no-one else will know.
Child: But my gran and grandpa and aunt and uncle and cousins all know I can't do it...