European Puppet and Creative Arts Festival

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of attending the European Puppet and Creative Arts Festival - what a long title!

I was a bit dubious/anxious at first but it turned out to be a great event. It was really well organised and had a variety of seminars and sessions for those who were skilled in puppetry to those who weren't. I was more interested in the creative arts part of the festival, seeing how I could learn from the ideas and knowledge of others and use it in my work. There are so many experienced children's workers who are coming up with new things each week and using them in programmes, services and groups. The chance to be able to learn from there is obvious one to be embraced.

I attended this event with my sister, a definite beginner with using puppets - she even bought her first proper one at the event, a snail who she is still to name or give a personality. Even without a name she still felt able to practise techniques and use what she had learnt from the event. She also felt she had benefitted from attending - this was something she had been looking forward to.

Some sessions weren't as good as others but you never know what they are going to be like until you sit through them. There might have still been something to take home from these.

My favourite session, however, was led by a couple called Steve & Kay Morgan-Gurr. They are children's evangelists and General Directors of Children Worldwide Network. The session was on Storytelling. This is something I really enjoy doing with the children in various groups but can sometimes get quite samey. This workshop expanded the things I was able to do, and if I hadn't fallen ill I would have put into practise one of the techniques this week, pretending to be part of the wise men story, seeing the star in the distance.

There is still time though. I would really encourage people to go on training events, even ones you are going to be anxious about because it is great to learn from a range of people who are sharing Jesus with children every day.

Well done, One Way UK.

http://www.onewayuk.com/

Pastoral Visiting Training Session

Had the opportunity last week to talk to the church visitors about visiting families. Visiting has a lot of things to be aware of in terms of training but I felt it is important to share that visiting families isn't the same as visiting everyone else.

I included a section on my trusty visiting bag. I also handed out some shells at the start, something from my visiting bag but also something to get people talking and thinking a bit differently.

Here is some other information I shared:
Certain things to remember:
- families like others are very busy people, they have busy lifestyles with many activities to fit into their days. Just turning up can work, which as visitors is the way it generally happens but if you decide not to make an appointment then be aware that at certain times if you are going to visit the whole family they are not going to be in:
- school pick up time
- school drop off time
- after 7.30pm
- if you want to see the whole family (& they're older than 4yrs) general day time isn’t good

- obviously, as with any other visit, it’s good to have a general awareness of what the person you are visiting does – if they work full time then any day time visit isn’t going to be ideal

- with most families I book in a time but that will be harder for you if you visit every month

When you visit the family it isn’t just about seeing the parents, the children are part of your visit as well
- this leads to a different dynamic
- the issue with this is that it’s two lots of attention, one of the things I have been told the minister does is that he spends time with the children and then says to the children that he is going to chat with the parents now - “say to the children that they will take time to play with them but later it will be mummy & daddy time and so then they will need time alone with them” I’ve had one experience of trying to speak to a mother about her problems while her daughter is trying to play peek-a-boo with me.
- remembering the names of all the family is important, if you’re not sure of the names check the visiting list just before you go in and try to remember – it doesn’t always work but name knowledge is helpful
- don’t be left entirely on your own with the children, make sure the parents are around and doors are left open – for your safety as well as theirs
- as with any other visit know roughly how long you are going to stay at the place, and if you are in the middle of a game with a child give them a 5-10min warning, weird to get up in the middle of the game and just leave
- like with all over visits the people you are visiting will have different needs, and some will be the typical needs of others you visit and some won’t. By visiting the family you may bring something needed into their family, a local person who can be their honorary grandparent, someone who will be an example to them in the Christian sense, someone who they can share their parenting worries with, someone who can play with their children and maybe be an example of the different ways that you can play with their children or simply, someone who can visit and be a great contact with the church
- as with any visit wait to be invited in, don’t expect to only get as far as the front door and don’t expect to be invited in, every visit and family is different
- You might walk in on a crazy situation, kids in the middle of a game, parents in the middle of cooking dinner, bags being packed for an activity or lego everywhere – be prepared for anything
- it means you get to have play time

Specifically time with the children:
- the children may welcome you and drag you straight into play or be really uncomfortable with you, every visit is different, I’ve had visits where the children are really happy to see me and drag me in to play games and ones where they have hid under the table
- the children may be in the middle of watching a programme or playing a game, just because you are ready to spend time with them doesn’t mean they are ready to spend time with you. Give them time to finish what they are doing or even do it with them – watch tv with them, ask if you can join in the next game and take a moment to learn the rules and how to play, be gracious
- Children don’t want to be over-awed with questions, I tend to get this wrong, repeatedly asking questions about school about church but spending time with them, playing with them can sometimes lead to better conversations or time together
- Do a bit of research. Knowing a bit about something children like can make a big difference to your visit, so if you are visiting a pre-school child spend half an hour watching Cbeebies. Or if you are going to visit an older child ask around about what that child or children that age might be into, some children are obsessed with football – look into the premiership. On one visit, where the child was hiding under the table, I saw a picture of Sportacuson the floor. The child came out from under the table once I started talking to them and asking them about Lazy Town.
- Ask the children some questions, e.g. if you are watching television with them or speaking about football but don’t contradict them – if you have asked the question, even if you think they are wrong, otherwise it might just look like you are trying to trip them up
- Be prepared. So if you do your research is there something you can take with you that will make the visit easier. If the child is into colouring is there some colouring in items you can take with you? Can you take some go-gos or match attacks.
- What is your skill? Could you take something with you that you could do with the children that embraces your skills, e.g. making a paper aeroplane, a magic trick
- Don’t underestimate the follow up – if the child has been growing something, maybe you could drop off some sunflower seeds on your next visit. Something small that shows you have listened to the child can make a big difference.
- If there is anything you think needs a follow up then contact me or Richard. And be aware I have email addresses for most of the regular church families
- Visiting Bag!(see other blog posts)

Shine like stars

Although most of my work involves children & toddler groups, schools work, meetings and the like, sometimes I have the opportunity doing services.

It doesn't always feel like an opportunity. All jobs in the church are important, but this one frequently puts fear inside me. Share something about God in a moment when all are listening, all are watching and some may not like what they hear or even notice the challenge. It doesn't help that at the end of the talk one Sunday I ended up falling off the pulpit when my mike was still up.

So, what is God challenging the people of my church at the moment?

At the moment myself and the minister are covering different things from the book of Matthew, stories, talks, Jesus' parables and more.

From this I decided to go for the passage on light (Matthew 5:14-16) and I tried to find out as much as I could.

In doing so I found the book by Brother Andrew called Light Force. It is a fascinating book that talks of his work in Lebanon during the war and then his work with those in Israel and Palestine. It talks of his work with Open Doors, an important organisation. He is a man who I had heard of and even seen at a Soul Survivor event but had never really read about.

But what a man. An inspiration to all - in his work, his faith, his hope. A man who sees that a calling doesn't stop with age, the calling is repeated in different forms, in different places again and again. A man who works with Christians, who visits Muslims, who takes bibles to terrorists.

I hope the service will encourage all to not hide their light, to be inspired by the light of others, to shine like stars in the universe. Even if I am the only one encouraged then it's great.

However dull our lights may sometimes seem we can remember that all over the world there are individual lights shining and hopefully the earth is glowing with the love and hope of Jesus.

If you haven't read the book then try and find the time. It may inspire you and help your light to glow a little brighter.

Sensory Visiting Bag, Sensory & Memory Book

This is part of my visiting bag section - dare I call it a series of posts?

I feel a person doing pastoral visiting to children should definitely have something like a visiting bag, it doesn't have to be a big bag and it doesn't have to contain lots of random things. But if a visitor can have something to take with them to encourage conversation, discovery and ideas then the challenge that comes with working with children is being embraced.

To add to the sensory aspect of my bag I decided to again search the internet. From this I found a sensory book. The website I found things on is called KIDS Direct Short Breaks.

http://www.directshortbreaks.org.uk/page.asp?section=1513&sectionTitle=About+the+Service


Sensory play is something used by those who work with young children, children with special needs and I think it is a must with all children as a way to open up their thoughts, memories and just share in a fun way. There is talk about recognising the different social, physical, emotional, intellectual ways of learning and developing and I think sensory work can help them. The sensory book is a cheaper way of doing this.

This is something a person can make by themselves, using what they have to inspire them.

What you start with is a scrap book that can be made bulky. Then you include different materials, craft items, general bits and pieces that have a variety of textures, colours, shapes and can stretch the imagination. The items can then be stuck into the book with double sided sticky tape or glue.

The things I have put in my book include buttons, different types of string, felt, fur material, lentils, bubble wrap, wool, ribbon, a shell, lentils, pipe cleaners (furry, stripey and foil), tissue paper, crepe paper, foil, cotton wool, fake flower petal and mini sunflower, bit of net.

It really is random collection of items but that is the idea.

The items are about three or four on a page, therefore not overcrowding the senses with the different items and letting the child investigate each one.

The aim of the sensory book is to let the child I visit look through, guess what some of the items are, feel the items, chat about them and maybe take it further than that. There are items that might remind them of the things we have done at church, for example things we have used in particular crafts, or the small fake sunflower might remind them that we planted sunflowers at one of the children's groups and then the children had to take them home and grow them.

There are items that might remind them of things from their lives.

But more than that, the items can be used to tell a story. The child might be inspired by the different things in the sensory book and use it to tell a story about a whole different world. They can embrace their imagination and be allowed time to do this.

I have also included photos from my time at the church to share with the children, including my first day at the church, and to give even more chance for thoughts and conversation.

I'm very excited about what will happen with the sensory book and what the children think about it and do with it.

Sensory visiting bag, church jar

I have my visiting bag but I still want to make it more sensory.

For this I did some research on the internet (oh, how important google is in my job) and thought about previous ideas I have heard.

Based on this I've added various ideas, including a sensory & memory book and some scented jars.

But for this post I wanted to share the church jar with you. The church jar is inspired by some of the work done by the excellent charity, Winston's Wish. This charity do fantastic work helping children and families to cope with serious illness, death and also help those who might be involved with children in these situations. They do this in a variety of ways, some very simple, with advice and also some more creative ways. One of these ways is a feelings jar. It is a jar that has different layers of coloured salt in, each layer of colour chosen for a different emotion the child is feeling. Alternatively it can be used as a memory jar, with each colour representing a different memory. An example of this could be for feelings - red reminds the child of the love the child shared with their parent. An example of memories could be blue to represent the times they went swimming on holiday in the sea.

Based on this inspiring idea I decided to make a church jar. Not only will this be something interesting to share with the children, explaining a bit about church and exploring their feelings about church but it will also be a good for discussing where the idea came from. Some of the children I visit experience loss of a relative, someone from church they cared about or even of a much loved pet. As with adults, the children can experience these emotions in a variety of ways but by having this jar and talking about the inspiration for it may give the children ideas on creating one of their own or thinking about memories they have of someone who may have died or may have just moved away.

The jar I have created brings in the different things I associate with what my church means to me. Each layer relates to a different aspect of church.

layer 1 - white salt. To me this represents Jesus. The purity, the colour of a lamb and the innocence of Jesus. It is the first layer and this is because I think my church is built on the foundation of Jesus and should always be working harder at having Jesus as the focus.

layer 2 - multi-coloured glitter. This represents the people. There is such a variety of people, variety of ages, personalities, experiences, loves and dislikes. But even with their differences they still sparkle together when caught in the light. And glitter gets on everything, my experience when trying to put it in the jar can testify to this, and when we have Jesus as our foundation we can make a difference in all the situations we are in. We can have an affect on people and the situations we are in. There are also lots of different groups and things happening in church.

layer 3 - yellow sand. Very simply the joy and excitement that happens in church.

layer 4 - blue sand. Represents the stillness we have at church. The quietness and prayer time. That there is a place where people care and people listen.

layer 5 - red sand. This links to the communion we share at church and also the range of seasons we celebrate at church. The death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter, the birth of Jesus at Christmas and the thoughts of nature, food for others and more at Harvest.

layer 6 - green sand. Thinking about the different countries in the world that we think of and hoping for peace for all the world.

layer 7 - orange sand. This is partly because I ran out of colours but it just about represents the food we have a church, a lot of our events and groups involve food.

layer 8 - white salt. Jesus should be the beginning and end of all we do and all we are. The alpha and the omega.

I shall blog again with another part of my sensory bag.

Visiting Bag

In one of my previous jobs I worked in administration for the council, in particular the children's Integrated Disability Service (Teaching & Learning). I had the opportunity to be part of the pre-school team, this meant I sat in on children's education plans and funding meetings, made resources for the teams, including the autism, hearing, speech and language teams and made up information packs, minutes, etc for these teams.

But what does that have to do with a visiting bag? Well, my idea to use a resources bag (or something similar) when I go on pastoral visits came from this work done with council - although it has grown from there.

As part of my work I go and visit children and families in their homes. This is the pastoral part of my role and can just be a short thing or involve a whole evening. Sometimes these visits are not just easy times chatting and playing with what the children have but involves needing a stimulus to help conversation or just something to develop "bonding time". Part of these visits are to build friendships with the families but it is also about sharing things about Jesus with them and finding ways to improve church and what we do there.

In most of these visits I take a visiting bag with me. The visiting bag has things to help conversation, games for those who talk better over an activity, books that we can read together and flyers and information for the children.

I would definitely recommend a visiting bag for others who want to visit children and families in their home. I like to make some of the things in the bag more sensory but I will discuss that in a post soon.

My visiting bag was recently stolen out the boot of my car, this gave me the challenge of creating a whole new visiting bag. One of the benefits regarding the bag, is that items in it can be interchanged. Thinking what the the topics coming up in junior church, services, church related groups, holiday clubs or festivals means that items can be placed in the bag that relate to these. For example, when we were talking about Daniel in the lions den, a small soft toy lion was kept in the bag. And when the topic was David and Goliath, a Mr Men book called "Mr Noisy and the Giant" was used to help talk of Holiday Club.

I've included some pictures as there is a lot that goes into the bag, things for travelling, easy to use, child friendly and fun. I'm sure more things will be blogged regarding the great resource that is the visiting bag.

Holiday Club

Wow, we had such a good week and it is just the end of the week Sunday service to go.

It wasn't just the leaders coming together as a team - even though they are from separate churches and don't meet very often. It wasn't just the involvement of people in changing how the church looks. It wasn't just the fact that the children embraced all the things that we did as part of the holiday club, including the prayer wall, story room that created a powerful environment for stories of Peter and Jesus, games, craft, workshop, writing songs, etc, etc. It wasn't just seeing children who in other circumstances would be doing their best to act cool and not join in and yet in this situation were shouting along, trying to do all the activities and wanting to talk about things.

But it was all those things and even more. It was the chance to see children who hadn't really heard about God before (however much God has been trying to meet with them) listen and go home and tell their families about him. And the opportunity as a leader to feel that you were serving God in a way that was making a difference.

But as children's leaders our job doesn't stop when the children go home. Our prayers continue. We pray that God will work in the lives of those individual children and we can also invite them to other holiday clubs and groups we are running.

So I thank God for all that has happened this week. One of the best bits in terms of activities being the Floundering evening - fish version of a beetle drive. Having families come to the Rocky's Plaice restaurant and see what their children had been part of, meet with a variety of people over a fish and chip supper and having fun together.

God has done some great work in so many holiday clubs up and down the UK this summer!

Rocky's Plaice Holiday Club

This year your church may be one of the churches using the Scripture Union Rocky's Plaice material. Like lots of different set materials we have found that we have to make it work for our church and for our children.

That said, we didn't feel the material was a good this year as in previous years, last year was especially brilliant.

We have tried to make the music work for us by having the children create their own Rocky's Plaice song. The best thing about this is that the children who have been coming for years can do something a bit different, the same ole' format is something new for them. They can make up works from stories they have heard about Peter and also get to know the stories even better.

The stories themselves (while important like all bible stories) weren't inspiring for children, especially when there are other stories about Peter that are exciting, relate to their lives and more to do with the fish and restaurant theme. So we will be using stories like fishers of men, feeding the 5000 and Jesus, after the resurrection, sitting with the disciples after helping them catch lots of fish.

We have also used some of the workshop ideas from last year and have incorporated a dance and drama workshop into one of those days.

I'm sure telling I'm other children's workers about "sucking eggs" but I feel it is best to find materials and then make them come alive for your own leaders, children and skills. Don't be afraid to take your material in a different direction and get excited about it. The more passionate you are about the material the better you are trying to share it with others, including the children.

We have also decided to take our material one step further - we are having a social evening with the families of the children coming to our holiday club. We are having a Floundering evening, it's a a bit like a beetle drive but the aim is to make a fish not a beetle. We will have lots of fun and games and finish with a fish and chip supper. A great way to sit and chat with the families as well as just the children.

Thanks to Scripture Union for inspiring us in unexpected ways this year.