Hope
Hi, on this page I will be sharing, reviewing, and recommending resources for children’s, family, and all-age, church-based work. I love to explore and discover new ideas, and creative ways of supporting this fantastic ministry. It’s such a privilege to serve the church and to help make worship meaningful and fun for children and families. I hope you’ll find my ideas and recommendations helpful.
At our Cathedral service yesterday the Gospel reading, that Ish read out beautifully by the way, was taken from Luke 13 where a woman who had been crippled for 18 years was healed by Jesus. Vanessa our Canon Treasurer followed this reading by preaching a brilliant sermon on ‘Hope’. It was a lovely reminder that despite all the bad news we seem to wake up to each morning, there is always hope and that God cares about every aspect of our lives even the detail. I recalled this photo I took some time ago from our garden when a rainbow appeared over our Cathedral. The rainbow is a symbol of hope.
I also remembered taking this photo of the Houses of Parliament (HOP) on a visit to London last year with our family. Lately I have been praying much about the chaos that seems to have overwhelmed our world and the list often seems endless. I read the news first thing each morning before daily prayer. It seems each disaster we try to overcome is followed by another and its so easy to become despondent. But I was encouraged by our lectionary reading today from Psalm 72.
PSALM 72
Give the king your judgements, O God, and your righteousness to the son of a king. Then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice.
May the mountains bring forth peace, and the little hills righteousness for the people.
May he defend the poor among the people, deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor.
May he live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another.
May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like the showers that water the earth. In his time shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.
(I remember during lockdown taking a video of this stream near our school and I used it for our assembly that day to reassure the children that God is in control and that we all have a hope and a future.)
LET’S PRAY
This week let’s remember to pray for peace of mind for ourselves, our families, and friends even when things seem chaotic and hopeless. Let’s also pray for our country and our government, for clarity of vision and for hope for the future.
RESOURCES
Hope Together has a range of great resources for churches of all ages
Church of England website has lots of downloadable resources on a pdf on the theme of ‘Hope’
BRF offers a Bible story and activities based on ‘Hope’ suitable for the classroom or children’s club
I’ll be back next week with more ideas and resources and thinking about HARVEST, in the meantime have fun and enjoy the summer ?
Each of the 100 ideas in this book offers different ways to use our senses in prayer and worship. Each idea has an accompanying prayer and song suggestion (all songs have been written by Ish, some especially for this book).