There Is a Time for Everything
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.
Our birthdays fall within 3 weeks of each other in July and August, and we have reached that stage in life where we keep presents simple. We both have most of the material things we want in life and so the best gift we give to each other is time. Although Ish always presents me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my birthday, we do love spending time together, talking, walking, or just going out for coffee or a meal with our family to celebrate.
You will have gathered I love taking photographs and this recent one of Ish is one of my favourites. We found this fallen tree when we were out on one of our usual walks. The tree was obviously old and had been cut down, but the branches had been preserved because of their special shape. On each branch a name and arrow had been carved out pointing directions to various villages. I thought this tree was really special and quite symbolic, so I persuaded Ish to climb up and sit on it. I was reminded that time waits for no man or tree! But even when we grow old, we can still be useful, even if it’s simply to point people in the right direction.
To give time to our family and friends as well as serving our church is really important. Time goes so quickly and as a Chaplain I often get into conversations with people who say – ‘If only we had more time’. I believe the best gift we can give to someone is time, and it doesn’t cost anything. Read the Bible verses from Ecclesiastes and take time to think about the times you may have encountered some of these events in your life.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
RESOURCES
The United Reformed Church has lots of great resources on this theme in a downloadable pdf file
Messy Church has activities for all ages on this Bible reading downloadable pdf
‘A time to scatter stones
and a time to gather them’.
(Prayer stones Ish and I found on a visit to Lindisfarne)
I’ll be back next week with more ideas and resources, 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).