This fun activity was created by my friend Caroline. Instead of ‘fortune cookies’, she made ‘encouragement cookies’ simply by writing out blessings on slips of paper then put them inside home-made fortune cookies. Warning: the folding bit is rather hot, so be careful! What sort of blessings you write will depending on who you are … Read more
What fragile things could you pray for? If you can find some snowdrops, take a photo and use it to inspire your prayers. Every year I love it when I see snowdrops appear. I love their fragile beauty, intricate petals and flimsy stems buffeted by Winter winds. I love their tenacity in arriving while snow still threatens. While other … Read more
One This is a really simple, seasonal prayer activity to do as a family at home: When you see something looking beautiful because it’s covered in frost, praise God for it: You may well find younger children are good at this as they often have a better connection to awe and wonder. Don’t limit their … Read more
This is a really simple, fun way to pray in a group. You could do this at home, or as part of a party or even a service! Blow up the balloons and write or draw on each something about God. You could use: words (or pictures) which describe God (e.g. great, strong, kind, loving, … Read more
This is a really popular prayer activity: 1 Grab a pack of multi-coloured sweets — Skittles work well! 2 Assign each colour sweet a category, for example: Red: family Purple: friends Green: environment/ animals Yellow: the world Orange: school/work 3 Take it in turns to pick one sweet. You could do this with your eyes … Read more
A really simple way to pray without using words is to build a Duplo house and give it a title such as: The House of Peace. Invite people to choose a Duplo person to represent someone they know who needs more peace / they’d like God bless with peace and put them inside the house. … Read more
I was chatting with my friend, Sarah, about being thankful, and she told me about this really cool thing they did last Advent in their family: They each wrote a thank you note to every other member of the family. The notes were short and simple, thanking them for something specific. The then folded the … Read more
It seems this year that Autumn is particularly spectacular. The horse chestnuts seemed to go brown overnight a few weeks ago, but nothing else had happened. Then suddenly, I woke up to find trees which were green yesterday are now a brilliant, bold yellow. Others look like they have been dipped in the Creator’s massive … Read more
Look out for special looking trees this Autumn and when you spot one, praise God for it. You could play Top Tree, a game where you see which tree is the most stunning over the Autumn period. This could involve taking photos of them, and if you play with different people, you could upload them … Read more
Write things you are thankful for with fridge magnets. You could use the words in a spoken time of prayer, for example before a meal once a week. I find this allows us to pray for things which we might not think are ‘important enough’ in a spoken prayer time, for example, I would thank … Read more
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of conkers in my house this Autumn. It seems to have been a bumper year, and although I pretend I’m collecting them just because my daughters love playing with them, if I’m honest, they’re partly for me as I love the wonder of those beautiful … Read more
Use the contrast between the spikey shell and the smooth conker to reflect on God’s transforming work. Collect conkers still in their spikey shells. Invite everyone to carefully pick one shell up and hold it while thinking of something ‘spikey’ or not nice they would like God to sort out. This could be anything, for … Read more