Sunday 22 March 2020

Dear Junior Church Families,

Despite being cut off from one another physically and not being able to worship and learn together, we would like you to still be able to have the resources and some ideas if you would like to spend time on Sunday as a family exploring the Bible readings for the day.

We Junior Church teachers work with resources from a website called Roots on the Web, when we are not doing a special project. The site follows the same lectionary readings that the congregation uses. Here are the resources for Sunday, 22 March. There should hopefully be something there for everyone.

A short introduction on how Roots on the Web structures the material might be helpful. The teaching session is split into four sections: Gather, Open the Word, Explore & Respond, Send Out. While this may be a bit too formal for a family setting, the flow can be helpful. Each section offers several ideas of which the idea is to choose one or maybe two. The material generally focuses on one passage. Gather has an introduction prayer and some ideas on how to introduce the topic of the week. Open the Word has ideas and resources to tell or experience the reading. Explore & Respond offers different ways to feel, think about, or experience the topics opened up in the reading. Send out then closes with a prayer and topic appropriate things to do during the coming week. Additionally, there are work and coloring sheets for younger children and an extra sheet for older children or teenagers (aka Young People). The second sheet has additional ideas following the same pattern.

Please let us know if this is helpful or if there if you have any other ideas.

Hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. We miss seeing you and keep you all in our prayers.

Yours in Christ,

John

From all that material for this week, here is what I might have picked, as an idea of what a weekly session might look like. This week the focus is on Jesus healing a blind man by putting mud on his eyes from John 9:1-41:

Gather

Suggested prayer or one of your own:

God our Father,
open our eyes
to see your works in the world.
Show us your beauty in creation,
your healing in those who follow Jesus
and your actions in the Church.
Open our eyes to see you.
Amen.

Open the Word

Sense the story

Invite the children to close their eyes and listen to the sounds they can hear in the room. Then ask them to imagine they can hear Jesus' voice talking, as you read from the passage. Encourage the children to keep their eyes closed as they hear the story of what happened to a man who could not see, focusing on all their senses except sight.

(Read John 9:1-41 or the retold version in the attachments)

Talk together (Connect faith with everyday life)

• Why wasn't everybody happy when the man could see again?
• Is it always easy to share in someone else's happiness?
• How can we learn to see what God is doing in our world?

Explore & Respond

Shake and settle

Understand how we need God to help us see things more clearly

You will need: a large plastic bottle with lid, soil, parcel tape.

• Prepare the bottle with approximately 3cm of soil in the base. Fill it with water, leaving around 3cm space beneath the lid. Fix the lid to the bottle and use parcel tape to seal it.
• Show the children the bottle and invite them to think of someone they would like God to heal. Shake the bottle and keep silence as the contents settle.
• Ask the children to suggest other ideas for people or situations we do not see clearly, and repeat the action of shaking the bottle and watching the soil settle as you reflect and pray.

Send out

Jesus, light of the world,
help us to shine with your light
in everything we do this week.
Help us to follow in your footsteps
and to give you glory
when we see your healing hand at work.
Jesus, send us out in your light.
Amen.