Pizza, Rats, and Edible Christmas Decorations

Two weeks ago we had our last Film & Pizza Night for 2009 - it was a different feel to usual, because we held it in the main part of the church, instead of our usual location, the crypt - but I think the kids enjoyed the opportunity to play games and munch pizza in amongst pews and traditional stained glass windows!
It was a creative night - 22 kids (mostly boys) started by eating pizza, then mixing up batches of Dutch Pepernoten - kids worked in groups of 4, and lined up to melt butter in the microwave, then collect sugar, went off to mix it all up thoroughly, lined up for the flour, then the spices, and so on. Once it was all mixed, they divided it between them, and kneaded and molded and patted and thumped their dough into something which might be hung on a Christmas tree...
While the Pepernoten was baking in the church kitchen, we watched "Flushed Away" - it's lots of fun, and voice-stars Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Kate Winslet and a few others you might recognise too!
We discovered that the more you work the dough, the better the finished biscuit holds its shape. Hmmmm - something for our young MasterChefs to remember for next time.... Not many ornaments were recognisable - or hang-able! when they came out - the picture above is definitely NOT what they looked like - but they were put to the taste test, and even the reluctant kids said they tasted good!
Not to worry, you can't have too much craft, so we finished off the evening by making edible Christmas wreaths - we handed out sturdy paper plates with the middles cut out - so they were just the outer rim. The kids decorated them with Christmassy colours of crepe streamer, in all kinds of creative ways, then used hot glue guns to attach caramels in foil wrappers - they looked fabulous at the end - I'm really regretting that I didn't take my camera along this time!!

St Jude's in December

There's so much happening in December! It's crazy, but fun too. Here's what's coming up:

On Friday 4th December, Princes Hill Primary School has its end of year Christmas bash for all the kids who have been in Christian Religious Education in 2009 - can't wait, my class are going to sing 'Jesus Superhero', looking very spectacular in superhero capes!

On Saturday 5th December, it's the last Film & Pizza night for 2009 - kids in Grades 3-6 will be watching 'Flushed Away', and making souvenirs - or maybe edible Christmas tree decorations... yum! If you'd like to come along, contact me for an invitation - Katie.

On Saturday 19th December, it's Carols on Carlton from 7 to 9 pm - we meet in Curtain Square on Rathdowne Street, North Carlton, and families bring picnics along and sing or listen to lots of carols - the band this year is terrific, I've been listening to them practice! Carols is open to anyone, you can get a candle for a small donation, and I've heard there's going to be a puppet... everyone is welcome. We're hoping for good rain all month - except for the 19th!

On Sunday 20th, we're baptising two very small members, a brother and sister, during the 9am service - yay!

Also on Sunday 20th, we say a huge THANKYOU to all the folk who have been part of the children's ministry at St Jude's in 2009 - all the kids who have come along week by week, and the faithful, caring and creative leaders who have prepared diligently, and met with the kids and learnt with them and cared for them and worshipped with them all year. Celebration time!

Then on Thursday 24th December, it's Kids Carols in the church from 6-7 pm - it's especially for any families with kids in Infants and Primary school (though everyone is welcome), so we sing lots of well-known carols and have a skit or story, it's very casual, and we have lots of fun. This year the theme is Promises...

And of course there's Christmas Day! There are two services, one at 8 am, which is more reflective, and one at 9.30 am especially for families - all ages welcome. This year we'll be thinking about Santa Claus - the man behind the magic!

I do hope you can join us for some or all of our December activities!

"Chicken Run" and UV creations!

I love Film & Pizza nights! Our Term 2 F&P night was last Saturday, and twenty-three kids in Grades 3 to 6 turned up in St Jude's crypt to eat lots of pizza, watch "Chicken Run", and make UV puppets. These pics are from my mobile phone, so they aren't great, but I know a couple of people took better ones (they have groovier phones!), I'll put them up when I get them.

We started with some games - you had the choice of lobbing hacky-sacks onto targets, then doubling your winnings (sweets) by performing a challenge, like standing on one leg, holding the other leg up with one hand while touching your finger to your nose for a count of ten...; or you could try to flick a coin onto a table - if your coin landed in a circle, you won a prize, but if it landed in a circle of the same value as the coin, you won two prizes!

Then it was time to eat - wow, everyone was starving! Don't they get fed at home any more?? - and to start the movie. Once the chickens had escaped safely from the farmyard with determination and terrific teamwork, we started on the UV puppets. They're very simple, but really effective - you just need some flourescent coloured cardboard, black textas to draw your designs, masking tape to hold them together, and a couple of special effects UV lights hired from a dramatic lighting company (it cost us $20 for two - bargain!) and Bob's your uncle.

And it wasn't only the kids who had a good time - it was great weather for an evening out - not too chilly, and only a sprinkle of rain, so some of the parents chose to make the most of being on Lygon Street on a Saturday evening: one couple road-tested a pub that's under new management, and I overheard two dads who hadn't seen each other for a while, deciding on the spur of the moment to catch up over dinner - great idea!

Why People Don't Go to Church

This is a youtube ad for a church in America - I think it's spot-on! Have a look: Why People Don't Go to Church.

School Holiday Program - Gearing up for Vibe!

Time is flying, and we're getting very excited about Vibe!, it's only two and a half weeks away! Chris Young is working on finishing touches to the program. I'm gathering lots of circus-type equipment - hoola hoops, juggling balls and sticks, parachutes, 'diablos' - you know, they look like huge hour-glasses suspended on a string, and you spin them and toss them and do amazing tricks with them.


Verdi the puppet is getting wriggly in his storage box... Julie, who is a mum in our 9am congregation, has offered to help out with food - and that's great, because she's a fabulous cook!

If you'd like to come along to Vibe!, click on the picture of the jumping kid at the top of the page - it takes you to the Vibe! webpage where you can download the registration form and more info about the program. We're looking forward to seeing you there! :)

Warm bricks outside - warm people inside!

This is a more friendly picture of the outside of St Jude's! Over the past year, the brickwork has been gradually cleaned and restored (it was getting very crumbly, the roof was leaking and plaster was falling off the walls inside) - and underneath all the soot and grime it turns out there was a very pretty Victorian building! There's more work to come, especially on the Lygon Street side. But on the inside, we still love to welcome visitors and newcomers and folk who just want to check out a family church. Do drop in!

A Book Worth A Look!

I'm recommending a book I haven't read yet - I've ordered it, but it's ten days away... but I heard the author this week, and I'm confident it's going to be worth a look. The book is "Is It a Lost Cause?: Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children" (Eerdmans, 1997).

This week a group of staff from St Jude's went to the Melbourne clergy conference, which was held in Bendigo (it actually rained the whole time we were there - yay!) (I mean that sincerely, they're drought stricken up there).

The keynote speaker was Marva Dawn, a theologian from Regent College, Canada, and she was terrific - knows her Bible really well, and is a gentle but very engaging speaker. I've come away convinced over again that what we do in front of kids speaks every bit as loudly as - more loudly than! - what we say. Marva's topic wasn't specifically about children, but often she referred to the impact that something would have on kids who are watching. Like reading the Bible - if we read it, then they learn that reading the Bible is a good thing to do. If we read it carelessly, then they learn that it's not very important. If we read it carefully, then they learn that reading the Bible is important.

I'm reminded of a talk I heard once - can't recall where, or who the fellow was! He said he was on a bus one day, and there were two very small boys sitting together, obviously brothers. They couldn't have been more than four and six. As the speaker swung on the pole of the bus, he heard one of the boys start to sing quietly. He leaned a little closer, and heard him very tunefully sing, "I can feel a Four-X coming on...." His point was, if a child that young can learn to sing a beer advert. what makes us think they're too young to learn more useful, healthful things?!

'Leaders To Go' conference

Katie Peken and Chris Young attended the bi-annual 'Leaders To Go' conference, which was held at lovely Anglesea this year. Every second year it's near Melbourne, in between it roves around the country, and people come from all over Australia, New Zealand, and further afield. It's a one-of-a-kind conference, because it's especially for people who have leadership roles in children's ministry, and need not only to know how to communicate, nurture, engage and mentor children; they also need to have skills in adult leadership, recruiting, training, building teams, developing skills in the leaders they lead.

This was Katie's third L2G conference, Chris's first. It was definitely worthwhile; there were keynote talks about leadership (fancy that!), child theology (not what we anticipated, which was, what does God say about children - it was rather, what does it do to your understanding of God when you remember that in the Bible he speaks to children as well as adults?), and advocacy (that is, making sure children aren't overlooked in the decision-making of the church). There was lots of time in small groups to discuss and work with the ideas we heard in the keynote talks.

There were also two sessions of electives; I went along to Pastoral Care of Families, but didn't think I learnt much of value there, it was largely about the characteristics of a family pastoral worker, whereas I want to know what I can do to better care for families - back to the drawing board on that one! I also attended a more helpful session on avoiding burnout - brilliant Terry Williams from Scripture Union Queensland gave us his 12 top tips for staying fresh and encouraged in ministry.

There was a mad evening called 'Market Place' where delegates had the opportunity to tell us about products and services they offer, and in some cases, about projects they'd like help with. Batches of ten delegates had one minute each to give us a teaser (there was a prize for the most creative!), we chose which to follow up, then they had ten minutes to explain more fully, before we raced back to the main meeting space for the next batch of ten. It was crazy, but a fun way to find out what's out there and what different people are doing and developing.

What I love about Leaders to Go is the generosity of the organizers - their whole focus is to serve children's ministry leaders, so they record all the talks and provide them on a cd for no extra charge at the end of the conference - along with photos of everyone who was there so we can remember who we met later, all the powerpoint slides, film clips we discussed, games we played - everything, because we might find a use for it in our ministry. They stay up all night copying the wretched things! Those folk deserve a medal, for all the love and care they put into organising this conference.

So - let me encourage you - if you can make it in 2011 - DON'T MISS LEADERS TO GO!!

Profile: The Diggers - Grades 3-6 at our 11am meeting

The Diggers are a great bunch - there are around 12 this year, and there are a lot of boys! Usually our group time starts with an energetic game - seems to help with being more settled afterwards... We don't have a lot of room, our meeting place is one of the church foyers, bright and pleasant with lots of cushions on the floor, but pretty squeezy; so we head outside and use the paved entrance on Lygon Street for relays, hopscotch, trust games etc.



Then we head inside and have something to munch on - to replace all that expended energy! Then we look at the Bible - we've just finished a series about God's faithfulness, looking at how he kept his promise to do good to Abraham and his descendants, when Abraham was so old he thought he could never have a baby, and when Isaac was getting on and still hadn't found a suitable girl to marry; and finally last week, when Jacob sneakily tricked his older twin and his father into giving him the inheritance and blessing that belonged to Esau. We thought about our families and our world, where people can be horrible to each other; but God doesn't give up on us, he still keeps his promises; so we prayed about bullying and wars and families where brothers and sisters are mean to each other.



This coming Sunday we start a new series, but also the Diggers are bringing their favourite songs to church to share with each other - we'll be asking, what do you like about that song - why's it your favourite? We think this will be a good way to get to know each other better. With so many boys, I'm guessing we'll get an interesting selection of songs!