Children and Families - Scripture Union NZ

Every year on the first weekend of June, Viva hosts a weekend of prayer for children around the world. This campaign unites hundreds of thousands of adults and children across more than 40 countries.  The next event takes place on 4-5 June 2022.  This year, the weekend falls on the same weekend as Pentecost. The theme is 'Stronger Together'. The Viva website has a range of resources in different languages, which are free to download.  Here's this year's resource in English.  

  Easter weekend is done and dusted, all the chocolate eggs and hot cross buns eaten. But if you thought the festivals of the church calendar were over until Advent or maybe Christmas... just wait, there’s more… The Three Great Feasts or Festivals traditionally conclude the season of Easter and usher in the season of Pentecost. Three Sundays worth of interesting sounding titles and theological concepts that continue to challenge and stretch us today. Ascension Day (13 May) is 40 days after Easter Sunday and so is on a Thursday, but can be observed on the following Sunday. Pentecost Sunday (23 May) follows Ascension 10 days later. Trinity Sunday (30 May) deals with one of the biggest theological concepts of all time, but provides an opportunity to simply acknowledge that we don’t know or understand everything and never will, and that’s okay. These three family devotions require nothing but yourselves, but include additional resource ideas, and it is my hope and prayer that the th...

Pentecost Sunday is the 23rd of May.  Pentecost Sunday is a great opportunity to get creative, to be joyful and to learn a little church history!    In preparing for an intergenerational service for Pentecost Sunday, I  made a rather inspiring discovery, Holy Spirit Holes! In the ceilings of some cathedrals are these holes, trapdoors actually. During the celebration of Pentecost, live doves and red rose petals were dropped through these holes to swoop and fall on the congregation below.  Imagine the drama of it all!  So, I created a service to explore this idea. There are no live doves involved so don't worry about terrifying your church or the clean up job required for all that bird poo.  All you need is here:  Holy Spirit Holes

  Here are two great resources for exploring Pentecost Sunday!  Church-based Children's Programme: If you are planning to explore the story of Pentecost in your children's programme than this little resource might be just what you are looking for. It includes story ideas, using a bull roarer ( a wooden disk on the end of a string ), eating grapes and much much more! (For more on taonga puoro, Maori musical instruments, click here ). Thanks to Bex Davies for sharing her programme outline with us. You can download it for free from our dropbox by clicking here! All Age Service resource: Pentecost Sunday is a great opportunity to get creative, to be joyful and to learn a little church history! In preparing for an All Age service for Pentecost Sunday, I made a rather inspiring discovery, Holy Spirit Holes! In the ceilings of some cathedrals are these holes, trapdoors actually. During the celebration of Pentecost, live doves and red rose petals were dropped through these ...