Children and Families - Scripture Union NZ

Reminders of God’s Faithfulness In Joshua we read that God saved the Hebrew people by leading them through the Jordan River. They found themselves safely on the other side. The LORD then told their leader Joshua to instruct the leaders of the twelve tribes to pick up a stone each and carry it back to camp. Joshua used these twelve stones to create a memorial. We read,  “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’  tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant  of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.  These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”  Joshua 4:6-7 These stones were a physical reminder of a spiritual moment. Every time their children saw them it acted like a prompt. The pile of stones created an opportunity for their family to talk together about the past and God’s faithfulness.  What are your ...

These are four quick ideas you can use to explore the Christmas story with children. They accompany photographs that I took in Israel in 2011. We want children to understand that the events of Christmas are not a fairytale. They happened in a real time and place, to real people.  __________________________________________________________________   Spot it! Print out pictures of Bethlehem and Nazareth as they look today, or download copies of the photos mentioned below. As a small group, look at the photos. Count how many differences you can spot between Bethlehem or Nazareth today and what it would have been like in Jesus’ day. Israel photos: Click on the photo's name to download the photo from our dropbox file:  Bethlehem today Nazareth today __________________________________________________________________ Create it!  In Israel, beautiful churches have been built in places where the Christmas story happened. They have amazi...

When a new baby is born, everyone wants to visit. People bring gifts and they take photographs. When Jesus was a baby some of the first visitors to meet him were these young guys who looked after sheep for a living. Some of them stayed in the fields to make sure the sheep we re okay, and a group of them travellled into Bethlehem to find this baby that the angels told them about.  This is a photograph of a painting of the shepherds. In this photograph the shepherd is an older man. Can you see how he carries the little lamb safe on his shoulders? They would have been a bit smelly. They lived out in the fields, with sheep for company. No showers, no soap and probably no change of clothes. But that doesn’t matter to God. You see, the Christmas story is full of people who weren’t famous or grea t leaders or seen as important. That’s what make it so amazing. God sent angels to tell the shepherds about the saviour of the world. Not Herod, not Augustus. Shepherds.  Do yo...

Now: These photos are taken of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; the place some people think is where Jesus was born. It is the oldest Church in Israel that is still used, and one of the oldest churches in the world. The church is actually several churches connected together. You can see how they look different.I wonder which one is your favourite and why?     The door into the church is called the door of humility.  That’s because it is so small you have to bend down to go through it.  It was made smaller by the Crusaders during the Middle Ages to stop mounted horsemen riding into the church. In the photo on the left you can see the outline of where an older doorway was.     Something to think about: People build churches as a place to meet together with other Christians and to meet with God. The decorations of the church help people to stop and be calm, to think and pray.  One of the churches in the photos is dark,...

Luke 2:1-4 About that time Emperor Augustus gave orders for the names of all the people to be listed in record books… Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. So Joseph had to leave Nazareth in Galilee and go to Bethlehem in Judea. The kind of landscape Joseph and Mary would have had to travel through. Life goes on as normal. Talk of angels and babies dies down, and people get back to normal life. But what about Joseph? It must have been a huge shock to him to find out Mary was going to have a baby. Everyone waits to hear that Joseph has called off the wedding. No one would blame him. But he is a good man. And he doesn’t give up on Mary.  Joseph is an important part of this story. He still wants to marry her and help her to raise the baby that Mary is carrying. And then everything gets tense and crazy! The emperor Augustus, the ruler of Rome, has given an order. Now, what you need to know is that the Romans are in charge of Israel. They are in charge of...

Luke 1:39-40: A short time later Mary hurried to a town in the hillcountry of Judea. She went into Zechariah’s home, where she greeted Elizabeth. Mary has left town. Her family have packed up, and loaded up the family pack donkey. You hear that they are walking to visit family in the south. That’s a journey of about four or five days walking. That’s a long way, and it’s a dangerous journey as robbers often hide out in caves along the way, ready to attack people travelling along the road. And Mary will have to walk all this way. Just as well people are used to walking, and she is fit and strong. Mary is going to visit her cousin Elizabeth and stay there until it is time for her cousins baby to be born. Now : This is what the hill country of Judea looks like. The hill country of Jud ea is a range of hills about 800 metres above sea level.  It is a barren and difficult region to get in and out of.  And Mary travels through it. She must have been very tou...