www.loanheadparishchurch.co.uk/christmas has some good Christmas ideas…

with every good wish and blessing to all visitors this Christmas time.  500+ every day…  and rising to 1500 a day at the weekend!  Thank you to all who have supported the “Engcongolweni Water Project” – hopefully in 2011 we will be able to bring clean piped water to the church & community in Engcongolweni, Northern Malawi.

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submitted: Laura Ewers

required: Jar of Slime! coins.

suitable at Christmas time.

Preparation:  Fill a clear large sweet jar with a mixture of washing up
liquid, water, cooked spaghetti, baked beans, food colouring, tin of
lychees and anything else that will look and feel nasty (water retaining
crystals used in hanging baskets are great).  Drop a £1 coin into the
mixture and hide the jar from the congregation. Put a 20p and 50p in
your pocket.

Ask the congregation if they’d like 20p.  The first person to respond,
throw them a 20p.  Take out a 50p and offer it in the same way.  Finally
ask who’d like £1.  This time ask the person to come forward and then
produce the jar of slime (for more impact we wrapped the jar in wrapping
paper and then watched as the child’s face turn from pleasure to horror
as they unwrapped their ‘present’!).  Explain that the pound is in the
jar and all they have to do is reach into the slime and pull it out.  As
they place their hand in ask questions like ‘can you feel the veins?’,
‘are there any eyeballs in there?’, ‘did you know there was frogspawn
this time of year?’ etc… 

Once the money is retrieved explain that, …… thought the coin was
valuable enough to go through the slime to reach, and that God thinks
the same of us.  The slime is representative of sin – dirty, smelly etc
– but he saw the value in us and reached down to save us.

You might also find helpful ideas at:

www.loanheadparishchurch.co.uk/christmas

required – Christmas Bauble & Polo or similar mint with hole.

Sometimes it seems that Christmas has a hole in it!  Something is missing!   In the midst of all the food and presents – we can forget what should be at the centre.  Here’s a decoration that we SHOUDN’T put on the tree – show the "mint with the hole" – all sweet on the outside – but nothing in the centre.  What is at the centre of Christmas… God’s love for the whole world… Baubles on the tree remind us of this… So let’s celebrate not a HOLEY Christmas… but a HOLY Christmas as we remember God’s love for the WHOLE world.

required: Cracker – with hat/gift and joke.

Who’d like to pull a cracker..?
Before we do – what do you think is in it..?
What colour is the hat?
No-one knows exactly what’s inside this cracker – it’ll be a surprise…
[Pull the cracker]
Gift…  wise men brought gifts…  Jesus is God’s gift to us…
Hat…  Crown…  Jesus was born to be King
Joke…  Christmas is very serious -  no joke… and brings joy to the world

submitted: Bryan Kerr

required: Wrapped Chocolate Orange

Who likes to eat lots of food at Christmas time?
Did anyone get any sweets for Christmas this morning, perhaps in their stocking?
What sweets did you get?
I got the best sweet in the whole world. What do you think it is? Invite responses from the congregation.
It is a chocolate orange. Hands up if you like chocolate oranges? I like them because when you eat it you can almost convince yourself that because it is called an orange it is good for you … even although you know that it is not.
But I like chocolate oranges from another reason. Did you know that it helps us think about Christmas?
At Christmas time we remember that Jesus came to the world to be a king for everyone. What do kings and queens wear? Ask for responses. Whenever I think about kings and queens I always think of them wearing jewels and sparkling things – just like the wrapper around the chocolate orange.
Can anyone remember what the angels said in our reading this morning? Invite responses They said that something amazing had happened not just for some people but for the whole world. And look at the shape of our chocolate orange – it looks like our world, a very small globe because of its shape. So the chocolate orange helps us to remember that Jesus came to earth for everyone and not just those in churches or those we think are good people.
The best bit about a chocolate orange is how you eat it. Does anyone know what you need to do to get all the segments separate? Invite responses.  That’s right you have to hit it really hard or drop it from a great height. Do one of these things – maybe go up the pulpit steps and drop the orange over the side?!?
Now this is the really exciting bit of the chocolate orange. We get to open it!
Look at the orange now – it is in lots of little bits and when you take the wrapper off they all open up and we can eat them!  But I think this helps us remember what the angels said as well. When the shepherds heard the news they went straight to the stable where the baby Jesus had been born. And after they had seen the baby Jesus they went and told everyone that they met about him and shared the good news with all the people they met. You know, when we hear good news it is very difficult to keep it to ourselves and we want to tell others about it. At Christmas time we need to remember to share the good news of a king who was born for everyone in the world. We need to tell people how special the baby Jesus is and how important he is for the whole world.
And just as we need to share the story of our king, the baby Jesus, let’s share the chocolate orange – who wants a bit? …

submitted: Angela G

Imagine your birthday is coming up soon.  Your Mother tells you that you are to have a Party and it’s time to make plans. She gives you a blank piece of paper and asks you to make three columns headed as follows:- Guest List; Games; Food. Children will suggest ideas.  Big Day comes. Great excitement, house decorated with balloons, dining table set with great big Birthday cake, smell of sausage sizzling in oven etc. Scene is set and the party guests begin to arrive. You run out to the gate to meet a stream of excited children and they run on into the house.  As the last child comes to the gate you stop to lock it behind you and as you turn to go in you realise that everyone has gone in to the house and you are left behind.  You run up to the door, but the last person has slammed it shut- you can’t get in!  So you knock and bang at the door- no reply- you can hear all the laughter and fun. You know your favourite games are being played because you can see balloons being tossed in the air, but somehow through it all everyone has failed to notice you are not there- and you sit on the step with a heavy heart hoping someone will realise your absence. Isn’t this how Jesus must feel when he looks at the world today. Houses lit up inside and out. A fortune of money spent on the latest must have craze- perhaps the Wii. It’s Tinsel Time! It’s Santa Time! It’s Party Time! It’s Spending Time! It’s Celebration Time! It’s Holiday Time! – But what’s it all about?  It’s all about Jesus’ Birthday and yet for many people He is not the centre of it.  Let’s remember that Christmas is all about Jesus, his coming to earth as a tiny baby, born in a stable in Bethlehem to be the Saviour of the World. This Christmas Day let’s all focus our thoughts on God’s most precious gift to the world and say , ‘Happy Birthday Jesus’.

submitted: Paul Wood

Sort the children, or even ideally the whole congregation, into two teams.  If pew Bibles are available it is even more ideal!

The address is basically a general knowledge Bible quiz, but with trick questions.  It was born from watching Alan Davies frequently klaxoned on Q.I. on BBC2!  Questions such as:

1.  What kind of creature swallowed Jonah?  (Answer: a big fish.  5 points off for "Whale") 2.  How many of each animal did Noah take into the ark? (Answer: 7 of every clean animal, 2 of every unclean animal.  5 points off for "2").
3.  Where was Jesus born (5 points off for "Stable" which isn’t mentioned) 4.  How many magi visited Jesus? (5 points off for "3")

Each time tell the congregation the Bible reference after the wrong answer is revealed to show the true answer.

There are many other questions of this type that can be used for popular Bible stories that have been only partly told or even changed.  The point is that there is no substitute for reading, and getting to know, the Bible.

I have used this address a number of times and I always find that after the first couple of questions, the number of people with their hands up drops off very quickly!