mountain masala

Alive@5 Plays!

Last Sunday's Alive@5 was on the theme of Play, chosen as an expression of the season of Easter. Since our "Interactive Easter" event obviously had sombre elements, this evening was more about celebration.Our minister, Phil, has just started long service leave, so this has been a good prompt to involve others more in the planning and leadership, and to work on some changes that we've talked through prior to him going away.

One key change is to have one or more arrival activities, on the basis that people with children almost never arrive on time. While Messy Church does this, our overall program/approach differs, in that we want people to experience the biblical narrative in some way/s before they explore/respond, for several reasons...

So we started with parachute games (above) as folk arrived, and we have several play activities on tables.

The introduction consisted of a number of short and mainly funny video clips about play - most were TV ads - among them highlighting the need to spend time together and that might mean turning off the "screen" among other things.

Alive@5 in May

Interactive Easter

We ran our second Interactive Easter event at Rosefield last night. Not sure how many turned up, but the place was comfortably busy. We run 5-7pm and most people arrived in the first 45 mins.

Here's a rundown on the program with some photos and downloads. I didnt get to take photos of everything, and our resident photographer was absent.

Download Program Handout and Activity Posters (cover photo courtesy of jonny baker).

1. Easter Palms

We made Palm leaves and Palm crosses in the foyer of the church. This also serves as a 'holding area' prior to people coming in for the plenary activity. Palm leaf details. Video on making palm crosses.

2. Songs and Story

Jo, Emma, Elena and Peter both performed and taught some songs. Gillian Powis told the Palm Sunday story, first as biblical narrative, and secondly from the perspective of the two donkeys, with on-screen visuals.

3. Crafty Easter

Helen and David led some craft activities - making Easter cards and other stuff. You know, cutty pasty things.

3. Arty Easter

People were invited to paint an image (icon) of Jesus on a tile.

interactive easter

coming soon to a church near me...

 

 Download Interactive Easter Poster (A4 low-resolution) 900kb

Download Interactive Easter Poster (A4 high-resolution) 8 mb

Alive@5 March

another website makeover happening

nextgenerations.org.au

not at all sure about this header... likely to change. and a whole lot more work to be done on this site too, but at least its looking better.

Alive@5 starting for 2012

Our monthly family faith gathering kicks off this coming Sunday.

Here's our new promo poster for our local community (low-res version). 500kb PDF

 

Interactive Christmas 'Stations'

Here's the detail of what we did last Sunday with Interactive Christmas. The event was open 5-7pm, with people coming and going when they chose. Unlike Interactive Easter, this time we channelled everyone through the church. As they arrived they received a simple ' program' with map.(380kb PDF) This matched posters (33kb PDF) throughout the venue (icons from the excellent font Speed Bump from 3 Islands Press).

The First Angel - based on the angel coming to Zechariah. We had the text from Luke 1:5-23 (CEV) and a simple poem to introduce the journey. People made the angels that are described here. It was a good activity, but we only had two glue guns (which kids arent allowed to use themselves) and not enough helpers for the busy times. Next time I'd add a couple of face painters and have more helpers and equipment. The issue for us was that this area was a 'holding area' prior to the next activity, so people had to wait here until they were ushered into the next place.

Read on for more...

Interactive Christmas

I currently have three days off (annual leave) doing final prep for our Interactive Christmas" event this coming Sunday. As with the event that we ran last Easter, this will consist of a series of 'stations', most of which people can visit at their own pace. It has a bit of everything in it.

- music by some talented locals plus the remarkable Leigh Newton
- biblical storytelling by Sarah Agnew
- a 'Christmas around the world' activity where people share and learn about ways that Christmas is celebrated around the world
- a space to respond to the Christmas story using clay
- a display of images of the Christmas story from history and today and nativity scenes (this will be in a darkened room with light and video and hopefully cooler than it sounds...)
- making and decorating Christmas cookies to take and share as a gift
- an experiential re-telling of the shepherds' encounter with the angels
- a storytelling corner with story books and Rory's Story Cubes (I'm adding some additional images to some of the faces)
- some other Christmas crafts
- a reflective activity using 'stars' and inviting reflection on hope
- a Jesse tree on which to hang peace prayers
- a live nativity (featuring Luci, Mark and baby Anna - aka Jesus) and Athena speaking a reflection that I havent written yet
- iPhone video loop of short Christmas-related clips (iPhone in box with headphone hub)
- outdoor sausage sizzle

I'm using angels as an icon throughout the event, and starting with people making angels to travel with them and whisper to them along the way. I'm not a craft person, but I decided to hunt online myself for angel ideas, as I didnt want anything too tacky. The following is not what was in my mind's eye (but that involved glass and metal and other kid-unfriendly things). So here's my own angel design:

- polystyrene head and body. head glued to body
- a pin through the head into the body
- hair glued to head
- pipe cleaner wrapped around ribbon and then glued to body

We used a glue gun and that seemed to hold.

The idea is that people can then decorate the angel with coloured felt pens.

Grace designed some wise men for her uni are portraits, and we've scanned these, tidied them up and  getting them enlarged and printed on fabric to display.

so it's all happening. will let you know how it goes.

 

parenting and school achievement

Here's an article in the New York Times by Howard Friedman: "How About Better Parents?" suggesting that policy makers look beyond school performance as contributors to academic achievement in young people.It is based on OECD research concerning standardised academic testing of middle school students in the US.

There's a full report here.

The  main findings:

- children whose parents read to them in their early primary schooling scored better in high school academic tests, regardless of the family's socio-economic background

- parent's engagement with their teenagrs is strongly associated with better academic performance

The latter includes often diascussing political or social issues, and discussing books, film or television programs

This does not seem to be rocket science, and indeed reflects the broader based research of Search Institute over the last 30 years. However there is clearly an issue in helping anf encouring parent.s particularly those less inclined or able to read themselves, to do so. This would certainly be true in Australia as well.

It raises the question of how churches might partner with parents in these two key areas.

Thanks to Gene R for the link.