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Did you know that most children spend 21,600 seconds a day, 108,000 a week and 4,320,000 a year at primary school? Times that by 6 years at primary school and you get 25,920,000 seconds all up!
All that time in school, our children are talking, thinking, interacting, learning, experiencing, and developing. They are shaping ideas and forming values that will last them their whole lives. The primary school years are so important for children and yet our schools sit unnoticed by their local church.
Why not encourage your church to be more involved in your local school? It’s a great way to connect with children and families that do not come near your church. It is also a great way to serve your community and especially your school.
Obviously, we need to be careful how we go about this and realize that building connections takes time. All good things start with prayer and there is no time like now to be praying for our local schools.
Mother Teresa’s words are good to keep in mind here: It’s not how much we do, but the love we put in the doing. It’s not how much we give, but the love we put in the giving.
This edition of the WAY2GO magazine contains ideas for connecting with your local school and community and involving your whole church in this.
Liz Eichler Children and Families Team Leader, SUNZ
connecting PRACTICAL STEPS FOR WITHYOURlocalschool
• Offer your church buildings for the school production or a special assembly. Make it a good experience for all who come by having someone there to greet the children, staff, and parents as they arrive.
• Donate some books to the school library. Any decent quality books will be appreciated although your school may have a list of ones it wants. Make a colourful card on your computer. Glue it in the front of each book so that the children know who gave it to them.
• Take morning tea into the staffroom once a term. Just leave it there with a card saying who it is from.
• Encourage selected people to offer to help in a classroom once a week or go in at the end of term and help clean out paint pots or do general tidying.
• Stand for the Board of Trustees or the Parent Teacher Association.
• If you are a parent, go on school outings and attend events, and enjoy getting to know the children and other parents.
• Get together with a group of others and pray for your local schools. Remember to pray in your church services too.
• Run a Free Family Fun Day for the children and families in your area.
CHILDREN CAN schoolspray
1. discuss
a. What is prayer for? Accept all answers
b. Share that God has given us prayer as a powerful tool for doing His work here on earth and helping our world to be the way He wants it to be.
2. explore
a. What sort of place would God want your school to be? Help them focus using questions like these:
• How does God want us to treat each other?
• What should our attitude towards schoolwork be?
FOR THEIR
b. Look at some Bible verses together about how God wants us to live:
• Matthew 7:12
• Romans 12:17-18
• Philippians 2:3-4, 14
• Philippians 4:8
• Colossians 3:12-14
• 1 Thessalonians 5:14
3. imagine
Imagine God’s ideal school. Let the Bible verses shape this thinking.
4. write
a. If your children are not used to praying, help them write sentence prayers. Write them on paper for them to pray.
b. Questions can help here:
• How would we ask God to help everything in your school be fair and right?
• How could we pray that God will help your school be peaceful?
c. You may need to help the children understand that while God is not human, we can talk to him the way we talk to other people.
5. pray
a. Let the children read the written prayers to get them started.
b. You could encourage them to add a sentence prayer of their own if they want to.
c. Keep it short and fast moving so they are keen to do it again.
Resources
Start the year off with a new Bible reading habit.
XTB (EXPLORE THE BIBLE) MIRACLES & DREAMS
63 days of devotions & activities for primaryaged children.
Meet Jacob the Schemer and Joseph the Dreamer in the book of Genesis. Zoom in on Matthew and Acts to find out who Jesus is and why he came.
$10
DISCOVER
3 months of undated devotions with puzzles, codes, and prayers, for readers 11-13 years
Genesis: God's great promises
Philippians: Living for Jesus
Elisha: God's messenger
Mark: Sensational Saviour
$10
Available from sunz.org.nz/ shop
ENGAGE
Devotions for teenagers - 3 months of undated readings. In this Issue: Romans - Basic Christianity
Exodus - Big clean up Luke - Doctor's orders
Psalms - Singing God's praises
PLUS: Drugs and alcohol, Taking the Bible seriously, Real Lives, Toolbox, Tricky questions
$10
LOOKING FOR MORE RESOURCES AND INSPIRATION?
Check out our SUNZ Children and Families blogspot and Breakthrough websites childrenandfamiliesnz.blogspot.com | sunzbreakthrough.squarespace.com