Here are a few resources designed to help you reflect on the theme of the Holy Spirit with your family this week. If there are any other ways in which we might help you in your homes this week please make contact and ask.
An All-Age Prayer for your family
Source: Spill The Beans Issue 34
Perhaps this week you can light a candle when you gather for a meal as a family, every time giving thanks to God for the gift of the day and sharing with each other how you have experienced love today.
On the birthday of the Church,
we celebrate the sending of your Spirit.
We tell strange stories
about tongues of fire
and wonky disciples.
These are more than odd stories about
odd people and odd events.
These are stories of your grace and your people.
We are also your people,
and these are also our stories.
Like them,
we get confused.
Like them,
we wonder
how such Spirit-fueled love is possible.
And like them,
we can be afraid.
Send your spirit among us,
and breath your peace upon us.
Help us to discover your love for us.
Help us to discover our love for each other.
Help us to remember our love for ourselves.
Amen.
Illustrated Ministry – Pentecost Poster
Wanting to bring some colour into your homes?
Acts (Remix)
This is an audio mix of the reading from Acts with a music background. It might not be for everyone, but I’ve travelled with it a lot this week and have enjoyed it enough to share it with you this week.
Holy Moly – Pentecost
This is an awesome retelling of the story of pentecost by the people behind Holy Moly by We Are Sparkhouse
Questions For Converstion
- What language do you speak? Many people speak more than one language, ask someone you know to teach you some words in another language.
- Find a map of the world. Christians live all over the world, pick a country in the world, what can you find out about the way that christians live and worship in that country? What looks familiar? What is different?
Reform – Holy Spirit
This is a great conversation starter, perfect for a household to sit around and engage with. How much do you talk about the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit – A Godly Play Story
Godly Play is a multi sensory storytelling practice inviting the hearer to enter into the story and wonder. This story invites us to reflect on the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, after watching the story you might learn to retell it with each other this week.
Family Activity / Discussion
Source: Spill The Beans Issue 34
This is another bible passage that can be a challenging read because it is so wonderfully graphic (and sonic) on the one hand and yet, for many it seems such an unimaginable kind of thing to happen. So how might we understand these images in a world that is today far more rational?
Perhaps one way we can engage with it is to understand how the disciples felt. Each day up to now they had found themselves standing on new ground: miracles, healings, facing the religious authorities, crucifixion and now resurrection. Perhaps the vividness of this story suggests the whole movement of faith is to invite us always onto new ground because the kingdom is waiting for us there.
- Taking that leap of imagination, discuss together a few things you can do as a family to be responsible for in your neighbourhood or school:
- How might you seek opportunities where you can put yourself in positions where you are open to the Spirit of God’s leading?
- How might you put yourselves outside your comfort zone as a family?
- How might you dare invite yourself into places where you feel vulnerable and open towards others and then see what happens?
As a project from now until the end of winter, design a plan so your family can experience something more dramatic in the church than the usual Sunday or weekly happenings.
- What new place could you go to visit to experience something totally different?
- It might be something spiritual, such as a cathedral, a different form of worship, a labyrinth. It might be a community project, helping with the homeless, speaking to asylum seekers, engaging with a mental health project.
- Having experienced this ‘new ground’ how might you then respond?
Ideas might be to promise to support that venture with weekly volunteering, writing letters, leading prayers on the topic in church, speaking to leaders of the congregation to create a bigger project. - Once this has been agreed, how might you tell the story of how you got there and then keep people informed?
Breath Lines
In Genesis we read the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the waters…
We also read the Ruah of God, the breath of God, the wind of God was breathed into the creation, it gives us life.
Spend some time this week reflecting on your breath together, this simple practice invites you to draw your breath, perhaps in this act you may be able to experience the presence of God.