Hi. We hope you enjoy catching up!
Welcome and thank you for joining us. If this is your first time at The Oak, hello, we hope you enjoy our time together today.
Our plan today is to start by worshipping together (song words will be on-screen). After that, there'll be a time of prayer and news, followed by a short talk.
There are materials on this page for our 0-3's (The Nest), Preschool to Year 6 (Treehouse) and Year 7+ (Oak Youth) to help the whole family grow together.
Happy Sunday, see you at 10.30am!
News
Sundays at The Oak moving forward
We want to be very aware of everybody, and fully recognise that everyone is responding differently to the lifting of the restrictions. We want to care for and respect each other in how we gather and connect as a church during this next season.
From next week (5th September) we'll be taking our next steps forward. We'd love you to join us back inside where we'll be restarting our kids work in person and joining together upstairs to worship God! Masks will still be highly encouraged when moving around the building and when singing. The marquee will remain up for socialising after our gathering for the time being, but the TV won't be streaming our gathering. For those who are unable to return back in person, or for those who are needing to isolate, we will be continuing to live stream online moving forward.
This is a significant and exciting time for us as a church as we get to gather, worship God, and be family together in the same space, but we also recognise that for many it may take time to adjust and get used to that again. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has played such vital roles in helping us as a church gather and connect over this past season - thank you!
Staycation - SAVE THE DATE
We hope to have a Staycation later in the year on the 16th October. Please put the date in your diary!
Ways to connect
Click here to see all our community WhatsApp and Facebook groups.
Family resources
You can view all of our resources by clicking here, including content from previous weeks, songs, videos and recommended books!
The NestPrayer Week 5
0-3's
This is our final week learning about prayer which is another word for talking to God.
If you have a chance, take a look at this 2 minute video about chatting to God with young children (see the video here). We would also recommend watching this video as well if you have time, you will need to create a login to watch it, but it is free and this video and the whole course are really fantastic (see the video here).
As a quick overview, we are going to be thinking about this concept of ‘chatting’ to God which is taken from the Parenting for Faith course and books (which we would really recommend). ‘Chatting’ encourages children to use informal language, as well as non-verbal forms, to communicate with God. It’s about reinforcing our children’s understanding that they have their own relationship with God. All our activities this week hopefully will help with this.
Verse ‘Always be full of joy. Never stop praying. Whatever happens, always be thankful.’ 1 Thessalonians 5v16-18
Book My Very First Prayers by Gabrielle Mercer (see link here). Tamsin, one of our Nest team, has recorded a wonderful video of this term’s story using Makaton signs (see the video here).
Songs For this term please choose whichever are your favourite songs from our Nest resources page (see the videos here).
Activity 1 This is a chance to practice chatting to God with your child. We are going to include this activity each week of the prayer term and although it might feel a bit awkward at first, we hope that with a bit of practice this will become easier and help to encourage our children to chat to God themselves. Your child naturally learns by copying you and we want to show them that they can have their own relationship with God. It is also something we can try to do every day by letting our children see and hear us chatting to God out loud. For example ‘Thank you God for this dinner I am making, I really love spaghetti, God isn’t it funny that it looks a bit like wiggly worms!’.
Grab a cushion and ask a question (some ideas are below). Then tell God your answer into your cushion and encourage your child to do the same. If children are non-verbal or don’t want to speak then you could suggest the following: God is a proud parent just like us, who wants to see their new skills, so they might want to show Him how they can clap their hands or the funniest face they can make. Just remember to keep directing it as communication with God, not a performance for you.
What is your favourite animal? What did you have for breakfast today? Who is in your family? What is your favourite colour? Do you like singing or dancing? What food do you love to eat? What is your favourite toy? Do you like it when it’s sunny or rainy?
Activity 2 Make some paper dolls (see example here). Decorate these with whatever things you have available, you could colour them in, cut and stick items on, paint them etc. Either create them to look like people your child would like to thank God for, or while you are decorating talk with your child about people we can thank God for or ask God to help.
TreehouseBig Questions - Does prayer change anything?
Preschool - Year 6
Yes yes and yes … Prayer changes everything!
Your prayers are powerful
Your prayers can change people’s lives
Your prayers can change this world and change you!
We are called to pray!
We won’t stop!
We can’t stop!
As our prayers go up – it’s Jesus who provides!
This video was about ending World Poverty but whatever is in your heard and mind I was to set you a challenge to pray about it!
Maybe you want to pray for someone who is sick, but not just once, but again and again! With faith until they are well!
Maybe you want to pray for someone who is sad, mad happy or glad.
Maybe you want to pray for someone to find Jesus?
Maybe you want to pray for people without homes?
Maybe you want to pray for your friends at school?
I ask you today – to choose to pray! Even when you feel nothing is happening. Jesus hears your prayers and listens! Does prayer change anything? Absolutely yes!
Worship:
Why not share what you've been up to on the Treehouse Parents Facebook Group?Oak Youth
Year 7+
Content coming soon
