Blessing our children

This week, as we talked about the good things that we have in our lives, it struck me how important it is to let the children know that God is watching over them and wants to bless them.

With the 5-11s we have spoken a lot about how God can speak to us in pictures or words or ideas he puts into our head when we pray and listen to Him.  We've also talked a bit about how, when reading the Bible, certain things might 'jump out' at us that help us in our lives.  

Recently we had a prayer tent at the Olympic torch celebration in Nottingham and one of the things we offered was folded up blessings from the Bible that people could just pick out of a bowl and be blessed by.  It was amazing how many people picked out a blessing that was directly relevant to what was happening in their life!

So I've made some blessings for the children in a similar way...

I took 6 verses from the Easy To Read version of the Bible and printed off some copies of each

These are the verses I used: 

• Jeremiah 29: 11- Good plans
• Isaiah 40:31- strength
• Isaiah 41:10- don't be afraid
• 1 Peter 5:7- give worries to God
• John 14:27- peace
• Psalm 46:1- help in trouble

I then cut the verses into strips, folded them and put them in a gift bag.  

We will use them in a guided session about blessing, but then the bag will be available on Sunday mornings during our prayer station time so that children can take a blessing when they want to.  We'll just trust God to help them pick the one that speaks most to them!