Looking for ideas please!

[graceandbeauty]

Hi everyone,

We are a Christian family living overseas and have no access to church/Sunday school. We would like to have our own "church" at home but have no idea how to go about this and no experience of teaching children either.

Does anyone know any good resources or a simple way to go about this?

Thanks.

Hi, you could have a look at the resources that Scripture Union have for sale also I have found a great online store called eden (.co.uk, I think) that sell pretty much everything you could imagine, there are also great resources on the internet - I can't remember specific wwebsites but when I've been planning sunday school I've done searches by topic and loads of sites have come up. You can also get some really good kids Bible reading notes, from preschool upwards, also from Scripture Union. it might also be worth checking out kcm.org (Kenneth Copeland ministries) I think they do materials for a whole youth programme. Try to make it fun, kids learn through play. I'm sure whatever you do will be good but I would also recommend trying to contact other Christians in your area, it's important to have fellowship with other believers if you can. Hope you find the right resources for your family.

Thanks, I'll go and have a look at those. Anything we can print directly from the internet will be ideal as we can't order online and have things sent (no address or postal service).

I would love to meet other Christians - there is a small Christian minority but also a language barrier to consider.

Some churches live-feed their services on the internet. I know that's not exactly what you are looking for at the minute, but you may want a service sometime in the future.

Thanks sounds great, thank you.

Hi there
We sometimes have church at home (also overseas) and it's quite nice although I don't think I'd want to do it all the time. For example we would start with a prayer, maybe read something or re-tell something from the bible (DCs are 6, 4 and 1), talk about it a bit, perhaps sing some songs and finish with another prayer. I might also try and find a colouring sheet or something similar on the theme.

If you google sunday school materials or sunday school crafts there are quite a few (mostly american) sites with materials, and also lots of the US homeschool sites cover Christian materials that you would adapt.

tbh I'd try and find some fellowship, even if there's a language barrier (are you learning the local language?) or many cities have International fellowships that meet once or twice a month and have services in English. Is there anything like that where you are?

We sometimes do 'family church' when we are away or can't get to church for whatever reason. We have some great children's music (our favourite is Colin Buchanan) that we put on the Cd player, choose a bible story, read it through and then act it out, then talk about it and finish with a prayer and some more singing. If you are confident putting something together yourself, that would be all you need, I guess, but if you would like a bit more help, there is lots of online material.

There is a whole Sunday School syllabus available called Praise Factory which looks complicated but is very thorough and has lots of good ideas. If you want to get something simpler, you could try Table Talk from the Good Book Company. It is basically a short family devotional which is very simple and which is great to do as a family even if you can get to church. The same site has lots of material for children and you can buy another Sunday School syllabus there. They may have samples you can download to try before you buy. And they sell CDs of kids' music as well.

All the best with hunting something down!

That gives me loads to go on, thanks again. We have lots of worship music on the ipod so we always listen to that with the dcs, and also read bible stories with them at bedtime. They would enjoy the occasional craft/colouring acitvity.

thanksamillion there are also safety issues with attending church where we are, it's all a bit sensitive, but we might do it sometimes. I would like to.

Are there any other expats where you are? Not necessarily British, but perhaps there are other Christians in the ex-pat community that might be interested in getting together once a month or so to worship? I'm just thinking that if the authorities where you are are heavy handed with local Christians they may not be too bothered with what the expat community are up to as long as you're not actively evangelising/recuiting locals to join you IYSWIM.

Yes that could be possible. We haven't been there very long so hopefully we'll get to know some other Christians. I know it's a little fussy, but in places we've lived before, even if there was a church community, it can be so different from what we're used to. We have found it really hard to fit into churches with massive cultural differences, so although we are prepared to try, we still want to do something at home which fits our culture and personalities.