Category Archives: church

12 Reasons to welcome kids in church + tips for how to actually do it! | Sacraparental.com

12 Reasons to Welcome Kids in Church + Tips for Actually Doing It

Sure, kids don’t belong everywhere. They’re not a symphony orchestra’s target audience (except when they are). The tense whispers of snooker commentators suggest that toddlers wouldn’t be welcome at tournament finals. But babies and children are legally entitled to be all sorts of places that aren’t always built with them in mind, including, say, courthouses […]

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Lent with Kids: How to Create a Household Lent Plan

In 2023, Lent begins Wednesday, 22 February We’re spoilt by the church calendar at this time of year! We’ve just had four weeks of candle-lighting at Advent, culminating, in our household, with this delightful moment on Christmas Day: Now we’re coming to the end of the two-week Christmas season, and then it’s only a month […]

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‘We Refuse to be Enemies’ #5: How Can We Help? [Guest]

This is the final post from guest writer Chris Chamberlain. See the whole series list here. We must be careful how we read Scripture What I would call a ‘Zionist’ reading of Scripture seems to take a verse with no regard for its context, and apply it to the modern State of Israel. This is […]

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A Blue Christmas Service: If You’re Hurting at Christmas

What is a Blue Christmas Service? Guest writer Melanie recently reflected on the process of putting together a Blue Christmas service at Frenchs Forest Baptist Church, where she is a pastor: The concept of a Blue Christmas Service was new for me this year. The idea behind the services is to provide a quiet, contemplative service […]

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10 Things I Learned from Preparing a Blue Christmas Church Service [Guest]

A warm welcome to guest poster, Melanie Carroll, who is writing today about the Blue Christmas service she ran on the weekend. Melanie is married to Sean and has two young adult children. She trained at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand, but is currently living across the ditch in Sydney where she is […]

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The 4 Cutest Nativity Videos in the World (Honest)

I know the title is a big call, but I’ll eat a suitcase of carrots if you can beat these 🙂 As I said in a post last Christmas, partly about the differences between Southern and Northern Hemisphere Christmas celebrations: St Paul’s Anglican Church in central Auckland is blessed to have some very artistically and […]

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The Christmas Promise, by Alison Mitchell, illustrated by Catalina Echeverri

Top 10 Christmas Picture Books (that Feature Jesus)

From Rudolf and Santa to Slinky Malinki and the proverbial Pukeko in a Punga Tree, there’s a Christmas picture book for everyone. In most bookshops, though, Baby Jesus is hidden behind Grinches, trains and elves. If you’re in the market for Christmas books for kids that tell the story of God coming into the world as […]

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Women in Ministry: The Church’s Missing Workforce

At the moment in my corner of the church world (I’m a Kiwi Baptist), the number of our 250-odd churches in New Zealand led by a woman (as the sole or senior pastor) is in single figures. Low single figures. It seems likely that by the end of the year there will be only two such churches […]

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