Tracey and Pam, our editors, guide you through the highlights
of current and forthcoming issues. Plus links to highlights of issues in the archive.
Welcome to the November/December edition of Roots Adult & All-age.
In November, we continue our focus on passages from the Old Testament, exploring the wonderful stories of some strong Biblical women – Ruth, Naomi and Hannah. The Church year culminates with Christ the King on 24 November – an opportunity to explore how you picture Jesus.
In December, we begin a new Church year. This Advent, we’re focusing on the themes of hope, love, joy and peace. There’s the opportunity to follow two activities throughout the season – adding decorations to a Jesse tree and learning a new Advent song. Anna Creedon introduces these resources in Journeying through Advent.
It’s a busy time of year, full of Christmas fayres, school nativities, special services and well-loved traditions. If you would like to try something a little different for your Christmas programme, why not have a look at Steve Dixon’s A new take on Christmas carols? Steve presents creative suggestions for exploring the history and meaning of some familiar and less well-known carols as part of a service.
After welcoming Jesus on Christmas Day, we look forward to the new year. It’s a good time to review our spiritual growth over the past year, and to think about how we might grow even more in 2025.
If you’re planning all-age communion services for these months, don’t forget to check out our Remembrance and Advent Bread&Wine prayers linking to the themes of the weekly resources . Also take a look at top tips from Julia Burton-Jones and Katie Tupling to help you make your Communion services more accessible for those with dementia and disabilities.
Thank you for your support of Roots throughout 2024.
With every blessing for Advent, Christmas and the new year.
Welcome to the November/December edition of Roots Children & Youth.
We’re delighted to bring you even more ideas for exploring the Bible with children and young people. You’ll find new content examining the story of Ruth and Naomi, fresh inspiration from the songs of Hannah, Zechariah, Zephaniah and Mary, and we’ll ponder the pictures of Daniel as well as the teachings of Jesus. Our focus this Advent is on hope, love, joy and peace - there’s a regular Advent activity to build on these themes, week by week.
For children, we’ve produced a new ADVENTure resource that can be run as a one-off event or split up over the four weeks in your regular sessions. It includes plenty of fun challenges that are sure to be memorable and engaging.
And we’ve something special for young people too; a Christmas Bake Off that unpacks Advent and the Christmas story. You’ll need to do some forward-planning, but it will be worth it to have the pleasure of announcing Star Baker! For those working with very young children, we have a new Toddler nativity (COMING SOON!) plus suggestions about how to make your toddler group distinctively Christian (see p.3).
Thanks for all your positive feedback on Issue 130’s Easter trail for families. We already had our new Nativity trail in the pipeline, so we hope it is a blessing for your community at this busy time of year. And there’s plenty of other seasonal resources, including our latest Discovering God resource for Remembrance entitled War and Peace.
Roots always features specially commissioned artwork for our Bible stories and Activity sheets. We really enjoy looking for appealing ways to present timeless stories, so we hope you enjoy Michelle Barnett’s evocative take on Naomi and Ruth’s journey to Bethlehem (3-9 November).
A more traditional image, also by Michelle, can be found on the corresponding Activity sheet and Colouring sheet.
May you find hope, love, joy, and peace during this busy season. Every blessing.
Welcome to this edition of Roots!
It’s the start of a new education term and, for some of us, a return to work after the holidays. This year, Education Sunday takes place on 8 September and we have resources to help you pray for and bless all those who work in education and are returning to school or college.
It’s also the season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ and our thoughts turn towards Harvest. Christine Cattanach shares resources for holding an outdoor celebration focused on apples. Try the Apple quiz – who knew that there were so many varieties?
In our weekly material, we’re focusing in September on the practical yet challenging wisdom in the Letter of James (see also the accompanying Bread & Wine session: Following Jesus in the world) before moving on to a brief look at the story of courageous Esther. In October, we get to grips with the Book of Job. It’s not an easy read but covers themes of relevance today, such as the mystery of human suffering and the question, ‘Where is God when it hurts?’. There are no simplistic answers but we hope our materials will help your congregations to grapple with the questions. There is also an accompanying Bread & Wine session: I know that my Redeemer lives. Do read ‘Scripture in context’ for some ways into these texts, and see our specially written drama, One (massively) bad day for a contemporary take on Job and his ‘comforters’.
Elsewhere, Katie Tupling offers some pointers on avoiding ‘disability trip hazards’ in worship. And in our latest Bread & Wine Case Studies, Steve Taylor describes how his church has adapted their Communion service to meet the needs of an intercultural congregation in No favouritism: Intercultural communion and Daniel Trott explains how he celebrates Holy Communion with toddlers.
We hope you find much to inspire you in this issue.
Our September/October issue seems to have a ‘new term’ feeling! There lots of new resources to discover, including suggestions for celebrating Education Sunday and guidance for hosting school visits.
We often hear from readers who are looking to increase the Biblical literacy of their younger (and older!) church members by examining some of the less-familiar passages and stories. We’re delighted to provide engaging ways to explore teaching from the Letter of James, the suffering of Job, and the riveting story of Esther – depicted on our front cover. If you’d rather focus on the lectionary Gospel readings, our weekly themes are designed to tie in with the Gospel passages, so some of our fresh activities can be readily adapted for this purpose. You can use the Bible notes as a springboard and you can delve into our rich archive – just search by passage or lectionary week for a wealth of materials. And be assured that we will return to the Gospels in our forthcoming issues!
We know how much you appreciate seasonal resources for children and youth, so do enjoy the fun Space Quest light party outline. There’s plenty more too, including the new drama, activity sheets and templates to accompany this issue – so, we very much hope we’ve got you covered!
With every blessing
Welcome to the July/August edition of Roots!
This summer, we continue our journey through the story of David and his successor Solomon in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings. These readings contain enough drama to rival a soap opera.
We begin with David fulfilling his God-given destiny by becoming king and making Jerusalem his capital. We see the triumphant arrival of the Ark of the Covenant and the establishment of David’s royal line. But, like all good soap operas, there are some dramatic twists ahead. David’s bad choices lead to a spectacular fall from grace. He repents but there are long-lasting consequences. However, this set of readings ends on a high with the beginning of the reign of the wise Solomon and the building of a permanent place of worship. These themes have many contemporary resonances for our lives today and we hope you find exploring them fruitful.
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Warmer weather might tempt you out of your worship space and into the great outdoors. Read Celebrating Communion in creation if you’re curious about how to start and the benefits that might bring. And, if you’re planning other all-age Communion services, don’t forget our Bread & Wine resources which will enable you to build worship that ties in with the weekly themes.
The summer also promises to be full of sporting drama, with the Paris Olympics starting on 26 July. With school summer holidays on the horizon and hopefully some warmer weather too, this might be a great opportunity to put on a fun Olympic-themed event for your community. We have a fantastic resource to enable you to do just that: rootsforchurches.com/olympic-challenge
Churches at their best are inclusive communities, welcoming to all. In Dementia-friendly church, Julia Burton-Jones (Anna Chaplaincy’s Training and Development Lead) shares tips on making our churches more friendly and accessible to those with dementia and their supporters.
Whatever your plans, enjoy the summer!
The July/August 2024 issue of Roots Children & Youth is full of fresh ideas to see you through to the end of the school year and holidays. The weekly materials delve deeper into David’s story and that of his son, Solomon. If you’re new to Roots, check out the teaching poster we've provided to help share the story with your group(s).
Our latest drama A mansion for God gives a contemporary take on 2 Samuel 7, reminding us – like David – not to assume that we know God’s will, and instead make space for God to move in our lives. Do check out the Roots website for our latest dramas – there’s a new script to download with every issue.
Many churches are looking to boost connections with schools. Primary School leavers’ services provide a fantastic opportunity for churches to meet the needs of schools and strengthen relationships with pupils and staff. So, we’re delighted to provide Rooted in God’s love, an interactive service devised by Emma Anderton and Chelmsford Diocese, which can be readily adapted to your context.
This year we’ve partnered with God and the Big Bang to create Whizz! Bang! Wow! – a holiday club exploring some big questions around faith and science. There are plenty of games, crafts, songs, whizz-bang experiments, Bible stories and more, for children to discover and enjoy. Again, this is all about meeting the needs of children and young people, starting with the questions they are asking, while providing the means for them to become more confident in their faith.
Our latest Discovering God resource All who are thirsty can be used in a variety of settings; perhaps at a family fun day, a school event or even as a small group study. The water-based games, activities exploring water justice and reflective worship ideas remind us that we should seek to be resourced by Jesus, the water of life.
Best wishes for a refreshing July and August!
In Adult & All Age journey with us alongside the new Christian community in Acts as we come to the end of the Easter season. After Pentecost and Trinity, we return to Ordinary Time and continue our exploration of the Old Testament. We focus on the intertwined and dramatic stories of Samuel and David, both called from humble beginnings to serve God.
Father’s Day this year takes place on 16 June, which is also close to the start of the European Football Championships. Many footballing heroes will be taking to the pitch in the Euros and dads are often heroes within their families. In our all-age resource True Heroes, football fan Gill Page offers some hero-themed ideas and activities to help you engage all generations, both from within and outside your church community.
AI is having an increasing impact on all our lives, even in football, and there are implications for churches too. In The AI invasion: Preparing for a new era, technology expert James Poulter explores some of the potential benefits as well as highlighting some of the things we might need to be concerned about.
We continue our Bread & Wine Holy Communion resources, with prayers linked to the themes of this issue: Being filled with the Holy Spirit and Being led by God, to enable you to put together all-age Communion services linked to the Roots weekly material. Within this provision, Darren Philip considers how you can incorporate elements that cater for all spiritual styles in your Communion service.
And finally, if you’ve ever asked (or been asked!) tricky questions about the Trinity, you might want to check out our ‘Discovering God: Three is a magic number’ resource.
And in Children & Youth, we complete our Acts of the Apostles series and commence our coverage of the King David and Solomon lectionary passages. We’re delighted to bring you these brand new sessions which are sure to engage children and young people and help them develop their understanding of the big picture of the Bible.
There’s also a new drama for older children and teens, The big task, exploring the story of David and Goliath.
We’re excited to share our new Youth resource: Pentecost Escape Room. it’s been great fun creating an escape room scenario, and we hope your young people enjoy completing the challenges to discover more about the start of the early church, as much as our test youth group did!
We’re mindful that it’s exam season for many children and young people – take a look at Under pressure, an article about supporting children’s mental health. And don’t forget to prioritise your own well-being – it’s very easy to put ourselves last when we’re serving God and others, which is not the best model for our children and young people to follow!
We hope these resources will help to ease the load, as well as inspire you and those you work with to flourish in faith.