Miscellaneous Themes

This page has intergenerational worship services for celebrating creation, the start of the school year, Australia Day, the Olympics and Halloween.

Something to Smile About - All age resource for All Saints Day & Halloween

An all-age resource for All Saints Day. The resource can be used in connection with National Children’s Week (24 November – 1 November). It is an opportunity to explore the links between Halloween and All Saints.

Something to Smile About includes articles on: All-age church; Children’s Week, All Saints Day and Halloween; Halloween traditions, Halloween and fear; Fear and the Bible; fears of young people. There are plans for a youth and/or adult study (What about Halloween) and an all-age Halloween party.

Something to Smile About is also a fully-scripted sample all-age worship service.

 

Something to Smile About (655 kb PDF)

 

God's World/Our World - Sunday 2 March 2014

An intergenerational worship experience for Clean Up Australia Day

Worship can take many forms. Here is an opportunity for us to worship the Creator by caring for his creation (the environment) and at the same time
embracing and participating in an initiative of the community (God’s human creation).

This resource includes notes on

  • the importance of intergenerational experiences of worship and service
  • the background of Clean Up Australia Day 
  • the Bible and the environment.

There are also guidelines for a Clean-up event and worship resources for the event.

Clean up australia day (573 kb PDF)

 

Starting School in Australia

Intergenerational worship for the beginning of the school year
Milestone events are great opportunities for churches to connect in a significant way with people in their congregation and community.
The start of a school year is a milestone in the life of school-aged children - especially those starting school for the first time - and their families.
Here is a resource that congregations - large and small - can use in an Australia Day context to connect with children who are starting school.

Starting School in Australia (342 kb PDF) - Intergenerational worship for the beginning of the school year

 

Starting Out

Milestones like marriage and death are times when Australians tend to connect with churches.

One way churches can build bridges with their communities is to serve people well on these occasions. Another way of connecting with people is to provide services for people relating to other milestones.

Starting Out is an intergenerational worship service for children and parents at the 'start of school/first day of school' milestone.

This document contains general notes about planning a celebration of the starting school milestone plus a complete service order which can be used as written or can be a starting point for planning your own milestone observation. 

Starting Out (510 kb PDF)

 

Start of School

This is a worship service designed to be used at the beginning of a school year.

Start of School (325 kb PDF) - This is a worship service designed to be used at the beginning of a school year.

 

Rock and Stones - New school year

'A mighty rock and five smooth stones' is a celebration of Australia Day and the start of a new school year. The resource for planning a special intergenerational worship service includes general notes about all-age worship planning and a model worship service. It also introduces the 'Faith Five' approach to family worship at home.

Rock and Stones (145 kb PDF)

 

Olympics

Resource ideas? Crossover is a resource to help congregations plan worship with an Olympics theme. Crossover focuses on some points where Olympic themes cross over with Gospel themes. For a month or so, the Olympics, and political and cultural events surrounding the games, will be big news for people all over the world. Your community's interest in the Olympics provides you with a wonderful opportunity to introduce people to Jesus: to help them encounter the good news in a way that may be meaningful to them.  

Olympic Crossover (288 kb PDF)

 

Higher Stronger Faster

For a month or so, the 2012 London Olympics was big news for people all over the world. Many approacedh it with 'a religious fervour'.

As Christians we worship, not the athletes who compete, but God who is higher, faster and stronger than we can imagine. We worship God — who creates human life and gives strength, speed, coordination and drive to individuals, who can bring true peace and harmony among nations and individuals and who walks beside people in the ecstasy of success and the heartbreak of defeat.

HIGHER, FASTER, STRONGER contains a wealth of ideas for using the Olympics as a way of exploring our faith and our relationship with God and ideas for weaving together aspects of the theme into an interactive, all-age worship service.

Higher Faster Stronger (352 kb PDF)