Is your church holding a New Year’s eve event? If you answered yes, you have been challenged to provide some of the activities for the kiddos while parents wait for the clock to move. Been there–done that! Even if you aren’t facing the challenge of entertaining kids for a long period of time, you might find this kids’ church idea useful. Together, you can create an interesting time capsule that you can share next year. If you have the time to plan, get kids involved on brainstorming what should go inside. A New Year’s time capsule is also a great idea for the youth ministry to try too!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- A shoebox or a medium sized cardboard box with a lid
- Tissue paper
- Packing tape
- Sheet of paper
- Marker
The goal for this activity wasn’t just to entertain kids. It was to build fellowship amongst our group. Unity is always good, right? We made a list of five things we were going to achieve together as a children’s church in the new year. Our group came up with this list of activities:
- Collect 100 cans of food for the food pantry.
- Adopt a family for Christmas and provide them with food and toys.
- Paint our room a new color.
- Tell 50 people that Jesus loves them.
- Share our snacks with the junior church at least once a month.
(As you can tell, my kids think a lot about food! LOL)
We put the list in the time capsule along with an item that represented each. We put in a can of food, a picture of family, a paint stick, a picture of Jesus and a drawing of a little kid. One of our volunteers also had the idea of snapping a photo of our group and adding it to the box too. I loved that! We taped up the time capsule and asked the pastor to hide it away until next year.
Throughout the year, I reminded the kids about what was in our time capsule and promised them that if we did everything on the list, we’d have a special “field trip” to Chuck E. Cheese’s. It was a fun activity that helped keep kids focused on what matters most–loving and serving others. Hope you can use it!
Read more from Mimi by visiting her blog at Tools for Kids Church.
- Time Capsule Ideas for Kids’ Church
- Kids Church Lesson: Many Silent Years
- New Years Bible Lesson for Kids “One Thing”
- Lesson: 12 Spies and 40 Years of Wandering
- “New Year’s” Ideas for Children’s Ministry