(Matthew 5 verse 7)
A popular children's song says: "Mercy is when God does NOT give us what we deserve"
God has shown us mercy. (Not going to explain that in this blog - if you're using this in your own children's work, I'm sure you can do that bit!)
In response to God's mercy, we too show mercy.
This can be forgiving people and not getting our own back. Some people also think this is being 'merciful' in what we do - that is, doing kind things for people who need help (Food banks, Raising money to get clean water into villages in Africa, raising awareness about the slave trade and lots more)
Showing mercy often starts by saying something, so we'll be using post it notes in the shape of speech bubbles to write or draw our prayers on.
You may want to say thankyou for God's mercy. You may want to say "I forgive the person who upset me" or "help me to forgive".
Do one speech bubble about showing mercy to people in need - it could be anything, may be something you've seen on the news.
I'll be praying about girls who live in countries where they not allowed to go to school - I want them to be able to learn.
POST SUMMER UPDATE: How did it go?
POST SUMMER UPDATE: How did it go?
Again - I wasn’t sure of the impact this would have on the children, but reading all the prayers afterwards - I was amazed at the insight in them.
At the conference, we encouraged them to ask God if there was someone they should forgive or people they should show more mercy to. We also said not to name people!
One girl didn’t want us to see her prayer and threw it out of the window. We encouraged her to go and get it and put it in her bible, and re-assured her that we didn’t mind if she kept it between her and God.
For another child who was struggling with faith, it was a glimpse of a heart cry to God.
Some of the prayers from camp were far too personal to put here, but here are three of the ones we can show:
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