CRUMPLED PAPER ART
You will need: sheets of white paper; watered-down ready-mix paint; water; paintbrushes; wax crayons or oil pastels
This craft is a very visual way of helping children explore the presence of God in the new heaven and new Earth, where all things will be made new.
Give each child a piece of paper and get them to screw it up into a ball. Open the paper out and look at the creases. Rub a crayon or oil pastel over the creases and they will pick up the colour, leaving the rest of the paper blank. Choose a paint colour and paint over the top until all the white paper has been covered.
Think about God coming into the pain and hardship of the world and making things new. The creased paper has now been turned into a work of art and colour has filled every part, just as God will fill the new heaven and Earth with his presence and make something beautiful.
MOBIUS STRIPS
You will need: paper cut into strips of 21cm by 2cm; scissors; felt-tip pens; stickers; glue
This craft helps children think about the impossible, everlasting nature of God.
There are lots of instructions on the internet for how to make a mobius strip (see youthandchildrens.work/links). It’s really easy to do, but it helps to have pictures to look at the first time you do it!
When you have made your Mobius strip, decorate it and explore how you can colour the whole strip without turning it over. Impossibly, the strip seems to have one everlasting surface. Use this as a starting point to talk about the fact that God is constant, from the beginning to the end. He always has been and always will be.
SPLATTER PAINTING
You will need: paper; watered-down paint; straws
This craft is an invitation to explore Revelation 21:6: “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
Dip the end of a straw into a pot of paint and drip it onto the piece of paper. Use the straw to blow the paint drop across the paper. Repeat with drops of different colours. Use this craft as a starting point to think about what the water of life is, and what it means to be thirsty in both a physical and spiritual sense.
FELT PICTURES
You will need: large pieces of felt (to be used as a background for the pictures); felt cut up into various shapes: circles, rectangles, squares, triangles
There is some amazing imagery in these Revelation passages of a place where all the pain and hurt in the world is banished, and where God wipes away every tear. This is a very open-ended activity, which will help children explore their own ideas about what this place will look like.
After hearing the passage, ask children to use the pieces of felt to make a picture of what they think the new heaven and Earth will look like. As you would with Fuzzy-Felt, use a larger piece of felt for the children to arrange their felt pieces on. Some might like to cut out their own felt shapes, so have scissors and spare felt handy just in case.
