Week Two – Beauty Creating

SUMMARY: As image bearers of a creative God, students will glorify and praise God by creating that which is beautiful or miraculous. This creativity that students offer as a sacrifice of praise will be acknowledged as something that isn’t optional but a joyful duty.

GOING DEEPER

When we look at the world around us, the plants, rocks, animals, sea creatures, insects, the skies and beyond and especially people and their intelligence and capabilities… it shouts that our God is a God who loves diversity, complexity, and creativity.

Schools must draw attention to God’s creation and its wonder and weirdness. We must stop and look and wonder, and create the opportunities to see the beauty, delicacy, oddity and miracle in everyday things.

God created people to be creative beings. We are image bearers of this creative God! Glorifying and praising God by creating is a joyful duty of being an image bearer. In fact, Christ says that if we don’t praise God, the rocks themselves will cry out. Praising God through the act of creating is not an option – or an elective or “frill.”

But how does God mean for us to use this creativity – what’s its point?

Obviously, beauty creating offers praise to God. God created humans capable of creating beauty and responding to beauty. God gave us this world to enjoy, to play in, to explore. We also realize, when we see this beauty, how much God loves us.

But there’s more. Being an image bearer means having the ability and responsibility to discover, respond to, develop, use, and improve the world that God has placed us in. Beauty creating enriches our lives. The natural creative desire and ability God gives each child needs to be stimulated, encouraged, and developed in as many different ways as possible.

BIBLICAL REFERENCES 

Could be used for devotions or memory work.

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
– Genesis 1:31a

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.here is one body and one Spirit.”
– Colossians 1:16

“I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.”
– Exodus 31:3-5

Other Passages to Ponder:

SONGS

You can use these as part of your morning devotions or to play in the background during work.

ACTIVITIES

Ideas that you can connect to the learning that is happening or encourage in your student’s free time.

  • Make cards for seniors, pastors, waste removal workers, health care workers, etc.
  • Create a mural (assign different parts to your group)
  • Plant/maintain flowers and trees
  • Beautify an area
  • Write a poem for somebody
  • Write a story (try out Storybird)
  • Create/memorize some jokes and tell them to someone who needs encouragement
  • Create your own Youtube video of Creation Calls
  • Learn/compose a song to sing and ask for feedback from someone you trust
  • Practice an instrument and perform a song for someone
  • Research, learn how to take good pictures and start a photography portfolio
  • Make a digital scrapbook for someone
  • Start a Youtube channel that celebrates Biblical beauty
  • Build something useful for someone
  • Paint/sketch – Develop your own recipe and try it out

DIGITAL RESOURCES

Digital books, devotion ideas, online resources, blog articles, etc.

Student Focused: 

Teacher/Parent Focused:

FORMATIONAL LEARNING EXPERIENCES (FLEX)

These are experiences that connect our learning/work to real people/problems (to go beyond our normal classroom walls). These are authentic opportunities for students to practice living the Kingdom story.

Use some of the ideas in the “Activities” section above and create something that brings joy to someone outside your home. It would be great to reconnect with the person/group you connected with for last week’s Community Building focus. Here are a couple of other great ideas:

  • #chalkyourwalk – write encouraging chalk messages, inspirational quotes or hopeful Scripture passages on your neighborhood sidewalks. Post them on social media.
  • Paint rocks with positive pics or words and leave them around your neighbourhood.

REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS/SENTENCE STARTERS

It is said that we don’t learn from doing, but from reflecting on what we do. Give students time and space to reflect on their experiences and learning this week.

  • How did you respond to beauty this week?
  • What did you learn about beauty creating in your school work this week?
  • Why should we create beauty?
  • Who is someone that inspires you to create beauty? Tell me about them.
  • When have you created something that made someone happy?
  • Where did you see beauty this week?

TEACHING FOR TRANSFORMATION (TFT)

RESOURCES FOR PARENTS – Provided by Prairie Centre for Christian Education

Introduction: Continuing Christian Education at Home

Teaching for Transformation is a model for how to integrate Christian faith and learning. For several years Edmonton Christian has been using this model to guide teachers and students through what it means to play our roles in God’s story.  Some of what we do can get a bit technical but essentially it means that we are asking each other to see God’s story and then to live that story. Teachers have been using deep hopes and storyline and something called Formational Learning Experiences to help students play their role in God’s unfolding story.

TFT offers 10 ways to think about how we play our roles in God’s story.  These 10 things are called Throughlines. You have probably heard about them already.  There are lots of ways to be on the lookout for these throughlines but it’s not enough to simply list them or just talk about them.  We are invited to BE those throughlines.

The Prairie Centre for Christian Education, an organization that supports our schools, has put together some resources that will help to integrate the throughlines into this new online learning journey that you are going through.

As we go through the weeks we will attempt to provide you with some of these resources that will help your family dive into a throughline.  There will be an overview of the throughline, scripture connections, related songs, activities and digital resources. There will then be suggestions for how you and your family can BE the throughline.  As you engage in the activities we invite you to post pictures to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtag #edmchristianathome of your family engaging in the throughline.

Hopefully, this resource will be helpful for you and your family.  Feel free to pick and choose activities as you see fit. Perhaps, as families, you can find creative ways to integrate some of these activities into a lesson that was presented by a teacher.  Perhaps teachers have already been using some of these resources and suggested this already. This resource is only a suggestion but it can be a great part of the learning.

Previous Week

Week 1 – Community Building