Kinship Refresher Evening

My best kinship night ever was ...

Sharing

  1. Hosts making a special effort to make the room nice for everyone as they arrive – helps people to relax as soon as they arrive.
  2. Bring something special from home (photo, object) that says something about you. Great for getting to know people better.
  3. Testimonies – always interesting.
  4. Visiting speakers giving their testimony –people from around church.
  5. Making a kinship scrapbook.
  6. The spiritual gauges (see Kinship Resources on web) – good to do this every 3 months – spiritual health check. Keep it fresh – like taking your car in for an MOT. Good lead into ministry.
  7. The good, the bad, the ugly (see kinship resources on web) – focussing on different aspects of our life – again lead into ministry and prayer for forgiveness and direction.
  8. Objects on a tray – flower, feather, stone, spring, bull dog clip, balloon etc and ask people to pick one that describes how they are feeling about life right now – very revealing.

The talky bit

  1. Share your favourite psalm or parable.
  2. Over the past few weeks,every member of our group has presenteda few thoughts onvarying subjects on the understanding that everyone within the group would contribute - this has helped people gain confidence in speaking within the group and the group is now much more interactive.
  3. DVDs especially Nooma.
  4. We've had several great sessions on prayer and a couple of really good Creative Prayer evenings - we cribbed several ideas from the 24/7 website
  5. We had several prayer stations around the room
  • What decisions do you have ahead of you? Draw around your foot asking God for His direction as you do so. Ask God the questions you have about the big decisions in your life at this moment. Write your prayers inside your footprint and anything you hear God saying alongside it.
  • Another was to put out a toaster and some tubes of icing.Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3 and Mat4:4 and Luke 4:4) Please pray that you flourish and grow in the Word of God. Take a slice of bread and toast it then write a verse or put a drawing on the toast that reminds you about your dependence on the word of God. Now eat your toast and as you do so, pray for God to give you spiritual sustenance so that you might grow and flourish in His word.
  • A toothbrush - we printed pictures of one - Please be prayerful and then write on a toothbrush ONE thing you will commit to pray for everyday - take the picture home and put the word onto your actual toothbrush to remind you to pray!
  • Seeds - pots, soil - choose something that you want to see God change and grow and watch as it germinates and happens and you continue to pray.
  1. A collection of old magazines(from Sunday papers to Good Housekeeping etc).Scissors and glue and plain sheets to work on.
  • Use the pictures to create a collage of what you think God might be saying to you right now or you can use this to ask how people would portray their current relationship with God. We've found the results to be a fantastic time of sharing and some big deep stuff has come out.
  1. Vineyard Values - we put each value onto card and hid them under flowerpots. Having chosen one they said what that value meant to them personally.
  2. Prophecy evenings - the notes on the kinship website are excellent - this has been a huge encouragement every time we've done it and God always turns up trumps!
  3. We've sometimes used a funny piece from an Adrian Plassbook and then used this with a scripture to look at how we might respond. Somehow the whacky humour makes people think more!
  4. We've also used a Max Lucado book "You are Special" which carries quite a message for adults despite being aimed at kids!
  5. “Hearing God” CD and notes from Maggie Pearson (available from office) – excellent resource to help people to understand the basics of hearing god in a non-threatening way.
  6. Hot Seating – a way of doing Hearing God for each other.
  7. “Brent Rue” CD (available from office) – excellent on worship and intimacy with God. A fabulous CD that everyone should hear! Lots of material for kinship.
  8. Write your name on the top of a piece of A4 paper. The pass your paper to the person sitting next to you (clockwise). Everyone then writes something encouraging for or about the person at the top of the paper, then folds it (like “consequences”) and passes it on. Keep going until you are back round to the beginning. Everyone goes home with a list of encouraging comments from everyone in the group.
  9. Healthy things grow (on website resources) Great resource for times of change and to do as a preparation for multiplication.
  10. Communion – give it to different people to do. Get them to talk about what communion means to them. Very revealing.
  11. Christmas – 4 weeks of advent look at the Christmas story from different perspectives – Mary, Shepherds, Kings etc. Who do you identify with and why?
  12. Easter – 4 weeks of Lent – look at the Easter story from different perspectives – Judas, Peter (and his denial), Mary and the women, Jesus. What different things are revealed from the story?

Socials & Outreach

  1. Meeting at the pub
  2. Sharing a meal together
  3. Birthday celebrations
  4. Walks & picnics
  5. BBQ’s
  6. Hair of the Dog walk on New Year’s day followed by lunch
  7. Card making
  8. Jewellery making
  9. Christmas card & decoration making
  10. Posh tea
  11. Sushi making
  12. Burns Night celebration complete with haggis, salmon with neeps and tatties, single malts and vintage Scottish cheese.
  13. Sunday lunches
  14. Quiz nights
  15. Shared meals with other kinships
  16. Fish & Chip night
  17. Chocolate party – guess the choc, choc quizzes, choc fountain
  18. Bowling
  19. Having an AOK (random Acts Of Kindness) Saturday in town
  20. Firework party

Worship

  1. Visiting worship leader.
  2. Worship jams – everyone contributing something in whatever way they can – noisy but nice!
  3. Worship testimonies – specific stories of healing, learning to worship, revelation during worship.
  4. Talk about worship progression – why we worship the way we do – moving from where we are into the intimate presence of God.

Ministry

  1. Making sure we keep on praying in different ways.
  2. Messy praying – all staying together in one room and asking the Holy Spirit to come – and then all praying for each other. Gets messy but can be powerful.
  3. Guys groups, girls groups, mixed groups - keep a variety.
  4. Ministry trip to another kinship – spend a couple of weeks beforehand talking about hearing God and refreshing 5 step prayer model. Then visit another group as a ministry team – very powerful for both groups.
  5. Get those who know the 5 step prayer model inside out (and don’t want to hear it again!) to teach it to the rest of the group.

Kinship resources on the website

Visit and find the “Resources” link on the left under “K/s facilitatirs”:

Click it.

You may have to click within the top bar of Internet Explorer if it asks you about allowing use of script. Then you may need to click “Resources” again.

Then enter the password:

kinship88

(All lower case, no spaces – otherwise you get a blank page)