This week's freebie is a simple still motion- a welcome slide for Christmas. Use it to  welcome families and introduce a special Christmas event or  a children's church Christmas program.

It is available as a Powerpoint 97-2003 presentation format or 2007 presentation file. 

Looking for a clip for Christmas? Check out these 3 different styles of retelling the Christmas story. Two of these are available from WorshipHouseKids.com while the other one, Go Tell It on the Mountain, comes from ElevateatChurch.com (see here)  The True Meaning of Christmas is a 2 minute mini-clip from What's in the Bible.   The Christmas Story, a production of Cherub Wings, is a longer 5 minute animation. Check them out.

Order of service

Welcome slide

Free templates
The Innkeeper's Dilemma
He chose the Shepherds clip
One Starry Night highlights
No Greater Gift
The Christmas Miracle- puppet skit
Silent Night
M&Ms Christmas story

Last Sunday, we held our 'One Starry Night'  family service and encouraged all the families from our kids' club to attend.

Since many of these families have had little or no previous contact with church events, we presented a simple service with a strong focus on families and included plenty of kids' involvement and highlights the One Starry Night kids' club event. We also used some of the great Christmas resources available and I've listed these for you to check out. (The hard part was choosing which resources to use!) 

I've included our schedule/order of service. I used a Microsoft template for this and there are many available ready to download and personalise. See here.. Save some time and use these templates when you need to create a form or presentation for your team. It does make a difference; it highlights the importance of what you are doing and, it saves you time. 

We introduced the service with the free clip from Friends and Heroes- a simple, animated presentation in music of the reason we celebrate Christmas. (See resources.)

I used Animoto to create the clip of our One Starry Night outreach event. We used Group's music clip No Greater Gift as backing for the kids' item. (Available as worship dvd in the Faithweaver Praise and Worship music; these are great!)

Our Christmas story, The Christmas Miracle, was told by puppets which held everyone's attention. We used the pre-recorded skit from Instant Puppet Skits.

Everyone joined in singing Silent Night while the clip played (see below) while some of the children handed out the M&Ms Christmas packs to everyone.  A printable for this is available from the list of resources included.

The advent calendar explores the names of Jesus and provides faith activities for your kids. Click image.

Check back each day to unlock a new Christmas printable to download and gradually create a Christmas diorama for your mantelpiece or tabletop.

Click on the image for the link.