5 ways to colour as a group

You may be happy colouring all alone, but here are a few more suggestions...

1. Colour as a family; it has a surprisingly calming effect upon both adults and children!
2. Meet up with friends to colour in the park, in the library or at a cafe.
3. Increase biblical literacy amongst children by putting on a colouring event or starting a club.
4. Set up a colouring group for adults and colour scripture as a way of Christian meditation on scripture and relaxation. 
5. Put on a colouring event to respond to a particular situation or need. For example, you may want to have a speaker from a related charity attend, or combine it with fund raising.

Don't re-invent the wheel! Try using existing church groups, such as Sunday school, youth group or house groups for one off events. You might also consider having an 'open house' for church members to drop in and colour, or combine it with a coffee morning.

Above all, enjoy the fellowship & find ways to be a blessing to others. 

10 Ideas for colouring ministry

I have been thinking about ministry through colouring and possible uses/ outlets for posters, bookmarks and cards, so here are a few ideas...

1. To encourage and lift up believers who you already know (everyone needs encouragement from time to time!).
2. Make cards or bookmarks for a hospital Chaplaincy or ministries visiting nursing homes to distribute. Think also of other care situations like retreat centres or women's refuges that might like coloured items to give to guests.
3. Prison chaplaincies and Christian charities working with prisoners, drug addicts, prostitutes and other vulnerable people groups may be able to make use of these if you ask. 
4. Using Bible Gateway or similar, translate your coloured bible verses into different languages and use this to send letters and cards to the persecuted church worldwide.
5. Encourage missionary families, by sending bible verses by post. Don't forget to send some materials for missionary kids to colour their own too.
6. The Word of God tells us to comfort the Jewish people. Look in the Psalms to find some uplifting scriptures that they may be able to relate to. Send these just as a blessing, with absolutely no strings attached.
7. Use your translated bible verses and colouring items to bless refugees and those from other  nations living in your land. It can be tough living abroad and the differences between the church communities are hard, especially for those coming from the underground church.
8.  Many people like to visit historic churches. If there is one in your area, ask if they would like some bookmarks for visitors to take away free.
9. Ask a street evangelist what sort of verses might be of use for people who they are dealing with. Perhaps you could do some bespoke colouring for them?
10. To encourage a family or community that has been through trauma. During crisis it can be difficult to get non essential items through, but encouragement is still needed further down the line, after agencies helping have left, but people still have to face wounds of the soul, particularly on the anniversary of events.

Colourful greetings

Not sure whether these are child or adult colouring! We all enjoyed them very much.
I found my copy in Sainsbury's, but you can BUY DIRECT from the NT.

Just thought I would include these little cards. They have lots of gorgeous pictures of UK wildlife in a very cute and pretty style, but there are designs as suitable for boys as for girls. I had coloured several, but without any firm purpose. The designs are so cheerful, I really wanted to use them to brighten someone's day. Then, a little by surprise, I came across an appeal asking for letters of encouragement to be written to a group of children in Latin America. It said they wanted bright and colourful cards of encouragement for the children. Gosh, did I feel happy! They would be put to good purpose after all and not become just a product of happy time wasting! Without further ado, I wheeled out my rusty schoolgirl Spanish, hopped onto Bible Gateway to google some verses in the Spanish version of NIV and set onto filling them with writing. How glad I felt that I had learnt a language at school, which although it has never been used in ways that I expected, has not at least been put to waste.

New to blogging too!

Just in case you haven't guessed, I am also new to blogging, so this is something of a tech journey for me also. In addition to fumbling my way around the controls, I have enlisted the help of little people. For some strange reason, little people have the ability to become experts in new tech overnight and rather than attempting to teach them, I am convinced it is more efficient to let them loose and then allow then to explain to you everything they have learnt within microseconds.

So if occasionally my blog is looking strange, please bear with us. It is either my lack of experience or little people developing their professional skills alongside me. But then, as for any mother, little people are part of the package and part of the joy. Just like the colouring, we are all learning together.

Colouring fun with bookmarks

More experiments with colour

We enjoyed making these bookmarks as a family. Part of the fun is seeing what everyone else comes up with and then learning from their choices and experiments with colour. Some things work better than others, but if you don't try, you never discover.

To buy the blanks at Etsy please follow this link to Karla's shop

Fleeing perfectionism...

Perfectionism can be toxic. When I first started adult colouring, using Jacqui Grace's book, I was very interested to read some of her story. Despite obviously being a very talented and gifted lady, she shared that it was hard for her to put her art out to show and to have confidence in her own work. Jacqui's work is GORGEOUS! Check out her mixed media. It has colours that make you want to melt and dance on the inside :  )

Oftentimes we are our own worst critics and having created something, we know exactly where all the mistakes were. I can identify with this, as whatever I made, whether sewn or knitted, came with a mental log of where the mistakes were. That is one of the reasons why I used to give my work away. The main reason was because I enjoy making things to give, followed by not having space to keep everything I made! At the same time, I knew that many things I had made looked lovely, despite the errors, but someone else who did not know the precise location of the tiny mistakes, would be able to look at it and just enjoy.

As a mummy, I am going to make mistakes with my colouring, because one of my lovely children will bounce over to me and accidentally jog my hand or arm. The first time this happened, inspired by Jacqui's story, I told myself that I would enjoy what I was doing and love and embrace that, even if there were mistakes. Rather than being a harsh critic of myself, I have chosen acceptance instead. I think that might not be such a bad idea.

Lots of bookmarks!

To buy the blanks at Etsy please follow this link to Karla's shop

Here are some bookmarks we coloured as a family. Karla has a lovely range and I believe most people use them for bible journaling. They would be great for that, or for faithbooking. If someone was studying the book of Luke or the New Testament for Home Ed/  Home School, they would also be a nice addition to a lapbook or notebook.

For His glory?

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NKJV)

Adult colouring is very popular right now and has really taken off with Christians too. A lot of what is sold as adult colouring has links to world faiths e.g. mandalas are related to Hinduism and Buddhism. Zentangle is a popular expression for many of the designs available at the moment. Zen is a particular form of Buddhism and zentangle is a modern version of 'artistic meditation'. Whilst on occasions it might be difficult to distinguish between zentangle and doodles, this is because some use the word incorrectly or loosely. Technically and speaking, you cannot have a Christian zentangle without it being an oxymoron (Exodus 20, verse 3). You may also notice the word 'mindfulness' popping up all over the place, particularly in relation to colouring. 'Mindfulness' is predominantly associated with Buddhism, although it also shares links with Hinduism also.

So as Christians who are interested in adult colouring, we have to ask ourselves whether our artwork, including our colouring is for the glory of God. I believe passionately that the God who created us in His own image, deposited creativity in each and every one of us. That is true of human beings the world over. We have a capacity for original creativity unparalleled by any other species. Every human being, whether they seek to follow God or not, has been gifted with creative ability. Using the gifts and talents God has given us is 100% biblical. For that reason alone, I would encourage all believers to make space for some form of creativity in their lives.

At the same time, God's people can use gifts or talents for their own purposes and in so doing, corrupt that which was intended for good. We see an example of this whilst Moses (Moshe in Hebrew) was up the mountain collecting the ten commandments. Meanwhile, at the base of the mountain, we see his older brother Aaron, using creative ability to produce a golden calf, an object of idolatry. It did not end well. 

The bible talks about the use of imagination which is a power for good or evil. There is also enough information about meditation in the bible for us to be able to distinguish between Judeo-Christian meditation and other forms practised within the world.

My brethren, do not be children in your intellects, but be infants in evil and be fully mature in your intellects. (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (King James 2000 Bible)

Welcome!

My first colouring page!

From Images of Hope by Jacqui Grace