Christian Crafts

Christian bookstores carry a nice selection of crafts books that are related to church themes throughout the Christian calendar. Various titles include instructions for a different paper craft for the 52 weeks of the year, or 60 banners, 52 bulletin board designs, and more. For the younger children, theme-oriented coloring books will add creativity to the lessons. And their teachers will find helpful ideas in a book entirely devoted to using paper plates to create Christian crafts.

There are even Christian-oriented books on cooking. These include Amish-country cooking, weight-loss recipes, pioneer recipes, and celebrity cookbooks. A congregation may put together a collection of treasured family recipes as a fund-raiser, with resounding success. Watch out for the omission of the secret ingredient, however. Not everyone is really ready to share what makes her key lime pie extra special or his barbecue sauce a total knockout!

Less surprising, perhaps, are wonderful collections of inspirational cross-stitch, needlepoint and other stitching designs. Many of us remember the framed samplers in Grandma's house or our own home, as we were growing up. "A Day Hemmed in Prayer is Less Likely to Unravel" or "Home, Sweet Home" or "The Lion Shall Lie Down with the Lamb" adorn many homey hallways and kitchens. We may have considered the sayings to be "corny" back then, but they are the stuff that great nations are built of; only in our mature years do we realize that a country is only as strong as its weakest underpinnings.

Christian Crafts that Benefit Others

On a small scale or a large scale, there are many crafts that Christians can practice for the benefit of needy people. Building houses comes to mind for the carpenters and other artisans. Crocheting caps for cancer patients, knitting gloves for frozen little hands, and crocheting or knitting squares to make blankets for the homeless are all priceless contributions. Other blessed crafts people are the ladies (usually) who crochet tropical disease (leprosy) bandages for severely afflicted victims in the Third World. Not forgotten are those who sew baby gowns or blankets, however simple, for humanitarian kits headed for many lands.