19 October 2025

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Bible readings for today

• Jeremiah 31:27-34
• Psalm 119:97-104
• 2 Timothy 3:14–4:5 
• Luke 18:1-8 

Liturgical colour: GREEN

​Today is also Tikanga Youth Sunday

Collect

E te Atua kaha rawa,
te pakari o te aroha me te mātau,
āwhinatia mai mātou ki te whakawhirinaki
ki tōu painga ki te
whakarite i a mātou i roto i tāu Tama;
e ora ana, e kīngi tahi ana me koe me te Wairua Tapu,
kotahi anō Atua, ināianei, ā, mō ake tonu atu.
Āmine.

Mighty God,
strong, loving and wise,
help us to depend upon your goodness
and to place our trust in your Son;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever.
Amen.

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The Widow and the Judge (Luke 18: 1-8)

Today's Bible Story

Jesus told his disciples a story about how they should keep on praying and never give up:
In a town there was once a judge who didn’t fear God or care about people. In that same town there was a widow who kept going to the judge and saying, “Make sure that I get fair treatment in court.”
For a while the judge refused to do anything. Finally, he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care about people, I will help this widow because she keeps on bothering me. If I don’t help her, she will wear me out.”
The Lord said: Think about what that crooked judge said. Won’t God protect his chosen ones who pray to him day and night? Won’t he be concerned for them? He will surely hurry and help them. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find on this earth anyone with faith?

Reflection moment

Have you ever really wanted something to happen? Maybe you wanted to do well in a school test, or you wanted the holidays to come quicker, or maybe you wanted someone you cared about to get better. Did you pray about it? (pause for answers) Why do we pray to Jesus? Well, I pray for lots of different reasons. Sometimes I just want to say thank you, sometimes I want to say sorry, and sometimes I want to ask for help. Other times I just feel like talking to Jesus just like I talk to friends.
Do you find it easy to pray? What is easy/hard about it? (pause)
There are lots of ways to pray. Can you think of any? (pause) Well, you can just talk out loud or in your head, you can sing, you can write your prayers, you can paint your prayers, you can just sit and listen, you can go for a walk… there are lots of different ways to pray.

Quick Questions

• When do you pray?
• What do you pray for or about?
• Does God answer your prayers?
• Does God answer your prayers the way that you expect?

Go pray!

Preparation
Set out two rows of chairs back to back. There should be one less chair than people.

What to do

• Get all the children to pick a word that relates to​ prayer for them. They must all be different. Be creative!! 
• Choose someone to be ‘it’. 
• The rest of the children sit on the chairs. 
• The ‘it’ person walks around the chairs and calls out the different pray words. 
• When someone’s word is called, they must get up and follow the ‘it’ person around the chairs. 
• When the ‘it’ person feels like it, they can call out “Go Pray!’ and everyone must try and sit on a chair. 
• The person who misses out becomes the next ‘it’ person.

Visio Lectio

Another great illustration from the Visio Lectio, thanks to Rev. Sarah West. 
​PNG Download
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Gospel Conversations

The story is one of a nagging widow and a reluctant, non-God-fearing judge. It raises the question, "How on earth are we supposed to approach these parables?" Is God really meant to be equated with that unhelpful judge? In a truly international Gospel Conversation, Ellen Clark-King joins us for the first time from London; Jerry from Wisconsin, and Anne and Michael zoom in from the uncertain internet of rural northland.

Prayer Memory

What you need
Pairs of pictures that relate to prayer: ways to pray, things to pray for. E.g. picture of a cross, a diary, paints and canvas, 

Preparation
Make the cards. They need to be all the same size. Half an A4 piece of card would be ideal. You could use clip art if you are not confident drawing! 

​What to do

• Spread the cards out on the floor face down. 
• The children take turns trying to find a pair by turning over only two cards. 
• If they don’t match, it is the next child’s turn. 
• If they match, the child keeps the pair and has another go.
• The game ends when all the pairs have been found. 
• You may like to talk about the pictures and ask the children why they relate to pray.

Make your own prayer books

You need:

• ​A school exercise book for each child, or fold A4 paper in half and staple to make a mini book. 
• Print outs of the instructions
• Stickers, glue, pens, and other things to decorate the book.

What to do
Hand out the books to each child, and tell them that this is going to be their own prayer book. It's their special book for them to write or drawer whatever they like in. Talk about the kind of prayer you can do -- writing prayers, drawing, praying in colour, thank you prayers, topic prayers (for family, school, friends, etc). 
Let the children create their own prayer books using the creative material you have, and leave a space at the end to let them write/drawer their first prayer. You met like to spread them out around the room and play some quiet music. 

Media

Tikanga Youth Sunday

Three Tikanga Youth Sunday is the closest Sunday to the 19th of October every year and it is dedicated to celebrating youth in the three Tikanga of the Anglican Church throughout Aotearoa and Polynesia. On this day we remember Tarore of Waharoa, a young girl who helped to spread the Gospel throughout Aotearoa.

Resources

Chronicles of Paki (information on SUNZ)
Ngakuku, Tarore and the Little Book (SUNZ)
St Michael's Kelburn celebrate Tikanga Youth Sunday (Anglican Taonga)
A Pilgrim's Guide - The Story of Tārore of Waharoa (Archbishop David Moxon)