31 July
Dear Messy Church friends and families
“If we keep trusting God for something that hasn’t
happened yet, it teaches us to wait patiently and
confidently.” ~ Romans 8: 25
As we move through the summer months, our schools are now on a much needed break. Staff, pupils, parents and carers have worked hard in these extraordinary circumstances and deserve some time off to rest and to recharge those batteries. We know many staff continue to work towards safely re-opening our schools in September and we remember all school staff in our prayers.
The well-being of all our Messy Church families and our helpers is also very much on our minds. We would love to be able to tell you that we will be back in church in September but it is still too soon for us to be able to meet together safely. The church building remains closed, apart from the Footprints café.
All of the wonderful things that make Messy Church afternoons special now have a lot of
associated risks and, for now, it isn’t safe for us to meet as an inter-generational church, enjoying craft activities, singing, dancing and eating together.
Thank you for your understanding and your patience. We will continue to keep in touch with you all via email, our Facebook page and the church website about any plans for the future.
Messy Church at Home:
Having said all of that, we can still be a Messy Church! We have been able to share resources with you to enable you to sing, dance, make things and learn more about God’s love for you – all from the comfort of your own homes.
As we wouldn’t normally meet in August, we haven’t provided any new activities for this month. This gives you all a chance to catch up on some of the things you didn’t have time to do before and to have another go at the ones you enjoyed doing.
All of our previous newsletters with details of our suggested activities are available on the church website – just click on the Messy Church logo on the right hand side of the home page: www.sawstonfreechurch.org.uk
We need your help:
We would love to share some of your Messy Church at Home experiences in the next church magazine. Please email us with your stories, thoughts, drawings or photographs before Sunday 16th August. We look forward to hearing from you.
We miss you.
We hope you’re well and safe and we look forward to seeing you again.
And until that day may God hold you safe in the palm of his hand.
Love from
The Sawston Messy Church Team
messy@sawstonfreechurch.org.uk facebook.com/SawstonMessyChurch
20 July
Peace
During July, our Messy Church team invite you to think, and talk, about Peace.
Please share your photos and videos with us via our Facebook page or by emailing messy@sawstonfreechurch.org.uk
“…The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
~ Philippians 4: 5-7
Our song for this month is The Blessing. There are two versions:
https://tinyurl.com/kidsblessing
https://tinyurl.com/makatonblessing
Try and learn some of the Makaton signs for the words in the song and when we are all able to meet together again we can sing and sign it as a group.
Activity 1: Build a bridge
You will need: something to make a bridge out of – you could use dried spaghetti and mini marshmallows, or cocktail sticks and soaked dried peas, or rolled-up newspaper sheets and sticky tape, or planks of wood and rope.
Challenge everyone in your household to make a bridge between one spot and another.
Talk about the way a bridge can be a symbol of bringing two sides together when something divides them.
What sort of things divide people?
Some people see Jesus as a bridge – what do you think they mean?
Activity 2: Peace cranes
You will need: paper squares
In Japan, children write their prayers and hopes for peace on paper cranes they have made.
This is the story behind this tradition: Sadako was a young Japanese girl, badly affected by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. She was taken to hospital for treatment. The nurses encouraged her and the other children to accept the medicines by folding for them origami figures out of small square medicine wrappers. Sadako’s favourite was the crane. An old Japanese legend stated that anyone who faithfully folded 1,000 cranes would have her wish fulfilled.
Sadako began folding cranes and her wish was, of course, that she would recover. However, when she sensed that she was not going to get better from the effects of the radiation, she changed her wish and prayed instead for peace between the countries of the world. With every crane that she folded, she whispered, ‘I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.’ She had folded 664 cranes when sadly she died. The children of Japan learned of Sadako’s wish and they too began folding cranes. Every year on Hiroshima Day (6 August), you can see thousands of paper cranes suspended from the tower in Hiroshima Peace Park.
https://tinyurl.com/messycrane for instructions about how to fold a simple crane from a square of paper.
Talk about why you think it is so hard for people in the world to be at peace with one another.
Activity 3 An oil and water experiment
You will need: cooking oil; water; food colouring; washing-up liquid; plastic bottle
Try mixing oil and water. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into a bottle.
Fill it up about half full of water. Add a drop or two of food colouring.
Put the lid on tightly and shake until you think it’s well mixed. Let it settle.
What happens?
– It just separates again into oil and water!
What happens if you add a few drops of washing-up liquid?
– The washing-up liquid reacts with both oil and water to form an emulsion – it joins them together (very useful when you’re washing your hands with soap and water to get rid of dirt).
Opposites can be brought together if something else is added that reacts with both.
Talk about how, when people quickly take sides and refuse to come together to solve their differences, Christians are called, like Jesus, to be peacemakers who break down those differences and bring people together again.
How easy do you find it to be a peacemaker?
A Quiet Time
Paul wrote in a letter to the Christians in Corinth:
‘God was in Christ, offering peace and forgiveness to the people of this world. And He has given us the work of sharing His message about peace’
~ 2 Corinthians 5:19
Can you think of one way you can ‘share his message about peace’ this week.
There is a recognised international prayer for peace.
It is written out below with some suggested simple actions to accompany the words.
Dear God,
Lead me
… from death to life (hands crossed over body and then hands raised above the head)
… from falsehood to truth (one hand close to the mouth, suggesting a malicious whisper, and then both hands with thumbs up next to the mouth suggesting the truth)
… from despair to hope (one hand on the forehead in despair and then the same hand shading the eyes, looking out to the future in hope)
… from fear to trust (two hands by the mouth expressing terror and then both hands open in front of the body expressing trust)
… from hate to love (one hand raised as a fist and then two hands over the heart)
… from war to peace. (one hand shaped like a gun and then two hands linked by the thumbs, palms inward, creating a dove of peace)
Let peace fill
… our heart (the hands still as the dove of peace near to the heart)
… our world (hands as the dove of peace making a small circle away from the heart)
… our universe. (hands as a dove of peace making a much larger circle away from the body)
Amen
Stay safe everyone and please keep in touch.
Love from Valerie, on behalf of The Sawston Messy Church Team
20 May
Dear Messy Church friends and families
How are you all doing?
If you have walked past the church recently you will have seen the wonderful rainbow sent in by Isaac and Abbie. If anyone else has made a picture which we could display in the church, please let us know.
Tomorrow, Thursday, is Ascension Day.
The day when we think about what happened when Jesus left his friends for the last time.
They’d just been having a meal together, they’d gone out to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem and were gathered together, asking Jesus about whether THIS was the time for him be the sort of king they were still expecting him to be, when he gives them a new job and… leaves them.
We think about Jesus going from a very ordinary meal with his disciples to a glorious moment when heaven and earth come close together, as he leaves his friends to go back to be with his Father. We call this day ‘Ascension Day’, as Jesus ‘ascended’ or ‘went up’ in some way – not ‘up’ into outer space but ‘up’ towards God the Father.
To help us all think about Ascension Day in a “Messy Church At Home” kind of way, Messy Church HQ have provided us with some ideas.
Click here https://tinyurl.com/messyascension to find out more.
There is a very exciting looking activity that shows us how to make a cloud in a jam jar !
Messy Church HQ have also planned A Messy Adventure via YouTube for tomorrow:
“Join us on Ascension Day as we set out on the speediest round-the-world trip ever. To celebrate the amazing international Messy Church community and to bring a little joy to the day we’ll be setting sail (virtually), taking off (in our imaginations) and revving our (digital) engines for a whole day of Mess! Join us on the Messy Church YouTube
Channel from 7.00 am all the way to 10.00 pm, where we’ll be journeying
through the Bible with worship, storytelling, prayer, food for thought and
all sorts of Messy fun.”
Click here https://tinyurl.com/messyyoutube to join them at any point throughout the day.
Please contact us if you have any prayer requests or you would like to share some news or pictures with us.
We miss you and would love to hear from you.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
And the love of God
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Be with us all now and for ever. Amen
30 April
Dear Messy Church friends and families. How are you all doing?
This Sunday would have been the Sawston Fun Run and the Messy Church team would have been out there cheering many of you on as you made your way around the route; some of you for the first time, some of you in fancy dress and many of you with your friends and families.
Although we can’t get together to run, walk or cheer as part of the Fun Run, we are all still encouraged to go out for some daily exercise, if it is safe to do so. If you are out for a walk on Sunday, maybe you could look for something for each colour of the rainbow? When you find a colour, stop and say thank you to God for something or someone. Keep going until you have found all seven colours.
We would love to see what sort of things you find so, if you can, please take some photos on your walk and send them to messy@sawstonfreechurch.org.uk or to the Sawston Messy Church Facebook page. If we get lots of photos we can create a rainbow collage to share with you in our next email.
Messy Church at Home:
Our suggestion for something for you to watch this week has a bit of a sporty theme:
https://tinyurl.com/messymay2 It is about 17minutes long and includes action songs and a story. We hope you enjoy it.
We also have another Messy Science at Home video for you:
https://tinyurl.com/messymay1
Please contact us if you have any prayer requests or you would like to share some
news with us. We really would love to hear from you.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
And the love of God
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Be with us all now and for ever. Amen
Messy Church is part of a world-wide programme that tries to offer a time of Christian celebration and worship that is particularly designed so that children and their families can be together. So much of what happens puts parents in one place and children in another. Messy Church puts them together.
There are songs, and story and crafts and it gets messy, sometimes puppets, always food, and children and their families all enjoy it together while they think about what Jesus said and taught. It’s good fun, it’s messy and it’s church and it is for everyone.
It all happens on the first Sunday of the month at 3pm. Come and join us!
Dates are advertised in Contact, our monthly magazine, in the weekly service notices and in our online diary