Busy, busy, busy...
Sorry - I disappeared there for a few days again. They have been very church-filled!
I was at the WI with my sister and niece on Wednesday - which included a walk to St George's church, which is the main one in the middle of town, and a chat about the history, along with a quiz to do on the way, through the churchyard, and back, spotting info from signs and so on along the way.
It was Messy Church on Saturday and I was doing more of it than usual as Revd. Dawn is away at Synod, and spending with her family in England, so I was doing 'story-time' as well as my usual co-ordinating and prep.
It was a really busy Messy Church (23 children with adults) and I had no time to take pictures during the really messy bit - and then couldn't take pictures of things made, during story time, as I was otherwise engaged!
We did the story of the sower and the seed - so planting pots of herbs, threading Cheerios onto strings to hang up to feed birds, making pictures of birds with glue and bird seeds, model corn on the cob from card paint and bubble wrap, a long mural made by dipping cut fruit and veg into paint and using them to print with, and filling a clear plastic tumbler with mini marshmallows(stones), cornflakes (crunchy path), coco pops (good soil) a grape (the seed) and the green version of these as weeds.
Thank goodness one of our church families, who don't usually help at Messy Church, volunteered to set up the tech stuff for me so all I had to do was bring the story PowerPoint on a flash drive!
By the time we had finished and cleared up all I wanted to do when I got home was flop. So S2C went to the chippy and we had fish and chips for tea. But I was also leading the service the next morning in church as it was the first Sunday of the new School Year - so child orientated.
This meant that, along with organising Messy Church, I had spent much of the week organising the family service to welcome the children back after the summer break.
This took a while as I couldn't get it to work, and eventually, on Friday, I started again with a whole new theme of 'journeys'. Fortunately there were some ideas on the resource site we subscribe to, for suitable bible readings, and prayers, even ideas of 'things for children' if I looked in a couple of different parts of it! So by Friday I had an outlined order of service to pass to the lady who prints them - but still had to write my own notes and do another PowerPoint, including all the words for the hymns. And because I had been caught up with both Messy Church and family stuff this had been left to do on Saturday evening...
Fortunately Walter and Connor - two of the family who had also helped on Saturday, again did all the tech stuff for me so that all I had to do was give them the flash drive and every page was in the right place throughout the service. Apart from having a shoe hunt and re-enacting the Michael Rosen/Helen Oxenbury Bear Hunt ( both illustrating meeting all sorts of things on your journey through life) I told the story of Echidnas on Everest! - which is Bible based - Colossians 3, 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.
The Echidnas went down so well I had orders for the actual book to take when I went to do my spell in the bookshop today!
I had intended catching up on my FList yesterday afternoon, but ended up feeling like my icon. Sorry. So please, please, aim me at things I have missed that I should have read!
I was at the WI with my sister and niece on Wednesday - which included a walk to St George's church, which is the main one in the middle of town, and a chat about the history, along with a quiz to do on the way, through the churchyard, and back, spotting info from signs and so on along the way.
It was Messy Church on Saturday and I was doing more of it than usual as Revd. Dawn is away at Synod, and spending with her family in England, so I was doing 'story-time' as well as my usual co-ordinating and prep.
It was a really busy Messy Church (23 children with adults) and I had no time to take pictures during the really messy bit - and then couldn't take pictures of things made, during story time, as I was otherwise engaged!
We did the story of the sower and the seed - so planting pots of herbs, threading Cheerios onto strings to hang up to feed birds, making pictures of birds with glue and bird seeds, model corn on the cob from card paint and bubble wrap, a long mural made by dipping cut fruit and veg into paint and using them to print with, and filling a clear plastic tumbler with mini marshmallows(stones), cornflakes (crunchy path), coco pops (good soil) a grape (the seed) and the green version of these as weeds.
Thank goodness one of our church families, who don't usually help at Messy Church, volunteered to set up the tech stuff for me so all I had to do was bring the story PowerPoint on a flash drive!
By the time we had finished and cleared up all I wanted to do when I got home was flop. So S2C went to the chippy and we had fish and chips for tea. But I was also leading the service the next morning in church as it was the first Sunday of the new School Year - so child orientated.
This meant that, along with organising Messy Church, I had spent much of the week organising the family service to welcome the children back after the summer break.
This took a while as I couldn't get it to work, and eventually, on Friday, I started again with a whole new theme of 'journeys'. Fortunately there were some ideas on the resource site we subscribe to, for suitable bible readings, and prayers, even ideas of 'things for children' if I looked in a couple of different parts of it! So by Friday I had an outlined order of service to pass to the lady who prints them - but still had to write my own notes and do another PowerPoint, including all the words for the hymns. And because I had been caught up with both Messy Church and family stuff this had been left to do on Saturday evening...
Fortunately Walter and Connor - two of the family who had also helped on Saturday, again did all the tech stuff for me so that all I had to do was give them the flash drive and every page was in the right place throughout the service. Apart from having a shoe hunt and re-enacting the Michael Rosen/Helen Oxenbury Bear Hunt ( both illustrating meeting all sorts of things on your journey through life) I told the story of Echidnas on Everest! - which is Bible based - Colossians 3, 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.
The Echidnas went down so well I had orders for the actual book to take when I went to do my spell in the bookshop today!
I had intended catching up on my FList yesterday afternoon, but ended up feeling like my icon. Sorry. So please, please, aim me at things I have missed that I should have read!