Even though most of the core team were unable to get to the April Messy Church it was business as usual. Breakfast may not have been as adventurous as in previous months, but nobody went hungry, there was cereals, toast with a variety of topping and yummy toasted hot cross buns with lashings of melting butter, all washed down with freshly brewed coffee and tea or fruit squash for the younger ones. There were only 5 families as it was the school holidays and lots of people had gone away.
The theme for April was eggs, so we had a selection of crafts and games to play that were eggxcelent…
Beth helped everyone find brightly coloured hollow eggs that had been hidden around the church, each
person had to find just one egg and bring it back to Beth who had some paper for people to write the name of someone they would like to be prayed for, the eggs were then hung on the prayer tree.
Geoffrey marshalled an egg and spoon race, but so there wasn’t a big mess to clear up, ping pong balls and golf balls were used.
Alison was overseeing the egg-shaped bunting, these could be decorated with feathers, stickers, or shapes cut out of an assortment of craft paper, then hung on a length of wool ready to take home and hang up.
Izzy, looked after the planting, where porridge pots from previous Messy Church sessions were used to plant a pansy. Pots were decorated with butterfly, ladybird and flower stickers.
For a quieter contemplation moment there was some bible quote colouring in pages. And the usual play mat and cars for some creative play time.
Jane brought everyone together to tell them how to turn a pancake into a hot cross bun, it was really the story of Lent; from using up all the fat and eggs ready to eat a basic diet for 40 days and why this was done to emulate Jesus being in the desert. At the end of the 40 days around 900 years ago a monk make some spicy buns with lots of fruit to end the period of eating basic food, as it was Good-Friday he put a cross on the top, and we still eat the spicy buns today. Geoffrey ended with a prayer and prayed for all the names in the eggs on the prayer tree.
Everyone took home their crafts and prayer eggs and a reminder note of the date for the next Messy Church, which is Saturday May 11th, when we will definitely have some chocoLATE Easter eggs to give away.
Jane Charman