16 AUGUST 2009 - Hannah, Mary and Prayer

We’re half-way through our season of All Age Praise and Worship at Time for God, during which we looked at Gifts, Good News and all manner of things. We had some quirky songs to begin – Have you heard the Raindrops? (this chorus goes nicely to the Rupert the Bear song), followed by Christ’s Love is the Best Love (Fred Flinstone). Great Fun!

We looked at Hannah’s yearning for a child in 1 Samuel 1, whereupon the children made presents out of Play Doh and decided to whom they would give them in the hall (Well they had to give them away there and then since Play Doh doesn’t travel well on a warm day!), which was followed by a rendition of “I am a new Creation” and read Mary’s song of praise from Luke 1. We looked at both Readings and considered different sorts of prayer; Praise, Sorry and Thanks – making sure that “Asking” was the last and smallest. The need to put God first and what we can do for others was considered, and lastly, we placed post-it prayer notes on to our prayer wall, while the children finished their gifts and gave them away. Our “Sorry” prayers were based around “Three F’s” of sin; fear, fantasy and failure; The fear of believing we are nothing; building fantasy pictures of ourselves; which can ultimately lead to the failure of putting God first and worshipping ourselves instead. Hmmm!

Finally we sang Mary’s song “Tell out my soul” and finished up with “He’s got the whole wide world”. The adults took part in the Play Doh creations – since they were longing to “have a go” and an imaginative time was had by all. So with Valerie at the piano and my faithful band of stewards on hand, the whole morning went with a swing.

And so to next week … Just watch this space!

Deacon Olivia

August Holidays

Owing to the Summer holidays, the TFG blog may not be updated regularly until September. However, feel free to conmment on any of the existing posts or indeed anything else that you would like to. Normal service will resume next month ...

ALL AGE PRAISE 26 JULY 2009

“IS IT FAIR – LET’S SHARE!”

We’re into the season of fun and games with All Age Praise every week until September! So what did we do? Well of course we looked at Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 and enjoyed a variety of songs; My God is so BIG; Make me a channel of your peace; Be bold, be strong; Father I place into your hands; and Colours of Day. We looked at Exodus 22 and talked about not ill-treating a stranger. During “Is it Fair” the children set up a Teddy Bears’ picnic and shared biscuits (pink for Emily’s sake!) equally. In “Let’s Share” following the “5000” reading (John 6), we drew up Menus with unusual components from around the world whilst the more sedentary among us wrote the prayers. We looked at sharing the world’s resources and were thankful for all that we have – since we realised that we have so much compared with much of the rest of the world. So we all considered how we might “do our bit” and ask for a fresh in-filling of God’s Spirit to enable us to do it.

After all Jesus said “As you did it for one of … these, you did it for me”. (Matt.25)

A lot of thought provoking took place – I hope your thoughts are moved too.

Peace and Joy!
Deacon Olivia