"Leap For Joy" 21st July 2013

As the summer holidays had started (schools had more or less broken up) we did not have many.  Two actually, but we still had a great time together.

As our Minister was leading the service, we had an action song; "Do you have an appetite".  We joined in with the verse actions along with some the the congregation.  As for the chorus, it was just the Minister, me and the two young people.

However, without knowing it, the song fitted in well with our theme.

Luke 6: 23 talks about "leaping for joy" as our reward is greater in heaven.  To help the young people remember it, they jumped on a trampoline and recited the passage.

After a break for drinks and biscuits, we all started painting lots of people leaping for joy.

The results are below: -

"Holiday" as chosen by Pioneers

Bit of a tricky one this week, but one of the craft results summed up (for me) the session.

"Holiday" is derived from "holy day" before it became a general term of time off work or enjoying a change of venue.

The young people tried to match up four Jewish and four Christian "holy days" with not a lot of success.  Here is the list: -

Hanukkah	Jewish	Festival Of Lights
Passover	Jewish	Deliverance of Jews from Egypt
Shavuot	Jewish	Moses being given the Ten Commandments
Yom Kippur	Jewish	Day of Atonement
Ash Wednesday	Christian	The First Day of Lent
Good Friday	Christian	Crucifixion of Jesus
Lammas	Christian	First Fruits Celebration
Pentecost	Christian	The Coming of the Holy Spirit

An old tradition holiday was to send a postcard to friends, long before social websites were invented.  So the young people were asked to make a "holy day" post card or picture.

Sums up the session as to why we have holidays!

"Fish" 23rd June 2013

This week we started by sharing news of things happening in our lifes and if there were any situations that we need to pray for.

Our adult helper this week started the session with a quiz based on stories and events where fish were included.  We did quite well, scoring 6½ points.

We then looked at the use of the fish symbol used by early Christians to make contact with each other and now more openly by Christians today.  We practiced making the sign of the fish in sand, with someone finishing off the sign of the fish.  The Greek word for fish is Ichthys and the letters can be used for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”.

The young people we then invited to express something of the morning in paint, as shown below: -

 

Are you getting a picture of this lad?  Something about hands comes to mind.  Who cares so long as he enjoys what we do.

"Keeping Promises" 16th June 2013

The theme of keeping promises was chosen by members of the Pioneers group a few months using the method of a topic for each letter of the alphabet.

This week also saw a different format for Pioneers as we included younger children and (for part of the meeting) members of the creche.

We started to look at God keeping his promise never to flood the world again and as a sign of this, a rainbow appears in the sky during some rain showers.  We all agreed that, although some parts of the world suffer from sever flooding, the world has never been flooded again.

We then, with agreement with our Minister, shared in Communion together and invited the creche to join us.  The bread and wine had been blessed for us and as we sat in a circle, we remembered how Jesus and his Disciples shared a meal and how God kept his promise.  He promised the world a Saviour and Jesus died to save us all.

We then, as one group, decorated some large cookies based to help remember the promise of God's rainbow.

One of the creche members

Look at his hands, typical boys!

Another of our creche members

Angels - 2nd June 2013

The theme for this week was, again, chosen by Pioneers and was Angels.

They decided that an Angel was someone who could fly (this may have been said as many illustrations of angels have wings) and was a messenger from God.  The last part is the definition, based on the Greek word.

They could only name one angel, the one who told Mary that she will give birth to Jesus.  They also knew that other angels announced the birth of Jesus, told Joseph not to separate from Mary and kept Daniel safe from the Lions. It was agreed that we have a guardian angel, as indicated in Psalm 91.

After devouring a packet of biscuits between us, our youngest member this week made an angel and the others made a big one; see below: -

Trinity Sunday Cookies - 26th May 2013

One of the topics members of Pioneers chose was "Impossible", which lead nicely into the Trinity of God for Trinity Sunday.

Many people find it hard or "impossible" to understand how God, Jesus and the Spirit are one and the same and yet separate.

We tried to look at the Trinity in terms of members of Pioneers being: -

• being a member of Pioneers
• Being a Brother or Sister
• Being a son or daughter

It is hard to say that, when at Pioneers, they were not a brother or son.  Or when being a sister, they were not a member of Pioneers or a daughter.  Some of the time they may be concentrating on being a daughter, but they are still a member of Pioneers.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit is like this.  At some time he is just God, at other times (when Pioneers meet) Jesus is with us.  The Spirit is that part of God that is within us and helps us be the person God wants us to be.

All too confusing or impossible to understand?  Down you yourself really.

Any way, to help us think about the Trinity, we made some Trinity Sunday Cookies.  We had the cookie dough, chocolate drops and cherries.  Each can be eaten on their own, or mixed together or even added to after cooking.  Here's some pictures of the morning: -

Square Cookie?  And why not?

We made some cookies for our Minister and her husband, who was not well, to remind tham that they are part of our church family

 Could not resist this picture.  As Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost, the windmill was left over from Messy Church a fw weeks previous.

Sunday 28th April 2013 - Theme "Zoo"

The session theme was based on the topic of "zoo" which was chosen by members of the Pioneer's group.  The aim was to find a link between zoo and Jesus, which was achieved by looking at Noah and the ark.

A series of questions (quick answers were required) which started with zoos in general, looked at Noah and finished with why Jesus was born.

Questions were: -

Name a town / city with a zoo

Name an animal not in a zoo

What is your favourite zoo animal

Which zoo animal can get annoyed if you look at it too long

What is the purpose of a zoo

 Do zoos achieve the purpose

Are zoos cruel to animals

Who had the first zoo – Noah

Which main type of creatures were missing – sea creatures

Why did Noah have a zoo – God was to flood the earth

Why did God flood the earth – to cleanse it from sin

Did flooding the earth to cleanse it from sin work – only for a shot time

What feature in the sky did God send to say no more earth floods – rainbow

What did God send to cleanse the world from sin – Jesus

The craft for this week was to make a foam ark.