Welcome to May Messy Church @ home. We can all help and encourage each other through the things we say and do. While we are isolated and having to stay at home we miss our friends and family. We have good days and not so good days. I wonder is there anything in the bible to help us think about how God can use us to help and and encourage each other wherever we are.
There are several crafts helping us to think about ways we can help encourage and support each other as well as crafts that will help us tell the story of Philip and the Ethiopian. Please choose to do as many of the crafts as you would like to. You could spread them out over the week or do them all on one day.
- Cup Chariot
You will need: Paper cup, scissors, lolly sticks, cut out wheel, split pins, felt tip pens
Cut out the back of the cup as shown in the photo. Make 2 slots to put the Lolly sticks in as the shaft, and use the split pins to fix wheels to either side. Using felt tip pens, you can colour and decorate your chariot. As you make your chariot talk about how people used to travel in bible times.
- Tegre (Mancala) Board game
You will need: egg cartons (ideally 12 eggs), red, yellow and green paint, paint brushes, scissors, glue or sticky tape, buttons/seeds/small stones to use as counters.
Remove the lid of the egg box (and cut it half if it held 12 eggs) Paint your egg box in the colours of the Ethiopian flag as shown in the photograph. Arrange your egg boxes as per the photograph and secure with tape or glue. You are now ready to play.
- Philip and the Ethiopian worksheet
- Horse that walks!! I wonder if the Ethiopian had horses pulling his chariot? Why not make a couple of horses that will walk down a slope by themselves!!!
- Philip and the Ethiopian by the chariot craft
- Cooking: Make some cakes, cookies for a neighbour, another family, someone who is on their own or finding things hard at the moment.
- Let another Messy Church family know you’re thinking and praying for them with this ‘Dear Family’ sheet
- Chalky pavement paint: Paint a message on the pavement to those who work so hard looking after us – nurses, doctors, those who work in our supermarkets, bin men, postmen and women, cleaners, teachers… and many others. You will need: equal quantities of cornflour and water, food colouring, paint brushes. Mix the cornflour and water together, add your choice of food colouring. Get painting!!
- Hope colouring in sheet
- Hope playdough mat
Can you find a map to show you where this story took place? Can you find Jerusalem, Gaza, Ethiopia…
If you want to read the story in the bible you can find it in Acts chapter 8 verses 26-40.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+8%3A+26-40&version=NCV
God can use all our skills and talents to help others. As we help others we are letting Jesus’ light shine through us and pointing people to Jesus.
Our prayers today involve shapes….and our wonderful Messy Church Team are going to lead us today.
Are you in need of a blessing today? This song is beautiful and powerful because it comes from the blessing God gave to Moses to give to Aaron to speak over the people. These words have been used for thousands of years to connect God’s people to the good things He has for them. These words have survived the centuries and have been re-imagined and recorded by Christians from a whole range of churches in the UK using ‘lock-down technology’. Listen. You won’t regret the 6 and a half minutes it takes. Be blessed ????