Christmas - 15th December 2012

We busied ourselves this week making costumes for our celebration – children could choose whether they wanted to be angels, kings or shepherds, and wrapping up important presents, with prayers attached, to give to baby Jesus. 

We also produced a stunning stable collage, which we used as a backdrop in our mock-up stable (complete with crib and straw) and giant sized collage stars which guided us into our celebration space. 

 As a group (about 100 people), we acted a mini nativity, all journeying together with Mary and Joseph on their arduous trip to Bethlehem. Along the way, we came across Mary sweeping and witnessed her visit from the Angel Gabriel, a grumpy inn keeper who had no room at his inn, and lastly a kind inn keeper who led us into his stable, our celebration space. Helen led a delightful celebration with songs dedicated to our angels, kings and shepherds.

After all that, everyone was ready for tea – pasta, party bits, fruit and cake and a lot of fun was had by all.  We are blessed to see people coming back to Messy Church to celebrate with us.

The Light for the World - 17th November 2012

Our Second Messy Church was held on 17th November 2012.  We were blessed to see so many people from our local Hanwell community enjoying our Light-inspired event; we were extremely happy to welcome back so many familiar faces.

Activities included:

Light Printing – a giant sized floor painting for people to get stuck into with their hands – creating stars, planets, suns, moons, fireworks etc

Messy Touch – a fun and interactive guessing game involving a series of sealed bags containing light-related objects.

Sparky Art – a collage full of lights, glitter and shining objects such as fireworks, candles, flames, torches

Making Lanterns and Stained Glass Art

Our celebration started with everyone gathering together and being given a glow stick. We dimmed the lights and proceeded on a journey through darkness, guided by our simple light sticks.

The journey took us through a tunnel, over obstacles, through a swamp, via planks of wood guiding the way, following a string, which eventually lead everyone into our celebration space. Jesus is our light that guides us through darkness.

Many people stayed for our shared meal, enabling us to chat and begin to form new friendships with our community.

Photographs taken by Tim Robinson.

Harvest - Our first Messy Church!

On the 20th of October, we held our first Messy Church session at the St Mary's Church Hall in Hanwell.

Our theme was Harvest, and our 75 guests enjoyed a range of activities inspired by the theme, from painting grapes using foot prints, to a tin can alley, to vegetable modelling.

 

It's difficult to know who had the most fun making the vegetable people - the parents or the children!  

We encouraged praising God in alternative ways - planting as a community in the raised beds outside the Church Hall, writing and drawing our prayers on grapes to make a vine, reflecting and creating a prayer tree with leaves, flowers and birds and planting daffodil bulbs which should be starting to flower in time for Mother's Day in March.  

Helen and Jo together led a lovely, and very lively, worship service which was greatly enjoyed by the children and adults alike.  Many of the children were already familiar with the songs from Junior Church, but we were very blessed that we were able to reach so many families who were not familiar with our services, and who are now keen to come along and join us on Sundays.

The catering team provided a wonderful meal of butternut squash soup which was greatly enjoyed by everyone present. 

The volunteer team were overwhelmed, overjoyed and over-excited about the response to our hard work, and we are all looking forward to the next meeting in November, on the 17th; the theme is I am the Light for the World.  We look forward to seeing you then.

Welcome to Messy Church!

Welcome to the Messy Church at St Mary's Hanwell blog!

Our first Messy Church will be on Saturday 20th of October at St Mary's Church Hall, Greenford Avenue, Hanwell at 3:30, and we're looking forward to seeing you there!

For more information about Messy Church and what it is, please have a look at the website below.

http://www.messychurch.org.uk/

St Mary's Church Hall is located near the corner of Greenford Avenue and Cuckoo Lane.



For more information about St Mary's Hanwell, look here.