Family Love - 23rd February 2013

1 John 4 :16 God is love; :19 We love because he first loved us. If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars; : 21 Those who love God must also love one another 

It’s difficult to say who had more fun at this Messy Church – the children or the adults! There was certainly a lot of laughter in our hall that afternoon.

Our theme, Family Love, covered a number of aspects. Focussing on the story of the Good Samaritan during our worship time, we drew in elements of Valentine’s Day and Mothering Sunday. The story of the Good Samaritan is from Luke, Chapter 10, v25 -17, told by Jesus in response to the question "Who is my neighbour?"  A man on a journey was beaten up and left for dead.  There were several witnesses: a lawyer who treated him as a topic for discussion; a group of robbers, as an object to exploit; a priest, as a problem to avoid; an assisstant priest, as an object of curiosity; a Samaritan, a stranger, not of the same religion as him, as a person to love and care for.  We find it easy to justify not loving our neighbour, but far harder to understand that, as we are all made in God's image, we all belong to Him and in order to show His love we must act to help anyone in need.  We generally find it easy to show love to people we know, but far harder to show love to people we don't know.

St. Mary’s had just finished helping at the Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter and we wanted to acknowledge the work that had taken place helping the homeless.  We built a cardboard city out of boxes, and filled them with shredded paper, a few sleeping bags and several rats. Everyone piled in, throwing the paper everywhere, hiding in boxes, rolling around in the sleeping bags and paper.  We made an enormous mess, but everyone had a wonderful time.

John 3 :16 God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life

We started making our friendship bunting, which will be sewn together and hung up in the hall every month from now on.  Available as an activity for as long as people want it, this is a symbol of our binding friendships within Messy Church.  We made friendship jewellery and heart-shaped prayers and encouraged everyone to decorate a special Messy Church keepsake box.  The decorated boxes formed part of the worship; individual boxes forming a wall spelling out “We All Love Messy Church St. Mary’s”, symbolising that as individuals, we come together at Church to make a whole.

We are blessed that so many people came to share our fun-filled Messy Church.

Ephesians 5 :1 Follow God’s example as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.