Just before lock-down in March last year we decided to take Messy Church on Zoom as we felt that our forth-coming meeting wasn’t going to be very safe. Since then we have met each half-term as usual, learning as we go! We did miss our Messy Nativity, but quite a few members took part in the Zoom Nativity drama and our Good Friday Messy Church didn’t happen – we were very new at the game then! Hopefully we will have something for this Easter.

It has been quite a learning curve adapting to communication on the computer, we have missed eating together, but enjoyed the fellowship that we have shared. This year we have been focusing on the "I am" sayings of Jesus and our last meeting in January was "I am the Bread of life", so it was all things bread! We made flat bread, jam sandwiches with a cross on, a pop-up toaster with a text on and had some discussion about types of bread and its world-wide appearance in people’s diet. It is difficult to make sure that we don’t make it a repeat of home- schooling, so we do try to include some action. Darren introduced us to some actions, the first letter of which spelt BREAD, Bounce, Run, Elastic, Aeroplane and Dance. We had actions to do for each of these which meant everyone getting up and doing! In conclusion to our session Jane turned those actions into themes for prayer and I would like to share these with you so that as you eat your toast or sandwich you can think of things to pray for. So….

B Bounce with thanks for all that God has given you

R Run with Jesus each day

E Elastic, help to stretch God’s love to all people

A Aeroplane – even those in far off places

D Dance for joy in praise of God.

You don’t have to do the actions! But we would love you to remember ‘Messy Church’ in your prayers and encourage any families that you think might enjoy our time together to contact me, You could also think up some actions or prayers based on MESSY CHURCH!