Harvest Festival Service 2013

Sunday 29^th September was an absolutely glorious day – a wonderful day for our Harvest Thanksgiving Service!

This was all-age worship combined with a parade service.

The colours were presented as we sang the hymn “Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest-home!”

Having confessed our sins we then asked for God’s forgiveness before we sang our second hymn “Give thanks with a grateful heart” whilst the harvest gifts and offerings were brought up to the Holy Table.  [The harvest gifts were destined for the Southport Soup Kitchen and the loose collection for the charity, Tear Fund.]

The Bible reading was from Matthew 25 v 31-46 and was followed by an illustrated talk (laden with apples) from our vicar, Jeremy.

Having agreed that, however generous we were, we could never match God’s giving to us, we went on to sing, “Come on and celebrate!  His gift of love we will celebrate…”.

After this hymn Sal introduced Tom who goes to St. Vincent’s School, a Specialist School for Sensory Impairment and Other Needs.  Tom had very kindly come to our church to receive a donation for his school that was raised by donations to the WOW4 Holiday Club and the subsequent “bucket collection” held in church.  

Tom’s mum, Tina, movingly explained what St. Vincent’s School meant to her and Tom and the difference it made to their lives.  Then Tom told us what he thought the “absolutely best thing about the school” was.  This turned out to be the “Talking Menu”!  However, the swimming pool, computers and holiday camps featured pretty highly too!

I am delighted to be able to report that two of the ex WOW4 Holiday Club members, Francesca and Abbie, were able to present Tom with a donation of £515.70.

We then joined together in saying the Creed before three members of the Eagles (Hannah, Laura and Lucy) ably led our intersessions.

The service was brought to a close by a collect for harvest and the Lord’s Prayer before the colours were retrieved as we all sang the much loved hymn “We Plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand…”

After the service it took Judith, and a team of strong helpers, quite a while to load her poor little car with all the gifts for the Southport Soup Kitchen.  (There was a lot on the front seat too!)

“Many thanks” to everybody who came to the service for their generosity both to the Southport Soup Kitchen and to TearFund

and also a big “thank you” to all those who contributed to the donation for St. Vincent’s School.

Also, I should like to thank Tom and his family for coming to our service, talking to us and accepting our donation on behalf of St. Vincent’s School.  What a credit to the school you are Tom!

For more information about St. Vincent’s School go to www.stvin.com and if you want to know more about the Southport Soup Kitchen go to www.southportsoupkitchen.co.uk/ or speak to Judith Foster.

Special service following WOW4 Holiday Club

On Sunday 4th August we held a special service to celebrate the WOW4 holiday club!
After Jeremy had welcomed everybody, especially the children and their families, Christine, who led the service, told the assembled congregation a little bit about our themes and what we had been up to during the week.

The Bible reading on which the service was based was a version of Luke 19 verses 1 to 10!
Before Christine spoke to us the children, and WOW4 team, sang the action song that they had been learning during the week!

"Zacchaeus was a very little man, and a very little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Saviour he wanted to see.
And as the Saviour passed that way, He looked up in the tree,
And he said, “Now Zacchaeus, you come down;
For I’m coming to your house for tea…  Yes, I’m coming to your house for tea.”

As she sought to explain the relevance of the Zacchaeus story, Christine introduced the man himself (in the form of Geoffrey)!








With the help of the children they demonstrated how, in his greed, Zacchaeus had been swindling (effectively stealing from) the people.  She explained how Jesus knew that, wealthy as he was, Zacchaeus was not a happy man.  We noted how Jesus recognised his need, came into his life and totally transformed him.  Zacchaeus more than made up to the people by repaying four times what he had stolen and giving half his possessions to the poor.  More importantly, not only were the people happy but Zacchaeus himself became a much happier man.
Christine noted that this happens to us too.  If we get to know Jesus, and let him into our lives, we too will not only be better people but be happier people too.

After the talk, the congregation joined the children in singing the Zacchaeus song once more!

After the confession, absolution and affirmation of faith, prayers of thanks were led by Iona.

The "bucket collection" for St Vincents School, that we'd begun during WOW4, continued after the service.  [The buckets are getting wonderfully heavy but the collection will continue throughout August.  So please do collect up all your small change and add it to the buckets on Sunday!]

During coffee in the hall after the service, Geoffrey auctioned a couple of paintings, that Maude had created and donated, for our St. Vincent's appeal.

[Note: at our "Harvest Festival" service, at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday 29th September, Tom, who attends St. Vincent's, and his mother, Tina will be telling us a little bit about their experience of the school and accepting a cheque on the school's behalf.  Please be there to support them.]

[A BIG THANK YOU to Christine, Geoffrey, Iona, Maude and all the other WOW4 helpers for their contributions not only to the club but also to the service.  Thank you too to all the WOW4 children and their families who supported the club and the service so enthusiastically.]

WOW4 Holiday club - part 3

This is the fourth and final day of WOW4.  (Rather confusing as I have called it "part 3" but the first "part" covered days 1 and 2!!!)

So on Thursday 1st August our theme was "white" which we agreed symbolised "good" and often worn by brides at weddings, sometimes at baptisms and by vicars wearing surplices.  We noticed that angels were often portrayed in white as were good fairies in pantomimes!

The day was characterised by several white activities and a number of silly "white" games!

These included The making of angels ..... 

..... drawing in white chalk .....

..... and The making of spinners out of CDs which possibly when spun will turn the primary colours white!  

Well if they don't do that they will hopefully produce an interesting visual effect!?!


John, with his glue gun, helped us to attach the CDs to the ping-pong balls and the tops!  (He only burned himself once - I think!?!)

The white chocolate game was rather manic and I think there was a lot of cheating going on!  I didn't see many children with their arms in the t-shirt although plenty seemed to get a turn at wielding the knife and fork and eating the chocolate!


(If you don't know what I'm talking about you'll have to ask someone who was there!)

So much was consumed that, in the end, we ran out of white and had to resort to brown chocolate.

Simple skittles was a game that also generated a lot of excitement (and noise).
[I'm not sure Geoffrey's knees will ever be the same again!]

It's amazing how much fun you can have with a couple of white balloons!  Simple games are often the best.



We concluded the morning with the story of the resurrection of Jesus.  So we ended on a high with the best news ever!

So now the club has ended and as some people are unable to join us on Sunday because of holiday commitments I should like to take the opportunity to thank all the adults and young people who attended WOW4.  They all, from the youngest (aged 5) to the oldest (who will never see their 70th birthday again!) contributed to the joyful atmosphere of the club.  Hopefully everyone of us learned something as well as having fun!   

Thanks to you all!

If you can make it to the special WOW4 service on Sunday 4th August a t 10.30 a.m. please do come along to support the children and their helpers.

WOW4 Holiday Club - Part 2

On the third day of WOW4 (Wednesday 31st July) the theme was "black".  Strictly speaking black is not really a colour at all but a lack of light and hence lack of colour!  We discussed the symbolism  of black or darkness and the evil characters portrayed as wearing black from witches, to Darth Vader, Voldemort and Dementors!

The children then moved on to a number of black activities.  These included making shadows and shadow puppets.  









George proved to be an expert at making shadow characters with his hands!

They made scraper-boards, and pictures on them by scraping off the black! 

They discussed how charcoal was made and drew pictures with barbecue charcoal - a very messy process.  

Finger print painting was not a much cleaner but produced some excellent results!

The children also made silhouettes of themselves, using photos  that had been taken earlier in the week!

It was also amazing what fun could be had with a pair of large wellington boots!

We were very fortunate in being able to get outside between rain showers, for a bit of a break, after our snack!

The day ended with the dark story of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus.  Hopefully we'll have a happier story to tell tomorrow!

WOW4 Holiday Club Part 1

The St. John's Holiday Club, WOW4, started on Monday 29th July 2013.

Over 30 children joined the WOW4 team on what turned out to be a lovely day in spite of an extremely dubious weather forecast.

The theme for the week was colour and light and on the first day we discussed light in general, colour and what it would be like if we were unable to see.  We also focussed on the fact that Jesus had said, "I am the light of the world" and reflected on what this mine mean for us.

Activities that we embarked upon included looking at stained glass windows after which the children made "stained glass window biscuits"!

We also noticed haw a rainbow effect could be produced when we shone a light on to glass crystals or CDs.

We made some bouncy, multi-coloured egg-bugs ....

..... made rainbow pictures ....

..... and ran "rainbow streamer relay races"!

We also tried to get a sense of what difficulties we might face if we couldn't see.  To do this we tried to write our names and draw a picture whilst blind folded!

In addition we did a "Blind show relay".  For this the children took off one shoe and everyone put their shoes in a box at one end of the link corridor.  Then, wearing blindfolds, children in two teams made their way down to the box, found their own shoe and returned to the next team member!

At the end of the first day we listened to a story of Jesus healing a blind man.  [From John1 v 9-41].  We also considered how difficult it must be for children who can't see and decided to run a "Bucket collection" of small change for St. Vincent's school which teaches blind and partially sighted children and draws children from across Merseyside.  This collection will be continued in church throughout August.  So, please collect up all your small change and put it in the buckets that will be at the back of church.

 [At our Harvest Festival Tom (who goes to the school) and his mother, Tina, (Maude's niece) will be coming to church to collect the money for the school.]

[For more information about St. Vincents go to http://www.stvin.com/]

On the second day of the club (Tuesday 30th July) we focused on the colour green.  We considered the symbolism of this colour both as it appeared in the `bible and as we think about it in our country today.  We decided that it symbolised "life".

The children searched for different shades of green in the church grounds and also in the church itself.   They found many different shades and surprised themselves by finding more in the church than in the grounds!

Having done this they played a bizarre game which involved transferring dried peas from one place to another using only a green straw!  (You had to be there!!!)

In addition they planted cress seeds, some under a dark cover and some under transparent covers.  The aim is to try to find out whether the ensuing seedlings are any different from each other!  

This is what happened to mine!

The children also made (and cut out) green hand prints .....

..... as well as paper plate frog puppets!






On Tuesday we ended with the story of Palm Sunday!  (It's not too hard to find the green link in that!)

In addition to all this we have been learning an action song to sing at our special service on Sunday.  [To find out what it is you'll have to wait until Sunday!]

At the time of writing I am looking forward to Wednesday!