31 Mar Dreams

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:12-14

Our November Messy Church had a jovial air to it! We welcomed a number of new people from a variety of churches outside of the parish which was wonderful! And we had two new wonderful chefs join our messy team! So lots of welcomes all round!

We continued in the theme of Genesis stories. This time we turned our gaze toward Joseph. That cheeky and somewhat arrogant dreamer with a penchant for brightly coloured garments and an uncanny ability to land on his feet whatever life seemed to throw at him.

Our worship and activities were focused on faith, forgiveness and love, key themes throughout Joseph’s story. We began by making Joseph’s colourful coat out of bin bags decorated with all manner of mixed media, which we then used in the worship.

Joseph’s story has a number of dark bits, when things are not going so well for him, for instance when his brothers plot to kill him, and then sell him to passing traders. Or when he is thrown into jail in Egypt. Through these events God show’s us that even in those darkest places he is working it all into the plan, there is always a light no matter how dark things get, we just have to have faith. Our next two activities connect with this, first we decorated votive candle holders and gave each child a battery operated tea light, to remember that Christ is always there, even in the dark. The second activity was to decorate a puzzle piece, in any way they wanted to. Even though the pieces did not seem to match, they still all fit together to form one big eclectic picture. Such is God’s plan, things may not seem to fit, but to God they all come together to form a big eclectic picture.

We also talked about forgiveness, and made ‘hearts of forgiveness’, remembering that Joseph forgave his brothers for all they had done, and we also need to be forgiving.

We are all dreamers, but God’s dream for us is far greater than anything we can possibly imagine, we just need to have faith in His big picture!