Mission Rescue - Sunday Service

Last week we followed up the Mission Rescue Holiday Club with our Mission Rescue Sunday Service.  It has been our practice for the last six years to give the following Sunday service completely over to Holiday Club.  Feel this is very important, the rest of the church get to see what we have been up to and many of the kids come back and bring their parents to see what they have been doing.  

So on Sunday morning we only sang songs that we had been singing at Holiday Club - complete with actions and jumping around - silly sketches, games (taking jelly babies out of cold porridge with your teeth), puppets etc.  My talk was just ten minutes trying to make the link between Moses as a rescuer and Jesus.  One of our teenagers made an amazing cake for everyone to share afterwards and we had a great time.  This is often our biggest service of the year, attracting even more than our most popular Christmas service, though this year numbers were a bit lower. 

Today - one week on - we carry on with the first 30 minutes of the 75 minute service given over to very child friendly activities.  We sang one of the Mission Rescue songs, read to them from the wonderful Jesus Story Book Bible and played a game with coloured balls and hula-hoops.  Not sure the game worked very well (that was down to me) but over the years have come to the realisation that we need to be lively and attractive to kids and families through the year, not just once every 52 weeks.  

As a footnote, my biggest fear was that such a move would alienate and upset the more elderly in the congregation, so I took it slowly at first.  Realised a couple of years ago when no-one complained about the custard pies that they didn't mind at all.  In fact, they love it.  They love to see children in the church and a bit of life about the place.