Harvest People Prayers and Potatoes Messy Church #messychurch

Today has been a busy day and a half, and it's been fantastic. Unsurprisingly my highlight has been the messy church session we call people prayers and potatoes.

We started today with an all church harvest brunch, an amazing full breakfast for over 100 people cooked by eight dedicated and talented church members.  We then moved into the church, carpets protected with plastic and chairs artfully arranged, for a truly messy harvest experience.

This is the first time that the planning team took the lead for everything and it was wonderful to see their ideas come to life and be meaningful and enjoyable for the families who came.

Here are the activities they produced with some photos.

1. Seed to plate
We are blessed to have a primary school teacher in our team and she produced a sorting activity which got the kids to put the images in order for making a loaf of bread

Seed - wheat - combine harvester - miller - baker - shop

2. Prayers on fruit and vegetable shapes on banner

3.  Where does food come from?
We provided a world map and challenged the families to place rice, pasta, noodles and other foods including fruits and vegetables onto the places they come from in the world.  I think we might need to engage some additional geography lessons.

4.  Fruit and vegetable printing
I bought carrot, potato, leek, celery, sweet corn, apples, radishes, peppers and broccoli for printing.  The broccoli really didn't work but all the other were a huge hit with the kids and parents, all of whom wanted to join in the fun of printing large strips of paper.

5.  stick your favourite food on your plate
We provided all sorts of fruit, vegetables and favourite food pictures and invited people to chose their favourites, deviate them and stick them on to a plate.  The analysis of the meals would make for a lot of fun.

6. plasticine fruit and vegetables
Turns out that this is the best thing we've ever done!
And it turns out we have some amazing sculptors!

7. Conker run
We promised that we would have a mass building project every month and this month the challenge was to build the world biggest marble run for Conkers.  The dads certainly enjoyed the challenge and we used the creation for a prayer activity. Post a conker and say thank you to God for something good that he's given you.

Father who feeds us
We thank you for those who help us find you
For those who help us learn about you
For those who help us know you
Amen.