Experience Christmas

Sarah and I have had a great day today.  We have been involved with Experience Christmas that was run and organised by Liz Ridgeway from ECC Barrow.  We had 150+ Key Stage 1 children from two different schools in Barrow.  The event was held in St Marks Church and focused on the fact that the Angel Spoke about the first Christmas, the Shepherds Heard about it, the Donkey Felt something and the Camel Saw something special.  The introduction was by way of a quick warm up song - Great Big God followed by a second Christmas song with sign language.  Then a drama introduced the idea and four people acted out the parts of the angel, sheep, donkey and camel.  The children then split into four groups and went to different stations around the church to experience Christmas by listening to a story then doing a simple craft.  After about 15 minutes the children moved on and so visited 4 locations each time getting a story and doing a little craft.  The craft was in fact a heart and the people in the story formed a kind of jigsaw puzzle on the front - but with a gap.  At the end of the morning we gathered round the front of the church which is were the crib scene was and we sang the new song again then we explained the gap because on the back of the heart it said 'Jesus God's gift of Love at Christmas for ......'  the front gap formed a cross.  And we explained that Jesus was the greatest gift ever as He was given to us by God because God loves us so much and Jesus died for us.

Once we had explained the heart to the children we said a prayer and they all left and went back to school.