Who is the Holy Spirit? at Ravenmeol's Community Centre

On Sunday 19th June Messy Church Formby explored the theme of 'who is the Holy Spirit?' We looked how God lives within us when we ask his Holy Spirit to come upon us and how through his spirit we are able to become closer to God. We discovered that there are nine fruits of the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Paitience, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Kindness, Goodness and having Self Control. Over the afternoon we explored the different aspects of the Holy Spirit through a variety of activities. A period of lively worship followed and then we finished the afternoon off with a BBQ tea and cakes.

The Activities
Holy Spirit Fruit Making:
We had three activities which centred around the fruits of the spirit. First was making a 3-D fruit mobile. Using card we cut out fruit shapes which we then decorated and wrote the spiritual fruit which we would like to grow i.e. Patience. Then we slotted the fruit peaces together to make a 3-D fruit and attached with others to form a mobile..

Fruit bowl:
A selection of different fruits, each symbolising the fruits of the spirit, were displayed. Then we cut pieces off those we wante and put them in a bowl. The Messy Church Team member taked about the fruits of the spirit as we cut our fruit up.

 

 

Decorating Biscuits
As usual this was a very popular activity. This time we were asked to decorate the biscuits with nine sweets or shapes, one for each of the fruits of the Spirit

 

 

 

 

 

Flame Headband Making:
The believer saw what looked like tongues of flames when the Holy Spirit came (Acts 2). To illustrate this we made headband with flame like decorations to wear at worship time.

 

Water Play:
A paddling pool of water and holey containers was used to illustrate that you need to keep filling up with the Holy Spirit (by praying) so that you can use the fruits of the Spirit better.

 

 

Streamer making
The believers heard a mighty wind from heaven, when the Holy Spirit came (Acts 2).

We decorated paper plates and attached streamers to them to signify how we think the Holy Spirit may look like. These were then used in the worship time when we danced.

 

 

Bible Table:
Many different types of Bibles; traditional, comic strip, youth and story bible. We were asked to find Galatians 5 verse 22 and learn it.: God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways.

 

 

Dancing :
Psalm 30 says that God makes us dance,so for this activity we had a go at the dance mat. Phew!

 

 

Joke Corner
The Holy Spirit makes us laugh, says Paul (Thess 4) so we had to tell a joke in the joke corner to put in the Messy Joke Book.

 

 

Make a Bath Bomb
The Holy Spirit is invisible but Psalm 19:10 says He/She smells good, so we made bath bombs and to give to someone.

 

 

The worship
After an hour of activities, we began our time of celebration and worship. Steph explained that God comes in three forms God the Father; God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In order to help us understand this she showed us different sorts of chocolate. A chocolate bar, chocolate spread and liquid chocolate; all slightly different but all chocolate, just like God. We also blow up balloons to help us understand that just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. The air we blow into a balloon inflates it so we can see it clearly, just like when someone is full of the Holy Spirit they show the fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Paitience, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Kindness, Goodness and Self Control.

After the worship, we tucked in to a BBQ tea followed by an assortment of delicious cakes! During the supper we were able to enjoy a special time of fellowship which included birthday celebrations and lots of chat.

If you would like to join us at Messy church, then the next one is at Regate School on Sunday 17th July and then again at Ravenmeol's on 18th September. Why not come and join the fun.