Experience Church is an interactive, multi-sensory way of engaging children in our local church - this year over 150 Year Five pupils from St Michael's Middle School, "experienced church" over two days this October. Six parts of the church building are used to focus on - the font, the prayer corner, the lectern, the stain glass window, the altar and the door.At the lectern they discuss that God cares for all living creatures and does not want us to worry, and ask the children what do they worry about? When they look at the stain glass window, they teach that <span style="font-size: 1rem;">Jesus wanted his followers to be kind and generous - be lights shining in the darkness. The children decorated glass jars to show good things in the world and acts of love and kindness. The candle is their light shining out.</span><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Please see some of the images from the event on our website:</span>http://www.stmichaels-church-colehill.co.uk/photos/gallery.php?gallery_id=33&pg=1<span style="font-size: 1rem;"></span>
<span style="font-size: 1rem;">Written by Hilary Gooding, introduction by the Rev Suzanne Pattle, Vicar of St Michael and All Angels, Colehill.</span><span style="font-size: 1rem;">On the first Sunday of September we gathered for All Age Worship which concluded with the blessing of the churchyard and garden on a beautiful autumn day. Over the course of the next few Sundays we are going to hear from a young person who has spent time with A Rocha in Canada and is passionately committed to the care of creation and will challenge us about our own lifestyles. Colin Brady is coming to preach later on in September and members of our Eco group are being asked to lead the sermon slot and intercessions. It is our hope that not only will we celebrate all of God’s goodness in creation but reflect on our own lifestyle choices (and those made in the ballot box) in response to the fifth mark of mission.</span>The Story behind the projectSt Michael and All Angels in Colehill is blessed with a congregation full of creative talent willing to join in with any schemes and ideas to celebrate festivals and seasons. Our latest project has been to decorate to church for Creationtide.The first part of the project was to make 6 Pulpit Falls/wall hangings and the second to create an air of celebration about Creationtide in the church. Our lovely church is an Arts and Crafts design with beautiful dark pillars and beams. We have been able to string black paracord between the pillars which blends in and is discreet. To create the feeling of a Creationtide celebration we hung coloured ribbons along six parallel cords each cord representing one of the days. The first cord had just black and yellow ribbons for the blackness and then light. The second cord (Day 2) had the black and yellow plus two blues for the heavens and the water. Day three had black, yellow, two blues plus brown for the land and green for the plants. And so on until Day 6 which had built up to a riot of colour. From Day 3 to Day 6 the congregation coloured and cut out pictures representing the things that were created and these were hung up with the ribbons on their respective days. To finish off we hung signs with text from the Bible in the centre of these decorated cords. It certainly created a sense of celebration of God’s creation. The textile hangings were put together by members of the congregation meeting for special craft days where they cut up fabric, then arranged and glued the pieces and pictures on a background. Where we couldn’t find commercial fabric with the pictures we needed we used t-shirt transfer paper to print images on fabric and cut them out. These sessions were full of bright ideas and chat and laughter. From a cautious beginning their imaginations soon took off and they came up with wonderful ideas. I am a quilter so finished off the hangings with felt on the back and a layer of net on the front to protect all the little pieces and quilted each to suit the images. They measure 22” x 16”.See our website for images of our project:http://www.stmichaels-church-colehill.co.uk/photos/gallery.php?gallery_id=32&pg=1In the past we have used the cords to hang white paper doves (Remembrance Day 2018), Christmas with angels and stars and Easter with paper daffodils and decorated eggs. The group is keen to know what next?!See some of our previous projects:Remembrance:http://www.stmichaels-church-colehill.co.uk/photos/gallery.php?gallery_id=28&pg=1Christmas:http://www.stmichaels-church-colehill.co.uk/photos/gallery.php?gallery_id=29&pg=1Easter:http://www.stmichaels-church-colehill.co.uk/photos/gallery.php?gallery_id=31&pg=1
