South Aston URC organised a community picnic and, despite the heat, over 160 people turned up! As part of this community day, they had a Christian Prayer Tent and a Prayer Tree to help reflect and be in the presence of God.
We delivered invitation cards to every home within reasonable walking distance of the church building and handed them to parents outside the school next door in the hopes that many would attend. We ended up having over 160 guests because there weren’t quite enough bags for all of them and the helpers didn’t get any food apart from a few biscuits!
On 25 July, from just before 2.00 p.m. until 2.30, (in 25 degrees’ heat), Roger played his saxophone in the church garden to attract people and by 3.00 p.m., we had 160+ people join us! We offered refreshments across the full 2 hours and had all the usual ‘fun day’ activities outside: a hired bouncy castle; parachute games; tug-of-war and a variety of races.
We also had a ‘Christian Prayer Tent’ with a bubble machine and a ‘Prayer Tree’ to which people were invited to attach tags on which they had written names of people they wanted us to pray for during our Sunday services. By 4.00 p.m., the tree was nearly full.
The ‘Prayer Tree’ was by way of introducing our new project for the Autumn: ‘Christian Prayer Ministry’ that will be offered every Thursday from 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. in our newly created Prayer Room. It was our privilege to pray with a few people, mainly older children but also a Muslim mum and her children, who asked about the Christian faith.
Inside the building, we offered tables with craft and paper-based activities and, also, in the large hall, we provided table tennis and bigger ball-based games. We held a ‘Guess the Teddy’s Birthday’ competition and offered a balloon ‘dog’ or ‘sword’ to every child. We had created and distributed 80 bags each containing picnic food for 2 people to share, plus a Christian tract and invitation card to our ‘Christian Prayer Ministry’ that will start in September.