Summer update - Holiday Club

This year we have taken on the organisation for the holiday club which the four churches in Highworth put on each year.  This gave us new challenges as we have only every worked with one church and been able to see the people volunteering each week at church.  We had to learn to work through church contacts and briefing meetings and also to gather up the resources from previous years which is stored at various buildings/homes.

Our theme, not surprisingly, was sport, tying into the Olympic Games.  We used John Hardwick's Sporting Academy resources, but as this sounded too much like a local school we used the "More Than Gold" title, which is the Christian response to the Olympic Games and is handed from one organising country to the next as the summer and winter Olympics move around the world.

Highworth Inter Churches Holiday Club 2012

The biblical teaching looked at David, from shepherd boy to king and we tied this into living a Christian life today through the sporting theme.  We were really pleased to see 88 children over the week (also another first for us as we have only ever held a three day holiday club).

Each day we started with a craft activity as the children arrived and then called them upfront to introduce the day's theme.  Josh had taken some great photos and videos at the Olympics which we were able to incorporate into our daily presentation.  The Bible story was told using the wonderful Lego work of the Brick Testament website.  We had a crayon puppet who helped us to understand the activities we were going to do each morning and Tim who helped us to see the theme linked to our lives.

Tim T Tim Tim

Crayon - advising on the day's activities

The children then spent time making the daily craft, exploring the Bible story in more depth, playing games and taking refreshments (which included a daily episode of Cars 2).  The children were split into age related group colours and then into sport named teams, so they could build up relationships with their other group members and the leaders.

Spectator binoculars - to remind us to keep our eyes on Jesus

Each morning finished with a round up session, led by our bin monster, who helped us work out what needed tidying up in the bin and what we needed to remember and Billy Bible who gave us a memory verse to learn.  The children loved coming up with actions to help them remember the words of the Bible verse.

We had a great group of adult and teenage helpers from each of the churches and we had live music thanks to the worship band.

The week finished with a closing ceremony on the Friday morning which parents attended to see the work the children had been doing and to witness the gunging of the team leader for the winning team colour.  We then had a closing party BBQ in the evening and a celebration service in church on Sunday morning.

Sunday's service looked at how Jesus is not just for holiday club and Christmas, but is our living saviour.  We looked at a way to pray using the acronym tsp (using a teaspoon as a reminder) learning that we should include Thank-yous, sorrys and pleases in our prayers.  We also gave everyone a tea-light to help them remember that Jesus is the light of the world, it also finished our final craft, which was a tea-light holder crown.

Crown tea light holders - reminder that God keeps his promises

This week's Bible verse is from Romans:

But God showed how much he loved us

 by having Christ die for us, 

even though we were sinful.

Romans 5:8

Our prayer is that the children who attend holiday club will have leaned something new about God's love for them and that they will want to know more.  We pray that we will welcome new families to our church families over the coming weeks.

This week we have been to the Paralympics and I'll tell you more about that next week.

With God's blessings from my family to yours,


Jo x