Welcome to our Light Party 2018
‘Seeing Jesus’
Preparing for the evening, the leaders assembled, prayed, put on their orange caps.
…and donned their costumes.
Over 60 people came - including 42 children. This year it was a family event, so parents and others were invited to join the children.
We started with an opening activity: lighting a J-E-S-U-S in turn, and declaring that ‘Jesus is the Light of the World. We then sang a lively children’s song: ‘Shine’, followed by ‘My Lighthouse’, by Rend Collective, with lots of great actions.
Everyone was assigned into a group: red, green or yellow. In their groups, they rotated doing 3 activities, all with the theme ‘seeing Jesus’:
They decorated crazy glasses
They played games, such as ‘Blind Man’s Buff’, and ‘Pin the Nose on the Clown’
They did the drama of ‘Blind Bartimaeus’, a Bible story about a man who was healed by Jesus [Mark 10 v46 - 52].
They also had some other Drama fun.
And then some Light Refreshments…
Back in the sanctuary, Tim spoke to us about a story in the Bible of a blind man called Bartimaeus who ‘saw Jesus’ (from Mark 10); we heard how Jesus had healed him so he could see again.
The blind man, Bartimaeus, had heard Jesus go by, he had listened to Jesus, and spoke out to Him; Bartimaeus spoke to Jesus of his need (to see); he obeyed Jesus and came over to Him and then he had been healed/ and forever changed.
Tim’s message was that: we can also admit that, if we do not know Jesus, we are also blind [in our sinfulness]; we, too, can listen to Jesus as we read the Bible/ hear other people speak about Him; we too can speak to Him in prayer; and then obey in coming to Him and declaring our need of a saviour; we, too, can ‘See Jesus’ and have a relationship with Him as we come to believe in Him, and in His message of salvation - in that way we, too can be changed.
We said a prayer together, as a response to the Tim’s talk.
We then sang the song ‘Shine’ which we had sung earlier.
The evening finished as we were kindly joined by a blind lady called Jo and her dog, Dot. The children could think about what is is like to be blind, and were invited to ask Jo questions. She gave us a thank-you note, for inviting her, written in braille.
Everyone received a booklet from the Good Book Company called ‘A Friend in the Dark’/ help in the dark, along with choc/toffees and some even a balloon!
During the evening, 20 people from the Church met together to pray for us, that we would have a great evening. And we did. Praise God!
A great time was had by all! And thank you to everyone who helped!!