26 June 2017
This month at Messy Church we looked at the account of Jesus at Simon the Pharisees house in Luke 7:36-50. Simon fails to welcome Jesus in the usual manner, but while he is there a woman known for her sinful life shows her extravagant love for Jesus. Jesus tells a mini-parable to teach that the woman’s love for him shows she has been forgiven, while Simon’s lack of love for Jesus shows he has not been forgiven.
For the last session of the term we often do one longer activity instead of multiple shorter ones. This month we made kites to illustrate the extravagant freedom and love the woman experienced when Jesus had forgiven her. The connection to the story is a bit tenuous! We didn’t make a lot of it – but the children enjoyed making kites!
The basis for each kite was a sheet of florist’s cellophane. A kite shape was cut out of this and the children decorated it by sticking on pieces of tissue paper using PVA glue.
Two wicker canes were stuck in place using tape.
The sticks were tied together at the crossing point and the end of string also tied to the base of the ‘cross’ to make a loop.
A reel of string was added.
Tails were made by cutting strips (approximately 5cm wide) horizontally from black bin-liners. When opened out these made loops. Five loops were knotted together to make one long tail (the picture below shows a prototype with a different tail!)
Yes, the kites actually flew! Fortunately it was a windy day so the children could go outside and test them. The construction and testing of each kite took about an hour and a quarter.
