Saturday 23rd May 2020
Welcome to another Messy Church at Home session. We miss meeting together but we can always keep learning about Jesus and listening to what he has to say to us.
Our story today involves another journey and a friend of Jesus called Philip. We might have been on a lot of walks from our homes recently. How do you decide which direction to take, maybe you take turns at deciding the route?
Watch this video to find out how Philip decided where to go and what happened next on the journey.
Philip took his directions from God! He listened to what he wanted him to do and he was guided by him to tell other people about Jesus. Let’s think a bit more about this with these activities.
Build your own chariot
Can you make a chariot at home? There are lots of ways you can do this. You can use an old box and cardboard, use a bowl as a template to make wheels, decorate it with foil, paper or pens and use some wool or string to pull it around. Can one of your soft toys fit inside and maybe you can take them for a chariot journey?!
Or can you make a chariot design with things you can find outside, like sticks, stones, leaves and flowers? Or another way to build a chariot might be using chairs and blankets indoors. Use your imagination!
It must have sounded like unusual instructions but Philip followed exactly what God said and he discovered that God had a very special job for him to do that day. I wonder how we can listen to God today?
Scroll
Philip saw that the official was reading from a scroll of the book of Isaiah which we can find in the Old Testament part of our Bibles today. Philip was able to help him to understand it and he told him the good news about Jesus too.
Can you make a scroll at home? You can use a used tea bag to wipe over a crumpled piece of paper, to make it look old and then leave it to dry (or use a hair dryer). Use two strips of cardboard as the ends of the scroll and roll your paper around them. Write the verse below on it as a reminder that Jesus asks us to always be ready to share the hope we have in him, with others.
“Always be ready to answer everyone who asks you to explain about the hope you have. But answer in a gentle way and with respect.” 1 Peter 3 v 15-16
Story and Song Celebration Time
You can read today’s story in Acts 8 v 26 – 40 in the Bible or you can follow the link to it by clicking here.
Philip was a follower of Jesus. He listened to God and he did what he said. Philip was able to share the good news about Jesus with the important official from Africa and he helped him to understand what had been written about the coming of Jesus, hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
Maybe there is someone on your mind just now or someone who you might meet while outside – is God asking you to speak to them or pray for them or help them in some way? God still guides us today, even in the everyday moments of our lives. Are you listening to him?
Reading the Bible helps us to know Jesus better too and to understand how he wants us to live. He always wants us to be ready to share the hope that we have in him. If you have decided to follow Jesus, then you’ll always have a living hope, knowing that you can trust in God’s many promises and that:
“Nothing can ever separate us from the Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love of God he showed us in Jesus!” (from the Jesus Storybook Bible)
We’ll finish by singing and doing the actions to ‘I have decided to follow Jesus’, which reminds us of the decision we can all make, the hope that he gives and the way that he guides and leads us each day.
Remember to send in any pictures of what you have made to our Facebook page or you can email them to familyworker@outlook.com, we would love to share some on our Facebook page.
Thank you for visiting Messy Church At Home and we hope you’ll join us here again.