Better than any cathedral!

These are our prayers that we wrote in the sand using the shells on the beach at llandonna on Anglesey.

We made monsters today!

We're hosting very informal craft days every Thursday in august. Today was the first and we made felt phone socks and these dahlia corsages.

Tonight at youth group we had a prayer room. One of the activities was to write a prayer and attach it to a balloon. At the end of the session we went outside and let them all go. They looked beautiful drifting off into the sunset.

C3 have been running monthly Saturday craft workshops for a while, the latest was yesterday when we asked Heather Lightfoot to teach us how to make felt. Over the course of the afternoon we transformed long hanks of fluffy wool into beautiful pieces of felt, bowls, balls and, in one case, an American flag. Here's some pics of us all hard at work and one of my finished bowl.

Great video illustrating the story of God's interaction with His people in five acts. Thanks to Jonny Baker for the link.

 

Yesterday at C3, we rewrote the ten commandments. I'm sure God'll be fine with it, we were just asked to translate them a bit to give them more meaning for today. The two groups who did this exercise both chose to make the commandments understandable for children. So here's Exodus 20:1-17 for 4-10 year olds:

1. Put God First: God is number one, everything else comes second.

2. Nothing else is more important than God

3. Don't say 'God' when you don't mean it

4. Have a restful day - chillaxing every week

5. Respect. Treat adults how you would like to be treated.

6. Don't hurt anybody

7. Stick together/look after your friends

8. Don't take from anyone without permission

9. Always tell the truth. Don't lie

10. Don't want something others have got.

I was lucky enough to be in the second group where we had a secret weapon - Caitlin. She was in the age group we chose - 9-12. Lots of these come from her:

1. Don't believe in anybody but God

2. Don't say things like 'OMG!'

3. Work and school six days a week but on the seventh day spend time with people/family and God and don't do too much.

4. Love your mum and dad and help them. Thank them for the things they do for you.

5. Don't kill people

6. Don't have an affair. Don't cheat on people.

7. Don't be a thief

8. Don't lie

9. Don't be jealous of what you don't have

10. Be your own person.

For the next few months, C3 is following an initiative of scriputure union called e100. This is the 'essential' 100 readings from the bible that we're going to be reading. There are five readings a week and occasionally we get a week off to catch up or read other things. We'll also be following the themes on sundays and we started this week by looking at readings from genesis.

Ian and Lisa took this photo of the artwork created!

Here are the readings for this week if you want to join in:

In The beginning
 
1. Meet the Author
Genesis 1 & 2
 
2. Eyes wide open
Genesis 3
 
3. Clean Sweep
Genesis 6:5-7:24

4 Never Again
Genesis 8:1-9:17
 
5 Can We Talk?
Genesis 11:1-9

This last week at C3 we were inducted into the spooky and twisted world of Granny O'Grimm. Here's some links so you too can enjoy and share her love:

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

Granny O'Grimm's Christmas Message

 

This week at C3 we focused on the angels in the Christmas story. During our discussion time, we made a heavenly host of battle angels (they had swords cause we think angels could be a bt fierce). Lisa and I both took photos of the 'throng' of angels (that's 'a lot' of angels, as Ian explained). Here's Lisa's photo:

Naomi hurt her hand a little bit when she helped me light the second advent candle on the display we made last week. It's not a wreath and there's not a coat hanger in sight but there is space for four little candles that we can light in the run-up to Christmas.

Next week, we're not meeting all together on sunday morning because we can't have the hall we usually use. Instead, we're finding different ways to give this Christmas - and giving some friends some of our time to do some jobs to help them out a bit.