It seems like no time has passed since last month’s Junior Church but spring is here and the daffodils are out on the walk up to our Church! After the initial hymn with the rest of the congregation we headed out to the Centre. We started with a warm up, and had great fun with a large dice, which everyone took turns to roll. The first roll decided what exercise to do and then the second, how many times we had to do it!  We were really glad no one rolled for lots of press ups..

Then it was onto the carpet for our story. Today we looked at the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

John Chapter 4 verses 6 – 15 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.^a]”>[a]

⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.^b]”>[b] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

This story was all about talking to people who are different to ourselves, and breaking down some barriers between the people of the world.  We then asked each other if we had done a helpful deed that week. It was good to hear everyone contribute and there were lots of good deeds from the adults as well, someone had guided a stranger around a hospital, someone has helped a friend with a broken car, and someone had helped look for a missing child (who was thankfully found).

Next, it was activity time. We wrote down something about ourselves, like our eye colour, age, and what we liked. When we compared lots of people were the same but lots of people were different too.  Then we wrote down on fishes the things that made us special (Edward created some real artwork on his board, which he was really proud of!)

This then went into our fishing net which we took back into church with us to show the work we had done.We have also been given a task for this week. There is a piece missing from our fishing net.We all have to do a good deed to show we care for others, and write it on the star fish, these will be added to show us being good deed super stars!

The final hymn was Lord of the Dance, a really lively song which we could all join in with! You can see a fantastic version being sung really well by an American church here:

There is no Junior Church next month (April) so we’ll update you again in May! If you want a do a good deed and add a starfish to our net then feel free.

Growing Saints is our Junior Church here at Brixworth. If you would like to know more, please get in touch.  We meet on the third Sunday of each month and offer friendly & fun activities for infant & primary  school children (4+). You are welcome to accompany your child with us if you prefer, or stay and enjoy the main service!