Help grow the snake

Scampton Stone Snake grew during the Summer and culminated in a wonderful piece of art to commemorate the BOB 80 anniversary.

Monthly Christian Assemblies

We are really excited to have been invited into Pollyplatt Community Primary School this year to run Christian assemblies once a month.

Following a meeting with Sam Jackson the head teacher it was decided that a member of the leadership team would go in to run the assembly on the second Wednesday of each month. The first assembly on the 12th February will be all about being creative. Joe told the story about looking after Gods creation based on the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6,9, and Luke 12. Then taught the song ‘We are marching in the Light of God, but in Zulu! (Siya Hamba).

Spend a penny and flush away poverty

Scampton Church congregation has been spending loads of pennies! Some months ago we gave people collection boxes asking them to “Spend a penny and flush away poverty.” It seems that whenever we go to the toilet we now spend more than a penny because the boxes have been coming back brimming with silver coins!

Now our toilet at Scampton Church is twinned with this one at Mabilabo, Mzimba District, Malawi.

Why did we do it? Here are some very good reasons:

• 2.3 billion people don’t have somewhere safe and hygienic to go to the toilet.
• The lack of a loo makes women and girls a target for sexual attack as they go to the toilet in the open, late at night.
• Almost 1,000 children die every day from preventable diseases linked to dirty water and unsafe toilets.
• 663 million people live without safe water.
• Children worldwide miss 443 million school days each year because of dirty water and poor sanitation.
• Every year, women and girls spend 97 billion hours finding a place to go.

By twinning our toilet we have enabled a family to build a toilet, have access to clean water, and to learn about handwashing and other hygiene principles. Dignity is restored when the whole family can use a private, hygienic toilet at their home and no longer have to squat in the bush.

I don’t know about the toilet we are twinned with but often the waste can be used for compost by adding vegetation or ash after each use providing more sustainability. We have some more boxes promised so we can hopefully twin another toilet.

Personally, I would love to twin both the boys’ and girls’ toilets at Scampton Church School. Keep spending those pennies!

John Beverley

June Family Service and ECO day

As we are currently running our Toilet Twinning Campaign the June family service was all about being caretakers of Gods creation and looked at World Environment Day on the 5th June. The children scoured the churchyard searching for parts of Gods creation which were used as centre pieces for prayer.

Thanks to Crumera for sending in the photo’s.

Inclusive, Informal, Interactive, Friendly, Fun And Free!

At Scampton Church we believe that following and worshipping Jesus should be fun, exciting and not too ‘stuffy’. We are passionate about developing ‘Fresh Expressions’ of Church to encourage one another to grow in our faith and to enable our worship, prayer, and teaching to be modern and relevant.

In an effort to make our church as easily accessible as possible to anyone we want to live out our faith through our upfront statement of welcome and intent. Inclusiveness and accessibility for all became our priority because without that, encouraging our community to get to know about Jesus would become insincere, as Jesus Himself preached God’s inclusive kingdom. So to help this to happen our six word invitation to services and activities was conceived. We decided that if at all possible, we would make everything we did:

Inclusive, Informal, Interactive, Friendly, Fun And Free!

For a few years now we have been developing our monthly family service, which has steadily grown in popularity. The more we thought about it the more we realized that the central part of the service ie. our thanksgiving communion, was not INCLUSIVE of children. The Ely report, and the regulations made at the 2006 Church of England Synod state that dioceses in the Church of England now welcome children to Holy Communion before confirmation; a fact that is not widely known. So, with the help of David Court, the Bishop of Grimsby, Jonny Bell and Charlotte Bloom from the ‘Lincoln Diocesan Children and Youth Mission’ we started to develop an action plan… And so our new and exciting expansion to our already popular Family Service was conceived.

We wanted children to be welcomed and valued equally, not excluded from this key element of worship. We followed the Diocesan advice, which stated that children must be seven years or over and be Christened/Baptised.

My grandchild at 7 years of age is a part of the new ‘i’ generation (born after the millennium and so called because of mobile technologies: iphone, ipad, ipod, Wii, iTunes, iOS) and at school, is already learning about prisms, cubes, rhomboids and spheres, swiping, pinching, Googling, Gooey (that’s really spelt ‘GUI’ meaning graphical user interface for those who might not know), and raspberry pies (not the ones you cook!). She is a part of a new generation brought up on technology and encouraged to be openly questioning at school.

Children are naturally included in family life and if parents or carers are participating in a thanksgiving or communion service, then today’s ‘i’ generation of questioning children are likely to say ‘why can’t I have some’! We felt that Jesus wants to feed all who want to understand, so we wanted to make the answer – ‘yes, you can have some’.

The gift of bread and wine is not for certain people only. Jesus shared bread and wine with the male disciples, as was culturally normal at the time, but this is not to say that the model of sharing bread and wine in Jesus time and culture is only appropriate to male followers now.

In the early stages of the venture there were concerns about unconfirmed children of seven years of age taking communion. We tried to answer some of the concerns raised as follows.

Q: Is my child too young to understand?
A: Experience over the years in the Church of England has shown that children of 7 years and over have sufficient maturity and understanding to participate in Communion.

Q: What if my child is not baptised/Christened?
A: This is not a problem. In most cases, children can be baptised/Christened before the next communion service.

Q: Don’t I have to wait until my child is confirmed before they can take communion?
A: No – The Church of England now allows for children to take communion with the local Bishop’s permission, and preparation beforehand.

Q: As an adult I’d like to know more myself. How do I do that?
A: Why not come along to our next Alpha Course.

Also we thought that:

• If the whole family of our Church worship and receive together, then children learn to behave appropriately.
• Children should be welcomed and valued equally.
• Having children share in family communion is the true historical tradition of the Church.
• Children gain specific teaching at a receptive age and understand what they are doing to their level of understanding.
• Confirmation is not rushed into and children would become more aware of the promises they are making.

A lesson in humility

Our March family service followed the theme of Humility: While teaching one day, Jesus started talking about the religious leaders and describing how they acted. The behaviour he describes is the the opposite of humility – they do everything for show, they take the best seats and wear the finest long robes, biggest tassels and demand respect when they walk around.

Jesus lived in the opposite way! He was born in a lowly barn, he put others before himself, and he never bragged. Jesus tells his followers that “Whoever is the greatest should be the servant of the others. If you put yourself above others, you will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honoured.”

Based on Matthew 23.1-12

The children (and we noticed most other people joining in!) enjoyed learning the actions to the song ‘One Way Jesus’….turned up really loud!

Thanks to all volunteers

A new team has been created to set up and operate the sound desk at each service. Thanks to all who have volunteered.

Pictured Walter operating the sound desk at the Harvest Celebration.

Calling all music lovers

Lovely to see Emily and Hannah playing keyboards this month. Well done both of you.

Don’t forget if you play an instrument and would like to join in then tell us. We’ll send you the music well in advance and you can play as much or as little as you like.

Look out next month for the new Family Service Prayer

We are creating a new ‘Family Service Prayer’, especially for Scampton Church, which we will say at the beginning of the family services on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month.

Ideas from the congregation were offered in prayer by Hannah and Emily at our June Family Service. We will share next month what the final prayer looks like.

A wonderful wedding day

What a beautiful way to learn about the Church of England Wedding Service and celebrate the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The sun shone on Scampton Church as pupils, staff and parents attended Scampton Primary Schools ‘Mock Wedding’. Wedding cars, flowers, confetti – we had it all.

The Wedding Party consisted of Bride, Groom, Best Man, Bride and Groom’s Parents and Bridesmaids and Page Boy. The Ushers handed out service sheets for the service. As the ‘morning’ progressed Sue taught the different parts of the wedding service.

We all arrived back at school for wedding cake and to sing the National Anthem. Later, BBC Radio Linclonshire interviewed pupils about their experience.

For more photo’s go to the school blog here.