Last week at Compass we did the 46 day season of Lent in a flurry and record time of 1 hr and 15 mins. ( Well 55 mins if you take away the games and snack.)
It was Shrove Tuesday, so good place to start.
Susan and Lucy made brilliant pancakes with the young people – congratulations to Kristie for winning the Ultimate Pancake Flipper medal!
In this session we learned that Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent starts. That Lent is often a time of giving things up and fasting – so Shrove Tuesday is a day to use up foods and indulge yourself…..we managed that bit just fine. Fried batter with chocolate, cream, sugar, lemon. Definitely sweetens the difficult bits of Lent. But then we learned about Ash Wednesday. The start of Lent. Definitely not so much fun! We learned that Ash Wednesday is a day to take a long good hard look at yourself. Yeeeeeeeeeeesssshhhh! Not ever pleasant! Some churches burn the palm fronds from last years palm Sunday and put little ash crosses on their foreheads to remind them to say sorry to God and think about their lives. So we got some burned ashes (from my shopping lists not actual palms) and marked wee crosses on a big paper cross. The ashes smelt terrible which brought forth many exclamations of ‘yuk’ and ‘that’s disgusting’ while we talked about what Ash Wednesday means, which detracted from the somber occasion somewhat – but we got the point….
(Thank you to the brilliant Flame Creative website for this brilliant idea)
We talked about Lent being a time when we think about the events leading up to and including Jesus’ death on the cross. That Lent is a time when Christians reflect and prepare before the celebrations of Easter.
Finally we made these crosses with my favourite thing -liquid watercolours (very very messy – sorry Heather!)- and we wrote the words Love and Hope on them to remind us that at the end of Lent there is Love and Hope and Joy because of what Jesus did.
We would recommend that everyone else sticks to the 46 days….it was a little rushed. Thanks to Compass staff and young leaders for all their help.
Bankfoot Church Centre 