Orpington Methodist Church

Bringing Christ and community together

Family Worker News

Kim Curle is our Family Worker

 As we enter a new school year and our uniformed and other groups start up again, I am excited to share about our forthcoming holiday club to be held at Orpington Methodist Church, running each morning, Tuesday to Thursday 26-28th October, during half-term week.

The Story Keepers is set in AD64 in Rome under Nero.  Along with other Roman emperors, Nero thought he was a god.  Since the Christians wouldn’t accept his claim and would only worship Jesus as Lord, to him they were trouble makers and Nero hated them.  One day in Rome there was a fire and Nero blamed the Christians for starting it.  He ordered his soldiers to persecute the Christians in the city.  It is with this backdrop in mind that the Christians met in secret in the catacombs.  They devised a series of signs to acknowledge each other and they sought to pass on the stories of Jesus while they faced persecution and danger from the authorities.

The main heroes in the storyline are Ben the Baker, his wife Helena and their family of ‘orphan’ children.  Three of the children – Marcus, Justin and Anna – lost their parents in the fire.  Marcus is Ben’s teenage apprentice.  Cyrus is a boy from North Africa.  Separated from his family, Ben and Helena welcome him into their home too.  The children have adventures together and it is in the context of these adventures that the stories of Jesus are told.

Each day of holiday club will be action packed full of activity and fun with crafts linked to the daily bible stories, Spartacus games and quizzes and of course the children following the daily episodes of The Story Keepers, learning the theme tune and thinking about how they too can keep the stories of Jesus alive in their own generation.  On the Thursday we will be inviting the children’s families to join us for the final part of the programme and to share in a picnic lunch, also to join us for a special holiday club service on Sunday 31st October.

The parallel for us is a striking one.  We have the same task as the people in the stories: we need to keep the stories of Jesus alive.  Although we may not face the threat of violence and physical persecution, we live in a society where the Christian faith is only adhered to by a minority.  One of the challenges we face is helping children to see that they are the story keepers for today.  They too need to hear and discover the stories of Jesus.  But there is a challenge in being a story keeper: just as the children in the story faced persecution, how are the friends of Jesus today going to face and cope with opposition?

Praise God for the fantastic opportunity presented to us as we look to welcoming in good number children from our locality and exploring with them and their families the stories of Jesus and applying the biblical themes to our lives today.  However, we cannot run holiday club without your help.  It is not too late to speak to me about ways in which you could be practically involved during the week itself or in the preparatory
workshops on Saturdays 16th and 23rd October.  Most especially, I invite you to pray for this strategic outreach event in the life of our church: that the children and their families who come along would be touched by the love of God and that all of us would be inspired afresh ‘to keep the story alive so the news of Jesus will survive’.

 Yours in Christ

Kim