Messy Church Prayer Response: Chalkboard Cross

Chalkboard paint is a fantastic thing!  Our children love the prayer chalkboard we have and, when we were planning Messy Church for Easter, it struck me that we could use the same principle with the cross as a prayer response.

One of our amazing congregation members built us a cross and Kylé and I set to work with the chalkboard spray paint (much quicker than just painting it on!).

After showing a video clip about the Easter story, we showed everyone the dark, blank cross and talked about the sadness of Good  Friday and how we sometime have sad things that happen or wrong things that we do that make us feel bad.  We then reminded everyone that The Easter story didn't finish with Jesus dying but with him rising to new life and that, if we ask God to help us, He would help us to have new starts and hope in our lives when things go wrong. We asked people to come and decorate the cross with coloured chalk as a sign of the new life and hope that Jesus can bring to us. Even the very youngest children could join in.  Here's the result!