Tea-time Church Introduction

Tea-time Church

Tea-time Church is our own development of Lucy Moore's Messy Church, though in fact our resources could easily be used in a Messy Church or Cafe Church setting. Our ideas for this have been tested at the Deepings Methodist Church where it has run for a couple of years with some success.

Tea-time Church is designed to be run on a Sunday afternoon, leading into Sunday evening worship which can replace the evening service on that particular Sunday. However it can also be run midweek. We start with time for games as children arrive. This leads into a short time of energetic worship which includes a bible-bop (we find it easier these days to get children to dance rather than sing), action songs, prayers and an introduction to the theme using a video.

After this everyone is encouraged to take part in the craft activities and then enjoy a Sunday tea together. This can be a cooked meal but we find sandwiches, pizza, crisps, jelly and ice cream and cakes work really well and are less labour-intensive. This can also be a way of including others in the congregation, who might not come to tea time church, but who would be willing to make a cake.

After tea we move into the 2nd part of worship. This time the bible is used for the reading and there is a short talk, prayers, some slightly less lively songs and we finish with a "song for the adults".

The Resources

We now offer a complete 3 year pattern, but you can be flexible with this. We offer a brief glimpse of the life of Moses in the first 3 sessions which allows us then to cover the birth of Jesus in December. We then follow the life of Jesus, using parables at the appropriate moments. The only exception to this is each December where we offer Christmas resources.

We mainly use 4 DVDs for resources and these are quite inexpensive to purchase

The Prince of Egypt
The MiracleMaker
The Parables Complete Collection
Puppets 'n' Parables is available from the Family Friendly Churches Trust as a Download

From time to time we will also suggest other videos that may be available. Remember, to show videos like this you will need the video extension to your CCLI licence.

We offer a programme including an opening and closing prayer, song suggestions with the songs available as PowerPoint and video files, game and craft suggestions and the text of a short all age talk.

Along with this will be a complete PowerPoint file with all the songs inserted as videos. You will need to download the PowerPoint and videos files and hold them in the same folder. If you have your own musicians then it is an easy process to delete the video slides and replace then with slides of the words.

The Complete Programme

This is the material we cover over 3 years.

Month	Theme	Videos
	Year 1
September	Baby in the bulrushes	Prince of Egypt
October	The Burning Bush	Prince of Egypt
November	The Escape from Egypt	Prince of Egypt
December	An instant nativity	-
January – 2017	The Boy in the Temple	The Miraclemaker
February	The Baptism	The Miraclemaker
March	The Temptations	The Miraclemaker
April	The two builders	The Miraclemaker, The Parables & Puppets and Parables
May	Call of disciples & Matthew & Prodigal son	The Miracle Maker, The Parables & Puppets and Parables
June	The sower	The Parables
July	The healing of the paralytic	The Miraclemaker
August	The Lost Sheep	The Parables & Puppets and Parables
	Year 2
September	The unforgiving servant	The Parables & Puppets and Parables
October	Raising of the girl – The persistant widow	The Miraclemaker, The Parables & Puppets and Parables
November	Workers in the vineyard	The Parables
December	The wise men & gifts	-
January 2015	The rich farmer	Puppets and Parables
February	Raising of Lazerus	The Miraclemaker
March	Palm Sunday	The Miraclemaker
April	Turning of the tables – Paying taxes	The Miraclemaker
May	The great banquet	The Parables & Puppets and Parables
June	The ten virgins	The Parables
July	The Parables of Talents	The Parables & Puppets and Parables
August	Unless you become like children + The good Samaritan	The Miraclemaker,The Parables & Puppets and Parables
	Year 3
September	Anointing of Jesus + the hidden pearl	The Miraclemaker,The Parables & Puppets and Parables
October	Last Supper	The Miraclemaker
November	Garden of Gethsemane	The Miraclemaker
December	Christingle	-
January 2016	Betrayal and Trials	The Miraclemaker
February	Crucifixion	The Miraclemaker
March	Resurrection – Mary and Peter	The Miraclemaker
April	Resurrection – Emmaus and Thomas	The Miraclemaker
May	Ascension	The Miraclemaker
June	Pentecost	The Video Bible - Acts
July	Cornelius	The Video Bible
August	Conversion of Paul	The Video Bible