Snips is a monthly Messy Church congregation run by St John’s in Ealing for children up to the age of 12 and their families. Each month we start with creative activities such as painting, collage and food play. This is then followed by the celebration with story, prayer and action songs, and finally everyone sits down together for tea.
We are looking at ways for our parent / carers and children to get to know Jesus better. We have started a short Snips Church service which consists of a children’s worship song, a Bible story, a prayer and another song. This has now developed into inviting a local nursery to attend our Christmas nativity service each year.
The Café is the hub of Snips. Many a review on Netmums has commented on our pasta and the jacket potatoes which our local grocer has provided over the 27 years we have been here, so food, hot drinks and long-lasting friendships and the love God gives us is what makes Snips so special and that’s why we would like to carry on for at least 73 years to make a round 100!
Sarah’s story
I came into contact with St John’s church for the first time when I was discussing my son’s baptism. I learnt about Snips and decided to volunteer an hour of my time each week in the lunch hour of the day that I worked from home. Typically I would stand at the door welcoming people, especially newcomers but I also helped in the café where I worked on the till, served the meals, cleared up plates and helped with the washing up.
I enjoyed volunteering at Snips as there is always such a lively, happy atmosphere and because it offers a really valued service to the local community. We enjoyed attending as a family for about a year and were then asked to be on the leadership team which we happily agreed to. Most months I manage to bake a cake to share and sometimes help in the service by reading out the prayers from the prayer tea or holding up the artwork created by the children. Our son Jude was christened at Snips in November 2013 which was a lovely experience, particularly as we had come to know many of the families who attend each month. Many of our own family and friends who came along told us afterwards that they were touched by the service, the warmth of the welcome and feeling of community.
The church ran a Relationship Central parenting course in Autumn 2013. There was one section on the ways in which we can show our love to our children which I found really interesting as it explored how we all have different preferences as to how love is shown to us (through words, through gifts, through time spent together etc.), something I had never really considered before. The video content also had really fun parts where children of varying ages discussed family life with wonderful honesty and humour. It was also great to have the discussion element of the course and gain so much from the experience from others in the group in a supportive and relaxed environment.
I would definitely recommend attending this course to others, as it’s a rare opportunity to take time out of the hectic day to really think about our approach to child-rearing and handling family life, which is undoubtedly one of the most important things we will ever do in our lives.
Five tips for setting up a cafe:
1. Good service: having food brought to clients
2. Child friendly: highchairs and the option to heat up Baby Food
3. Value for money: reasonably priced
4. Simple hot and cold food: pasta, Jacket Potatoes, toasties
5. Clearly defined roles in the cafe: the cafe manager cooks and makes the food, while volunteers serve food, man the till and wash up
