A fun day stall that reminded people they were special and valuable

This was our church stall at a recent community fun day.

Our aim was for people to have a good time but we  also wanted to remind them that they were special and valuable.

There is so much in life that makes people feel miserable and we felt like this was a great opportunity to surprise people with the message that they are valuable and loved.

At Orchard Baptist we like to have fun and so we have lots of fun games including this ‘Hook a Frog’ game. (This is Eddie the Eagle who is the Colchester united mascot having a go).

This is a type of hook a duck game, but we found that when we put the hooks into the ducks that it made them top heavy and they kept falling over.

These wooden frogs on lilly pads float really well and every time we use this game, people really enjoy playing with them. On this occasion, one toddler got so excited that she even jumped in for a swim, thankfully her mum didn’t mind!

As part of our communication, we wrote words on the bottom of the frogs and as people hooked their frog we turned them over and got them to read the word.

One said valuable and we would reply ‘And you are really valuable’.

For unique we would reply ‘There is only one of you in the entire universe’.

Other words were special, loved and important.

Once people had had a go, they were invited to put their fingerprints on a board and this is one of our local Councillors having a go.

The idea was adapted from a Prayer Spaces in Schools resource which you can look at here. Basically, everyone has the opportunity to put their fingerprint on the paper and to sign their first name next to it.

Please be aware that this fingerprint prayer station has a copyright licence and so if you want to share it please link to the original. Licence: ‘This resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. See the copyright policy on the Prayer Spaces in Schools website for more details’.

I thought this was a good idea (all the best ideas do come from other people you know!) but I wasn’t prepared for how touched people were by this. The wording on the display says:

Christians believe that God made everyone and Christians believe that God loves everyone, even you and me.

Like snowflakes, we’re all unique and wonderfully different. No other human being has the same fingerprint as you.

We would love it if you put your finger print and first name on this sheet as a reminder that we are a community of people who are unique and special.

After the fingerprint activity, people were offered the chance to make a ‘you are special’ card. The card could be to themselves as a reminder that they were special or it could be for someone else.

Many people find it difficult to reflect on their own self worth and it was humbling sitting alongside the people who chose to write a card to themselves.

This was my favourite card of the day. This young person was able to accept that they were who they were and that it didn’t matter that they were different.

It was so encouraging that they could see how special they were even though they weren’t the same as everyone else.

What would you have written on a you are special card?

What could you say to yourself about why you are special?

What could you say to someone else about why they are special??

We had a great time running our stall :). We also had information about the church services and activities and an invitation to our free fun day that is on next week that we handed out.

It was great to have fun with people, but it was even more of a privilege to remind each person that they are loved and special

Christians believe that God made us and that he loves us. How awesome is that?

This is another example of creative communication and you read about last year’s stall that focused on what supports us in life by clicking here.