Seedtime Harvest

This year your generous donations have gathered food for 2 local Food Bank charities, Trussell Trust and Larder. Our offerings were ready to be put to good use with over 400 items donated. It is at this time of year that we focus on gratitude for our food and think about how it started life as a tiny seed. Seeds need a little help to grow well and sometimes they need a little protection……

Year R showed this with their fantastic rendition of Dingle, dangle scarecrow!

The Parable of the Sower was then performed as a poem set to different familiar tunes, including Old MacDonald, Jaws and English Country Garden!

“Now listen here! A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field. While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the road and was eaten by birds. Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started growing because the soil wasn’t very deep. But when the sun came up, the plants were scored and dried up, because they did not have enough roots. Some seeds fell where thorn bushes grew up and choked out the plants. So they did not produce any grain. But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants grew and produced thirty or sixty or even a hundred times as much as was scattered.”

Year 3/4 learnt a beautiful poem by Jan Edmunds called Seed Time

See the fruits upon the tree
Lots to eat for you and me.
Inside each fruit the seeds abound
Soon they’ll drop upon the ground.
There to hide all winter through,
In spring again to grow anew.

Like the seeds we come and go
We blossom, flourish, mature and grow.
As with the fruit, time passes by
We live, we grow and then must die.

Each one of us is like a seed
And God sees to our every need.
He sends the sun, he sends the rain
And like the seeds we’ll live again.
God knows us each and every one
What we’ve said and what we’ve done.

The harvest of hedgerow, earth and sea
God sends these gifts for you and me.
Millions of seeds new life to give
Creating our world and the way we live.

A concluding prayer focused us on the true meaning of Harvest for all.

Father, as we celebrate this season of thanksgiving. We give thanks for the blessings of food, provision and nourishment. Please grow in us a harvest for the world.

Come sow a seed of hope within our souls Lord, that we might yield goodness, patience and kindness in abundance.

Sow a seed of peace in our lives Lord, that we might bear the fruits of forgiveness, compassion and righteousness.

Come sow a seed of love in our hearts Lord, that others would reap the blessings of family, friendship and community.

May each seed of hope, peace and love grow within us into a harvest that can be feasted on by all.

 Amen.