Today, a fish is a common symbol used by Christians across the world. But do you know why or where it came from?
In ancient Greek, the acronym of the phrase ‘Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour’ is ‘icthus’, which is the ancient Greek word for ‘fish’. As a result, early Christians would draw a fish in the sand to identify each other as it could be wiped out quickly. The symbol has remained a part of Christian tradition ever since.
This is just one of the things that was explored during the St Andrew’s Day extra youth group event with the Sawston YouthInc groups, run by St Mary’s church. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was a fisherman and one of the first people Jesus called to follow him. After some fun facts relating to Scotland and the town of St Andrew’s, we explored what the Bible says about Andrew and Jesus making him a fisher of man. Then, the young people moved around a number of prayer stations inspired by Andrew’s history as a fisherman. One of the prayer stations invited the young people to draw a fish symbol on a pebble, which they could take home to remind them of what they had learnt that evening and how, just as Jesus was the saviour of the early Christians, He is their saviour today.
The event was attended by almost all of the Sawston youth group’s regular attendees, who enjoyed the opportunity to do youth group slightly differently. The Sawston youth group began in 2022 with only two members but has since grown by 500%, split into two age groups and has welcomed young people from different churches beyond the village.