Crosthwaite School

This afternoon Sarah and I went over to Crosthwaite school for the assembly.  It was the first one of the new term.  After singing Be Happy I used Scruff the Dog to introduce the theme which was New Beginnings.  Scruff came out feeling a little bit lonely and a touch scared.  He wasn't happy.  When I asked him he whispered in my ear about being alone and scared so I enquired as to why he felt that way when after all he had been to school before and seen all the children.  He said it wasn't school that was the problem it was the new Doggie Parlour that he had started to go to.  He didn't seen his old friends anymore and there are some really big dogs there too.  So I asked the children what we could do to perhaps help Scruff during this time and they said things like, give him a treat, play with him, talk nicely to him etc.  Scruff was happy with this and was still happy when I put him back into the bag (with a little treat too).  Sarah then picked up on this idea of being scared and feeling alone and linked it to the new children starting school.  We used Matthew 25:35ff to explain this.  In the passage Jesus talks about being thirsty, hungry and in need and he says that when we help someone out it is as if we are doing for him.  This links with shinning from the inside out which is what our next song was Shine.  Then Sarah closed with a prayer.