Flookburgh School

This morning I went down to Flookburgh School to do the first assembly of the new school year.  It seemed a bit strange as we haven't seen the children for such a long time.  To start the assembly of we sang So Many Ways to Praise the Lord.  Then I asked the children  how they would say or tell someone they loved them, a number of suggestions came back, like get them a gift, send a card, tell them etc.  I then asked how do we tell God we love him - by prayer came back the answer.  It was this I wanted to talk about.  I explained that I was going to teach them a way to pray using just a tea spoon, but before I did I told them about how different people pray, like on their knees, in the quiet of the bedroom, up a mountain, in church etc.  I also told them about Jesus' disciples asking him how to pray and from that came the Lord's Prayer - which was up on the wall in the hall.  I reminded them that I was going to teach them how to pray with a teaspoon but not just yet.  I also told the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector and how the Pharisee looked down upon the tax collector and used big words and a loud voice so that everyone could hear him, but the tax collector bowed his head and quietly said sorry for what he had done wrong.  Now to the spoon but first - I asked who like to cook and bake - hands went up - good what is the letters used in a recipe to say use a teaspoon - tsp came the answer.  it was the tsp that I was going to use - t = thank you we should start our prayers of thanking God for what he has given us and praising him for what he has done, I drew a link back to the song So Many Ways... next s=sorry we should say sorry to God for the things we have done wrong and I gave a few examples like falling out with a friend, saying something not nice to someone then finally p=please we can ask God for things - that isn't to say we ask for silly things like money - but things we might need help with, or for people who might be ill.  To finish we sang I Love You then I closed with a prayer using tsp.