Lindale School

This morning Sarah and I went down to Lindale School for the assembly.  We had a very warm welcome from the children as we arrived.  We had a great time teaching them a new song So Many Ways to Praise the Lord.  After the song I explained that today I was going to talk to them about a spoon - but not just yet so I asked the children how they would say or show love to someone else.  A number of hands went up and I took answers from a number of the children, we had things like kissing, hugging, telling them, doing something for them etc I added some of my own like sending a card or a gift, sending a text or something like that.  I then asked how do we tell God we love him, the answer came back by praising him and praying to him.  This idea of praying was the theme for the assembly I took the spoon out and told the children that I was going to teach them a way to pray using a spoon - but not yet.  I talked a bit about how we pray, I explained how I was taught to pray when I was a child.  I also explained that when we pray we don't always need to be in church because we can pray anywhere like in a quiet bedroom, up a mountain, in the shower and even some people pray while they drive to work (although I did point out that they shouldn't close their eyes and put the hands together when they do).  Jesus' disciples asked him how they should pray and what He was has become the Lord's Prayer for us today.  I asked the children if they knew were it was in their school hall and they all pointed to it.  I then took out the spoon and asked if anyone liked to bake or cook hands went up - I then asked if the knew the letters we use in cook books for teaspoon - tsp.  So taking the t - we can say thank you to God for all the great things we have and the beauty of creation and for all the rain we have had recently, use the s - to say sorry for things we have done wrong but also for things we haven't done like talking to someone that is upset in the playground, the p - is for please were we ask God for things.  I did a very quick example of this by saying Thank you God for what you give us, sorry for what we have done wrong and please can I have loads of toys at Christmas.  I explained that is not the kind of please I was meaning, the please is to ask for help with something, or to pray for someone that isn't well - I used the example of my shoulder saying that yesterday it was very painful but people prayed and today it feels a lot better.  Sarah then introduced the closing song I Love You and afterwards invited anyone that wanted to come out and share a prayer with the school.  A boy and a girl came out and each prayed for people in need in our world, Sarah then used a tsp prayer to close the assembly.