St Peters

This morning I was over at St Peters School for the assembly.  To start with we sang a song that we haven't done for a while God's Love is Bigger than a Burger then I went on to tell the story of David and Goliath.  I started the story by explaining to the children that they can read it for themselves from the Bible or from one of the many Bible books such as the Lion Storyteller Bible which even has CD's for the children to listen to.  Tis is the story as I told it.  David was a shepherd looking after his sheep, singing songs, writing poems and playing his harp instrument as well as using his sling shot.  He wasn't afraid of things like lions, wolves, bears etc as he had his sling shot to defend himself as well as his fathers sheep.  The country was over run with Philistines and they had sent out their champion to fight one to one with an Israelite but sadly no-one was brave enough.  David was sent to the front to take food to his brothers and they were all down as Goliath was teasing them.  David said he would fight the giant well there was much laughter from the brothers but David insisted so they took him to King Saul who also laughed, in fact he laughed so much he fell off his throne.  However Saul agreed and sent for his man sized armour which was way too big for little David, instead David selected 5 smooth rounded stones and went off to meet Goliath.  Goliath too laughed at David but David stood his ground and looking up at him said, "You come against me with sword, spear and javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty the God of Israel's armies and today I will strike you down and all peoples will know that there is a God in Israel." After he said this he removed 1 stone from his pouch and loaded it into the sling shot and before Goliath knew it the stone was winging it's way towards him.  Goliath was still laughing inside at the thought of a small boy coming out to fight him and thinking how easy it was going to me for him when - the stone hit him, he lurked forward then backwards, then forwards again before ... crashing to the ground and that was it Goliath was dead David had with God's help defeated the giant.  After the story I explained to the children that David although he was only small trusted God and put his faith in him and although we are only children we can do amazing things too.  A lot of the children have been making these loop bracelets and I encouraged them by saying perhaps they could make them and sell them to raise money for a charity.  That would be doing something small that could have a huge impact on other people because of what David did the Philistines went away and eventually David became king.  After the story and talk we sang Giants of Faith, then I closed with a prayer followed by the Lord's Prayer.