Crosthwaite School

Yesterday afternoon I went over to Crosthwaite School to do the assembly.  After singing So Many Ways to Praise the Lord I displayed the initials of 4 famous shorts people and I asked the children to guess who they were - which they did with ease.  Next I displayed the letters RtB and StP and asked who these initials belonged to, I did give a clue by saying they were from history one a long time ago and the other not so.  The head teacher put his hand up and said RtB was Robert the Bruce.  I then told a brief short of his life and failings and how a spider inspired him to get up and keep going.  The next set of initials StP some said was Saint Paul.  Again I told a brief story of his life and how having met with Jesus on the road went about telling hundreds of people about Jesus on three different journeys and how he was beaten up, whipped and put in prison and even ship wrecked.  He wrote to one of the places he visited and said 'forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal...' Philippians 3:13-14.  I linked back to the sports people and said if they had given up when they found things hard or tough they would never have got gold medals, and if Paul had given up on telling people about Jesus we might never have heard the gospel message.  I encouraged the children to go for goals to press on and to keep on doing the best and when they do God will be there to guide them, to look after them and to protect them.  To close we sang Wonderful Lord during which I said a prayer.