St Peters School

This morning I went along to St Peters School to do the assembly.  After telling the children how many shoe boxes we had collected in total we sang Inright Outright.  Then I pointed to some gift wrapped boxes I had with me, each had a letter on it.  Firstly I asked if anyone could tell what the word said - Christmas.  I got 9 children out to the front to hold the boxes up as I went along the line asking what things to do with Christmas the children could come up with for each of the letters, we had, candles and carols, happy and holly, reindeer and Rudolf, ice and ivy, snow and Santa, tree and turkey, mince pies and mistletoe, advent and finally stocking and star - to name just a few.  Next I asked the children to open their box and look at the lid - there was a word on each lid which was from the bible verse in Luke 2:11.  It was in the wrong order so they needed to move around to get the verse right - which was fun as each time someone moved I read the verse out.  In the end when the verse was in the right order we all said it together a couple of times - Today a saviour has been born to you.  I asked the children to sit down and I took the lid with the word saviour in it and asked what a saviour is - some one that helps people, a person who could save you from drowning -  asked who the saviour was - Jesus came the reply.  I explained that saviour simply means 'one that saves'  I made reference to the song we had sung and explained that at Christmas time we do think of Jesus coming as a baby but he grew into a man who saved us, who is our saviour.  I said that in the midst of the excitement of Christmas remember the real reason we celebrate, it is a time to rejoice.  This linked to the next song Rejoice with Us.  After the song I said a prayer.