St Peters School

This morning I went to St Peters school for the assembly. I started the assembly by singing So Many Ways to Praise the Lord then I asked for two helpers, I gave on a plate and the other a tube of toothpaste.  I asked the one with the toothpaste to draw a pattern on the plate using the toothpaste - I got a slightly funny look from them but they did it.  I tipped the plate up to show the rest of the school only to be told it was upside down!!  The girl then continued to draw on the plate but I helped a gave the tube a big squeeze a loads came out onto the plate and made a right mess.  I then asked them to swap over and asked the boy if he could get the toothpaste back into the tube - he tried and tired we even tipped the plate a bit but no it couldn't be done.  I asked the two to sit down while I explained why they had done that little exercise.  I told the children that it is easy to squeeze out the toothpaste but very hard to get it back into the tube and it is a bit like that with what we say - all too easily can we say things but once it has been said we can't take the words back again - I then shouted at the teacher that was with me in the assembly much to the shock of the children, she lowered her head and put her lip out (played along very well) a child even went to comfort her.  I explained that I can't now take what I said back and it upset the teacher. (at the end of the assembly I did explain that the teacher was just playing a long with what I was doing and I didn't really shout and mean what I said)  I read a verse from James 3:5 from the Message version of the bible which sums up what I was saying very well it was this...It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it... I also linked it with one of the 10 commandments about using the name of God as a swear word Exodus 20:7  at this point a little boy put his hand up and was saying that using God's name was wrong so I asked him his name and said if everyone used it to swear how would he feel - sad he said and upset - it reinforced the idea.  After this we sang Shine and then I said a short prayer followed by the Lord's Prayer.