Coniston Primary School

This morning I went over to do the assembly at Coniston Primary School.  I started by asking three children to help me, loads of hands went up, so I joked with the children saying they had no idea what I was going to ask them to do - what I said would you say if I was going to get you to drink water from Coniston Water - a few more hands went up!!  I picked the children out and told them they were not going to drink water but one of us at the front would go away with a bag of sweets, and they were going to choose who it was by picking one of four playing cards.  Once they had done that I gave them the choice to swap the card they had with someone else's card.  I then exchanged the card they had for a coloured disc with the same number on in which in turn was the colour of bag they would now get - they all got two sweets and I got the full bag!  I then told them they had made the wrong choice - this led into me telling the story of the wise and foolish man and how one built his house on a firm solid rock and the other just on the sand so when the storms came one stood firm the other fell down.  I explained that this was a parable an everyday earthly story that has a hidden heavenly meaning.  We all have choice's to make every day in our lives - what colour socks to wear, what to eat for breakfast etc, as well as big choice's like do I join in when someone is being nasty to someone else or do I choose to walk away and tell an adult about it.  The wise man in the story choose to build on firm solid ground and I encouraged the children to make wise choices and build their lives on firm solid foundations such as follow what the Bible teaches us.  In the song Be Happy there is a line that says I'll follow Jesus 'til the day I drop and if we do that then we are building on a firm foundation.  We sang the song then I closed with a prayer.