Church Walk Primary School

This morning Sarah and I went to do our first assembly of the new school year, at Church Walk Primary School.  It was great to see all the children again and to welcome the new starters too.  Sarah started the assembly by talking about new things, like the new children, new shoes and clothes, new school books and even the new floor in the hall!  This led into a story about a man that had a new start.  I started to talk about a cheat, lier and a person that worked for the Romans collecting taxes.  I did explain that during the time of Jesus the Romans were in charge of the country and people were asked to collect the taxes - paying tax is good I said as it helps to provide us today with schools, healthcare etc (didn't want the children getting the wrong idea) But the man in the story I continued was taking way too much money of the people like he was asked to collect two coins - he'd collect four and keep two for himself for example. So when Jesus came to town as usual people were excited to see him.  I asked if the children had ever been in a large crowd waiting to see someone famous - some had.  But the think was I continued Zacchaeus - oh that was his name by the way I said was a very short man and couldn't see because of the crowd but they probably won't let him through any how.  So he ran ahead down the road to climb a tree, thinking the leaves would hide him - but no Jesus walked straight up to the tree and asked him to come down as he was going to go to his house for tea.  The crowd thought this was not on as they hadn't done the things Zacchaeus had done and Jesus wasn't going to their homes.  After sometime Jesus and Zacchaeus came out and a change had happened because Zacchaeus had decided to  make a fresh start by giving loads of money to the poor and paying back the money he had cheated from people.  Sarah finished off the assembly by explaining that we all have a chance to make a new start or a fresh start and as the new school term begins it is a chance for everyone to do that.  To finish off we sang God can do Anything - as nothing is too big or too small for God to do.  Sarah finished with a prayer.