Our Lady's Samaritan's Purse Assembly

This morning we made our regular monthly visit to Our Lady's in Dalton however this month we did an assembly about shoe boxes.  Lisa. Abbie, Sarah and myself told the children all about Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child.  Before the talk we sang God's Love is Bigger than a Burger.  Lisa open the talk by talking to the children about God's love for us and how we should share that love around to people like children in other less developed countries who perhaps might never have received a gift or present in their life.  She took a bottle of coke and started to share it between Abbie and myself to demonstrate the point of sharing, this was particularly apt as the ad campaign this summer for coke has been 'share a coke with...'  This left me with the task of telling the children what to put inside their shoe box and about the £3 donation to send with the box.  We then watched the video 'Love in a Box' at the end of the video I repeated the words of the chorus to the children before saying a short prayer.

St Marys Samaritans Purse Assembly

Today we did the first of our Samaritan's Purse assemblies.  Lisa and I did the assembly between us.  After singing God's Love is Bigger than a Burger, Lisa talked about God's love and how it is shared out for everyone, she also took some sweets and shared them out with some of the children.  I talked about Christmas and how it is only 78 days counting today until Christmas.  I asked if the children had started their lists yet - a few hands went up.  I talked briefly about what a present Jesus was to the world and about how great it is to get a present backing up what Lisa had said about love.  I showed a power point about packing a shoe box and talked about the £3 donation needed to send the box.  We then played the Love in a Box video.  After the video I read the words of the chorus again to the children.  The assembly concluded by Lisa saying that we are going to give each child a shoe box to take home then she encouraged the children to try and do more shoe boxes that last year.

Low Furness School

Today I went to Low Furness School for the assembly.  I started the assembly by singing God can do anything, I asked Grace and Martha to help me with the actions and two others helped as well.  Following the song I did the talk, I had taken Scruff the Dog with me and we started a conversation he whispering in my ear and I telling what he said.  Scruff then told me that he had something for me which was in his bag.  I got it out to find that it was a vest!!  Then Scruff announced 'Happy A Vest Time'  I needed to question this and he told me that at this time of year which is Avest Time ... I needed to correct him that it is not Avest time but Harvest Time.  The children laughed and Scruff was not very happy and started to look away and sulk.  Despite my best efforts he continued to sulk.  I turned things around by saying that at Harvest time it is easy to get things wrong because people think it is just about saying thank you to God which is a good thing to do but we should always look to what we can give away in order to help other people.  I explained this to Scruff and the children then I thanked Scruff for his gift but gave it back to him so he could wear it in the winter.  Scruff said good bye and went away.  I then recapped what I had said about Harvest Time before singing Fruit and Veggies song, I got 9 children out to help me with the actions.  At the end I said a short prayer.

NT BX4 Low Furness School

This afternoon I had an enjoyable time with the children from year 5 and 6 at Low Furness School.  It was lesson 4 of Bible Explorer.  In the last lesson we had heard about Jesus being crucified and then resurrected, today we discovered what happened after he went back into heaven and what happened when the Holy Spirit came.  I told the story of Pentecost using a poem with a catchy repeating chorus which I encouraged the children to repeat.  The children learnt about the Jews punishing the Christians and trying to get rid of them but despite their best efforts the Christians spread out and therefore more people joined them.  There was a focus on three people mentioned in Acts, they were Philip, Paul and Peter.  Next week we shall be taking a closer look at the journeys Paul went on and learning about the gospel message spread even further.

Ignite

Tonight we had a great time with the Ignite group.  We used the Walk With Jay series about what we say.  The title was 'I hate you'  two children had fallen out with each other and said nasty things to each other.   Jay got them to say the words again but they all appeared on the walls of the house.   It looked a mess and needed to be sorted out.  It happened when the children said sorry.   I focused on the verses in the Bible which talked about the tongue and made a number game which got the children talking about the various passages.  The children opened up about lot's of the issues being discussed.   All in all I really enjoyed the session and I hope that the children did too.

NT BX3 Low Furness

Friday afternoon I was in Low Furness School doing lesson 3 of New Testament Bible Explorer.  The series of stories started with Jesus almost being stoned by the authorities in Jerusalem.  We covered the lost parables and I told a very quick version of the lost sheep, but went into a little more detail with the lost coin which included visual aids and a trick.  We heard about Lazarus and also about Zacchaeus.  We heard and watched a short video clip of Jesus going into Jerusalem and then went on into the Temple Market.  I had created a short sketch with props to explain what was happening in the temple, it involved a rich man wanting to buy a bull for a sacrifice but only had Roman money so he needed to change it for temple money.  However he lost out on the exchange, but when he went to buy the bull,  it had been reduced in price so now he had temple money left over - which he needed to exchange back to Roman money and he lost out again.  It was a silly but simple illustration of what was happening in the temple.  Next we cover the Last Supper and the betrayal by Judas followed by the prays then arrest, trial and Peter's denial of Jesus again a short script was used here.  Next came the crucifixion of Jesus and his death and burial.  Since we had covered a bit about burial with the Lazarus story the children knew what had happened with Jesus.  Not wanting to leave Jesus' death in the childrens minds we covered the resurrection story too, which is a good point to stop the lesson.  I had a great time and the children seemed to enjoy it too which was great.

Low Furness School

Following our assembly at Church Walk we dashed across to Urswick for an assembly at Low Furness School.  The theme there was empathy, we started the assembly by singing God's Love is Bigger than a Burger then I read the Good Samaritan Story from the Lion Storyteller Bible and Sarah then encouraged the children to be like the man that helped rather than the men that didn't - because when we do we Shine from the Inside Out which was a cue for the next song.  At the end of the song I said a short Prayer followed by the Lord's Prayer.