Category Archives: Key Stage 2

Parable of the lost son

Bible base:

Luke 15:11-32

Teaching objectives:

To show that Christians believe that God’s forgiveness is available to anyone who is truly sorry for the wrong things they have done.

You will need:

Big storybook visual aid.
The following words written in sections on separate large pieces of paper or on acetate: IN TRO DUCT ION; CIR CUM STA NCES; UND ERST AND ING; MUL TIPLI CAT ION; SOR RY.
A newspaper.
A card with the following words written on it for a pupil to read out: ‘I was wrong to leave you and spend all my money. I don’t deserve to be your son any more. Can I be your servant?’

Optional:

• Simple costumes for characters (two sons and father, eg a baseball cap for younger son, a woolly hat for older son and a flat cap for father).

The story in this outline is an improvised drama of the Bible story involving pupils acting out the parts. It is essential that you are very familiar with the story in advance to enable you to relax and help the pupils in their improvisation. It is great fun, however, and pupils generally enjoy it and perform well!

Introductory activity:

Show the assembly each of the difficult words in a mixed-up order. Can anyone work out what the word is? (If the school you are in has a long name, you could add it to the list.)

IN TRO DUCT ION

CIR CUM STA NCES

UND ERST AND ING

MUL TIPLI CAT ION

SOR RY

The last word was much easier, but actually, while ‘sorry’ is not a hard word to say, it is very hard to really mean it.

Jesus told a story about saying sorry and what happens when we say sorry to God. Open the storybook visual aid if you are using it for this section.

Once upon a time there was a man. (Choose a pupil to be the father and give him his costume.) This man had a farm (ask pupils to make animal noises) and on that farm he also had two sons (choose two other pupils, preferably one older and one younger pupil and give them costumes).

Now, the father loved his sons very much (if they will, get the ‘father’ to put his arm round his ‘sons’ shoulders) and enjoyed having them around the farm with him. The father had worked very hard to build up his farm (mime digging). The older son was a hard worker too (digging) and worked out in the fields from when he woke up in the morning until he went to bed at night. The younger son, however, preferred to stay inside. In fact, not only did he prefer to stay inside, he preferred to stay in bed all day. When he woke up (mime waking up), he liked to go straight back to sleep (snore). Meanwhile, his brother and his dad did all the work (digging).

One day, however, as he lay in bed, avoiding all work, he had an idea (ask the pupil to pretend to have an idea by looking suddenly very alert.) His father, he knew, was a very wealthy man, as he had worked so hard all his life (check that the older son and father are still digging). When he died, his two sons would get all his money. So, why didn’t he go to his father now and ask him for the money? There was no point waiting until his father died – he might be too old to enjoy it by then!

So, off he went to find his dad – who was digging – to ask him for his share of the money. The younger son should go to his dad, put out his hands and ask for his money. What do you think his father said? Ask the pupils what they think.

Perhaps it’s hard to believe, but his father said yes! He gave him the money and so, the next day, the younger son packed his bags and set off on an adventure! He had never had so much money in his life! He was very excited! Ask the pupil to look very excited.

Eventually he came to a country far from home where the weather was good and the people were friendly and life was cheap, so he settled down to some serious spending! Ask the pupil to mime throwing money around.

As you can imagine, the man found it very easy to find friends when he was throwing his money around. Choose some more pupils to come to the front as his friends. All they had to do was put out their hands (mime) and he would give them as much money as they wanted. He was very popular!

Meanwhile, back at home, while his older brother worked in the fields (mime digging) his father would sometimes stop and think about his younger son. He would look out along the road, hoping to see him coming home (ask the pupil to mime shielding his eyes to look out into the distance).

One day, when the younger son was out with all his new friends, not thinking about his old dad at all, he suddenly realised that he had no money left – his pockets were completely empty (mime). And now that he had no money left, his new friends were not so interested in him any more and off they went to find someone else to be their friend. Ask the other pupils to sit at the side for the rest of the story. They had only liked him because he gave them money. The younger son was very sad (mime.)

For the first time in his life he was going to have to do some work! So, he looked in the paper to see what job he could do (give the pupil a newspaper). He didn’t want to do anything too hard or messy, but the only thing that he could find, after much searching, was the most disgusting job he could think of: feeding pigs.

Yuck! It was such a smelly job that he had to hold his nose with one hand while feeding the pigs with the other (mime). He got paid almost nothing and gradually the younger son got weaker and weaker, and more and more hungry, until he sat down and cried (mime).

What was he doing? He started to think of home where, as we all know, his brother and his father were working (mime digging) and felt very sad. Why had he run away and wasted all his money? Even his dad’s servants had a better life than he had now.

But he was scared to go home. What would his dad say? Would he be cross? He didn’t deserve to be taken back by his father.

But then, he had an idea (mime having an idea again). What if he went back and asked his dad to take him on as a servant? Then he would be back at home, near his dad and his brother, and he wouldn’t be as hungry and miserable as he was now.

So, he picked himself up (mime), dusted himself down (mime) and set off on the long journey home (mime).

Meanwhile, back at home, can you guess what was happening? His brother was digging (mime) and his dad was doing some digging (mime) while also looking out along the road (mime), in the hope that his younger son might eventually come back.

The younger son walked and walked and walked (mime) until he thought he could walk no more! Just as he was getting too tired and hungry and weak to go on, he suddenly spotted something on the horizon. It was his home! He was so excited that, even though he was so tired, he jumped for joy (mime)! He was nervous about seeing his dad, but he had his lines ready. He’d been practising it the whole way home! Give the pupil the card to read out. When he saw his dad he would say:

(Pupil reads) ‘I was wrong to leave you and spend all my money. I don’t deserve to be your son any more. Can I be your servant?’

Back at the farm, his dad too had caught sight of something exciting. Father should be shielding his eyes and looking into the distance. As he looked down the road, he thought he saw his son in the distance! And as the person got closer, he knew for sure that it was his son! He too jumped for joy (mime) and ran out to meet his son (mime).

When they met, his father gave him a huge hug! (It is unlikely that the pupils will act this out!) The son told his father what he had been practising all the way home:

Pupil should repeat the words on the card:

‘I was wrong to leave you and spend all my money. I don’t deserve to be your son any more. Can I be your servant?’

But his father loved him so much that he was delighted to have him back as his son! He ordered his servants to prepare a huge party and get the best clothes for his younger son and invited everyone to come and join the celebration. The father and younger son should start pretending to dance!

The older son, meanwhile, was still out in the fields, digging (mime), and when he heard the party, he was very cross. He had worked for his father for years and yet when his little brother came home, having wasted everything, he got a party! He was raging (mime)!

But his father went out to him and asked him to come in and join the party. Father should go over to the older son and invite him to the party.

The man had two sons, and he loved them both. One of them had always been there, and everything the father had was his, but he had to celebrate when the son he had lost came home again!

Thank the pupils for their help and ask them to take their seats again.

The younger son knew that he had been stupid and had given up all that he had at home to go off and do his own thing. He had to be ready to go back and say sorry. But the father loved him so much that he was just pleased to have him back. He didn’t want to punish him – he wanted to celebrate!

In the Bible Jesus said that this story was a picture of what God thinks about us. He said that God is like the father and loves us so much that he wants to forgive us when we come to him to say sorry for the things we do that are wrong.

As we said at the beginning, sorry is a very hard thing to say, both to God and to other people. But Christians believe that we don’t need to be scared of saying sorry to God because he loves us and will forgive us.

Optional prayer time:

Thank God that he will forgive us when we say sorry to him.

What did the officer think? – Healing the centurion’s servant

Bible base:

Luke 7:1-10

Teaching objectives:

To introduce pupils to someone powerful in the Bible who recognised that Jesus was also a powerful person.

You will need:

Cards with the following words written on them: Set 1: ‘pop band’, ‘Prime Minister’, ‘head teacher’, ‘officer’, ‘football manager’. Set 2: ‘fans’, ‘Britain’, ‘school’, ‘soldiers’, ‘football team’.
Picture (download here) photocopied onto card.
Posters of the words ‘What did the officer think?’ and ‘What do you think?’

Introductory activity:

Invite two pupils to come to the front and give one the first set of cards described above and the other the second set.

Who has power over what? As pupil one holds up their ‘person’ card, the rest of the assembly should choose which of pupil two’s cards they have power over.

Choose one or two of the people mentioned on the card, e.g. the Prime Minister, an officer.

How could these people show their power over others? For example, what decisions can a football manager make for his team? Eg who is going to play in a match, what position each person plays, when they will have training etc.

To develop the idea of authority, play a game of ‘Simon says’. Give the assembly various instructions, for example, ‘Simon says touch your nose’, ‘Simn says clap your hands’, etc. Pupils should do exactly as you say so long as the instruction is preceded by ‘Simon says’. You may wish to bring some pupils to the front to help you spot others who get it wrong.

Because you all know the rules of the game, you know that you must obey whatever ‘Simon’ tells you to do. In today’s Bible story we will meet someone who had authority to tell people what to do.

Display the poster, ‘What did the officer think?’

Today’s story is about an army officer. An officer has authority over his soldiers. He could tell them what to do and could make decisions for them. If you were all soldiers and I was your officer, you would have to do exactly what I said. And because this officer was quite important, he also had lots of servants to look after him. In this story we will meet one of them.

Choose six pupils to be servants and ask them to come to the front. The last pupil to mime each of the following orders as you call them out is eliminated until only one pupil remains:

Scrub the floor
Polish my shoes
Wash the dishes
Stand up straight
Bring me a chair
Vacuum the carpet

(You may wish to add in one or two other commands as a ‘warm up’.) Ask the pupils to sit down again.

Show the picture.

An officer could tell his servants to do anything he liked – they were more like slaves.

Even though the servants had to do everything the officer told them to do, some things were still out of his control. The servant in our story became ill and was close to death, and no matter how many times the officer told him to get better, he couldn’t obey.

We can’t get rid of illness just by telling it to go away! What could the officer do? Think of some possibilities (eg he could get some medicine, he could call a doctor, he could give him some time off work). I imagine he tried all these things, but no one and nothing seemed to be able to help – the servant was dying.

The officer did believe there was still one more person he hadn’t tried who might be able to help: Jesus. Jesus was not a doctor, but the officer had heard some amazing stories about some of the things that Jesus had done. (If you have been doing a series of stories from Luke’s Gospel, you may wish to re-cap here and find out what pupils remember about previous assemblies).

The officer knew that he had power over people to tell them what to do, but he believed that Jesus had power over more than just people – he had power over illness too.

In fact, the officer had so much faith in Jesus that he believed he could help his servant without even being there! The officer’s friends told Jesus that the officer believed that if Jesus just said the word, his servant would get better! And that is what happened. Jesus never actually went to the officer’s home or met the servant.

Show the picture.

The Bible says the servant was completely healed! When we played ‘Simon says’, I asked you to do very simple tasks and you did them. But Jesus ordered an illness to go away from someone whom he had never even met and it did!

What do you think the army officer thought? The officer was a very important man, who gave orders to people and knew that they would obey him. In Jesus the officer saw someone who could control things the officer couldn’t even dream of controlling. He believed that Jesus could help his servant.

Display the poster, ‘What do you think?’

What do you think you would have thought if you had been there? It would have been strange to see someone so ill getting well just because someone told them to! Do you think you would have been amazed?

Optional prayer time:

Pray that we would discover more about Jesus and the amazing things that he did.

What did the businessman think? – Zacchaeus

Bible base:

Luke 19:1-10

Teaching objectives:

To show that the Bible says Jesus cared about people whom no one else liked.

You will need:

A newspaper listing ‘executive’ jobs which offer nice perks.
Posters of the words ‘What did the businessman think?’ and ‘What do you think?’
A large card with the word ‘WINNER’ on it, plus a ‘D’ and an ‘S’ to go over the ‘W’ to spell DINNER and SINNER.
A few pieces of broadsheet newspaper, cut into two along the middle and taped together to make a long strip of newspaper. Fold this strip concertina-style so that each section is roughly A4 in size.

Introductory activity:

Show the assembly some advertisements for executive jobs. What sort of special extras are they offering? Read out some examples. Ask the pupils to raise their hand if these would encourage them to apply for the job.

The things we read about in the advertisements would all be very nice in a job, but would they be enough to make someone happy?

Take the folded piece of newspaper and begin to cut it into the shape of a person, being sure to go right out to the edges with the arms and legs. (Practise this activity in advance to be sure that you end up with a paper chain of people!) As you do so, ask the following question:

What would be the most important thing that you would look for in a job? Take some suggestions, eg a good salary, good holidays. When you have finished cutting out the shape of a person, ask two volunteers to come out and hold either end of the chain of people.

All of us need friends, and no matter how good a job might be, it is no substitude for knowing people who care for us.

Display poster, ‘What did the businessman think?’

Today’s story from the Bible is about a man who was a very successful businessman with a very important job. He worked for the government, collecting the money that people owed it: their taxes. The man’s name was Zacchaeus, and he lived a long time before there were cars or foreign holidays, but one of the benefits he did enjoy was that he could take as much money as he liked from the people. So, if I owed the government £1, he could ask me for £2 and pocket the difference. Or if I owed £5, he could ask me for £10. As you can imagine, Zacchaeus was soon a very rich man!

In terms of business success, Zacchaeus was definitely a WINNER.

Ask a pupil to come to the front to hold up the WINNER card.

In other ways, however, Zacchaeus was not doing so well. Let’s imagine that our chain of newspaper people represents the people who he collected money from. What do you think they thought of him? Take some suggestions, eg he was greedy, he was selfish.

People hated him because he had become rich from taking their money. In their opinion, he did things wrong, he was not a WINNER, he was a SINNER (stick ‘S’ over ‘W’ of WINNER). ‘Sinner’ is a word that the Bible uses to describe someone who is not perfect and has done things that are wrong.

So Zacchaeus was very rich but was also very dishonest and very lonely.

One day, however, something happened to change Zacchaeus’ life forever – he met Jesus. Jesus had come to visit Jericho, the town where Zacchaeus lived, but there were so many people, and Zacchaeus was such a short man, that he could not see over people’s heads.

For fun, you could go behind the chain of newspaper people and crouch behind it, pretending to try to see over their heads.

As you can imagine, people were not too keen to let Zacchaeus the SINNER through, this man who took all their money. And so poor Zacchaeus was stuck at the back of the crowd.

Suddenly, he had an idea. Come around to the front of the chain again. He ran ahead of the crowds and climbed a tree at the side of the road, hiding in the branches so that no one could see him. And there he waited, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus and to hear what he was saying as he passed by.

Soon Jesus was right underneath Zacchaeus and, much to his surprise, he looked right up to where Zacchaeus was hiding and asked him to come down and take him to his house for DINNER (stick the ‘D’ over the ‘S’ of SINNER).

Zacchaeus was amazed! No one usually spoke to him and no one had ever asked to come to his house for tea!

The crowds, however, were annoyed. ‘That man is a SINNER!’ they muttered (reveal the word SINNER again).

Zacchaeus was too delighted to care about what they were saying and he rushed off to prepare the DINNER (replace the ‘D’). And after DINNER, Zacchaeus did something amazing. He gave away half of his money to the poor and paid back four times any money that he had taken unfairly.

Zacchaeus had changed by spending time with Jesus. Christians believe that when we’re sorry for what we’ve done wrong, God can change us from sinners to winners, as he did with Zacchaeus. Uncover the original word, WINNER.

Display the poster, ‘What do you think?’

What would you have thought if you were there? Would you have thought that Zacchaeus was too bad to spend time with Jesus? Or would you have been like Zacchaeus, wanting to be with Jesus?

Optional prayer time:

Give thanks that Jesus can change people not just on the surface but deep inside. He can change them from sinners into winners!

A job to do – Jesus meets Levi

Bible base:

Luke 5:27-32

Teaching objectives:

To show Christians believe Jesus came to do a very specific job on earth: to ask people to turn away from doing wrong things and follow him.

You will need:

Cards with the following things written on them: Lots of money; a good job; a big car; friends and family; happiness; peace; lots of chocolate
A packet of sticky plasters
Fine clothes to dress ‘Levi’
“Healthy people do not need a doctor but sick people do” written on card

Introductory activity:

Choose two or three volunteers to come to the front. Show them the cards withall the ‘good things’ written on them. If they could only have three things in life, which three would it be?

Once they have chosen three, ask them to reduce it to two, and finally, if they could choose only one thing, what would it be?

There are lots of things that we would like to have in life, but while a nice car and a big house might be fun, life would be pretty miserable if you had these things but no one to share them with. Human beings need to have other people around them, and for most people, friends and/or family will be the most important things in their life.

The person we are going to meet in today’s story had lots of things in life. His name was Levi.

Choose a pupil to be Levi.

The Bible says Levi was very rich and so was always very well dressed (dress up ‘Levi’ in fine clothes). But although Levi looked good, he was not very happy as he did not have any friends.

Levi was Jewish, as were all the other people who lived in his town, but Levi worked for the Romans. The Romans had taken over the town and made the Jewish people pay huge taxes to them, so people really didn’t like them very much. Levi’s job was to gather in these Roman taxes from his people, the Jews. Often he would gather in more money than people owed and keep the rest for himself. As you can imagine, Levi was very unpopular!

So, while Levi was very well dressed on the outside, the reality was that he was not a very nice person on the inside. There were lots of things wrong in his life, such as greed and selfishness – what the Bible calls ‘sin’. The Bible describes sin as a sickness, so to help us remember that Levi is not as fine as he would like to appear on the outside, we’ll give ‘Levi’ some plasters to cover up his sin! Stick plasters over Levi’s fine clothes.

One day, as Levi was walking along on his own, as usual, an amazing thing happened. Levi had got used to being ignored by everyone he met, but suddenly, from the middle of a big crowd, a man came towards him.

And even more amazingly, the man actually spoke to him! What do you think he said?

Take suggestions from the assembly. Pupils may suggest that the man would ask Levi why he had plasters all over his clothes, or would tell him he looked stupid. Remind the pupils that the plasters would represent sin – bad things that Levi had done or thought – so the man might have asked him why he was so bad or so mean.

Actually what he said was this:

‘Come and be my follower!’

The man who came to speak to Levi was Jesus. Levi must have been so surprised that this man whom everybody wanted to be near had asked him, unpopular and sinful Levi, to be his follower! What Levi wanted more than anything was friends and here was Jesus asking him to come and be his friend. Levi was so happy that the first thing he did was throw a party so that everyone else could come and meet Jesus.

When people criticised Jesus for being friends with someone like Levi, he said a very strange thing.

Show them the card with the words:

‘Healthy people do not need a doctor but sick people do.’

What do you think he meant? Look at our ‘Levi’ for a clue!

The Bible teaches that Jesus came to call people who were needy to be friends with God, not people who thought they were already good enough. He came to call sinners, people who wanted his help to make them better people on the inside, not just on the outside.

Start to take the plasters off Levi’s clothes

Christians believe that Jesus helped Levi to do this, and this is what the Bible says Jesus can do for people today too. Christians believe that this was why Jesus came to earth: to help people to turn from the bad things they do and follow him.

Optional prayer time:

Give thanks that Jesus cares about all the things that are wrong inside us and that his reason for coming to earth was to help people, not to make their life harder.

Message for Theophilus! – Advent

Bible base:

Luke 1:1-4

Teaching objectives:

To introduce the Christian belief that Luke’s Gospel is a true record of Jesus’ life.

You will need:

Two large sheets of paper.
Two marker pens
A copy of Luke’s Gospel
The words ‘What God has done’ on a large piece of paper

Optional:

Magazine about famous people;
Luke 1:1-4 on large cards

Introductory activity:

Imagine meeting a famous person and chatting with them! Who would you want to meet? (You may wish to have a copy of a magazine of famous people with you to give some examples of some of the people they could meet.)

Take some of the pupils’ suggestions, and choose two who have chosen very different people to come to the front. (Make sure that you choose two pupils who can write clearly; ask members of staff to help if in doubt. It would also be advisable to choose older pupils). Explain to the chosen pupils that they are going to write a letter to someone to tell them about their celebrity encounter.

Give each pupil one of the sheets of paper and a marker pen, and place them at either side of the assembly hall (the rest won’t see it until it’s read out).

Ask them to write down the following pieces of information in big letters. After writing each item, they should fold the paper down so that the words are hidden and then swap sheets with the other pupil, like a game of ‘consequences’. (You may wish to have prepared two sheets in advance, in the form of a letter, with the pupils merely filling in gaps, which will keep the activity moving quickly.)

They should write down the following information:

Who they are writing to (e.g. ‘Dear mum, dad, granny’)
Who they meet (e.g. a film star, a pop star, royalty)
What they say to the famous person
What the famous person says to them
What the result is

As they are doing this, ask the assembly to think of who they would put in the story if they were writing it.

Read out the ‘letters’, adding in the necessary words to make full sentences. They may be either funny or nonsensical: comment accordingly.

The letters are jumbled because they are a mixture of two different accounts written about imaginary encounters with two very different people. Neither of the pupils has actually met their famous person, so their accounts do not really help us get to know this person better.

Choose one of the famous people and ask the pupils how they would find out more information about what this person is like. Possible suggestions: Internet, magazines, newspaper articles, interviewing people who know them etc.

Two thousand years ago a man called Luke wanted to write a letter to his friend Theophilus about Jesus. How could he have found out more about Jesus? Without the Internet or international media sources, Luke went to the most accurate source of information – people who knew Jesus, or had met Him and had seen what He had done in His life. Once Luke had gathered all the information, he wrote it all down in a long letter to Theophilus. (If you have large cards of the opening verses of Luke’s Gospel, show it to the assembly now, explaining that this is how Luke begins his letter.)

Show the pupils a copy of Luke’s Gospel.

This is a copy of the letter that Luke wrote to his friend. Imagine if Luke had not written it all down, but had just told Theophilus all that he had discovered. We might never have heard all the stories that are recorded in this part of the Bible.

The New Living Translation refers to the eyewitnesses’ reports of ‘what God has done’. Show these words to the assembly. Christians believe that Luke’s story, and the whole Bible, is the story of ‘what God has done’.

Optional prayer time:

Thank God that Luke did write all his stories down, so that we can read them too and learn more about Jesus.

Message for some shepherds! – Christmas

Bible base:

Luke 2:8-20

Teaching objectives:

To explore how Christians believe the announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds shows that it is a message for everyone.

You will need:

Pictures of scientists, shepherds and politicians enlarged on to big pieces of paper/card.
6 headlines enlarged and stuck to large pieces of card or the front of newspapers.

Introductory activity:

Show the assembly the pictures of the three groups of people. Ask what job they think each group does. Explain that the first group are scientists, the second are shepherds and the third are politiicans.

Show the assembly each of the first five headlines in turn. Which of our three groups should be the first to hear this news? Put the headline underneath the appropriate picture.

NEW DISCOVERY TO SAVE LIVES
NEW RULER IN THE NATION
IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE KING
NEW WAY TO IMPROVE LIFE
NEW SHEEP HERDING METHOD DISCOVERED

The shepherds would be last to hear all the world-changing news – they might have heard about the new ways to herd sheep if they could be found on the hills! The shepherds we are going to look at today lived 2000 years ago, before there were radios or newspapers, so they would have heard virtually nothing of what was happening even in their own country.

Christians believe that one night these shepherds heard the greatest news that anyone had ever heard. There had been about 700 years since God gave the message to Isaiah. (Only mention if you have done the assembly on Isaiah). On this night, the shepherds were given a world exclusive!

Look at all the headlines the other groups have. Christians believe that all these headlines came true the night that Jesus was born. He came to save lives, He came to be a ruler, He was sent from God, the King, and He would improve the life of His people. But, the amazing thing was that this message went first not to the scientists of the time (take their headlines away), nor to the politicians (take their headlines away), but to the shepherds (put all the headlines with the shepherds).

These shepherds were all out in the fields, watching their sheep, minding their own business, when suddenly, an angel appeared to them and told them that the person God had promised years before, whom they had heard about from their parents and grandparents, had finally been born in Bethlehem. And what was more, they were the first to hear about it! I wonder if they had ever been first to hear any news before?

So, why did they hear it first? The answer is in what the angel says. Show them the final headline:

6. I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU, WHICH WILL MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY

The message of Jesus is not just for very clever or important people, but for everyone. Because of this, God made sure that the shepherds, who were not rich, important or even well thought of, heard it first. Christians believe that everyone is important to God and that He wants everyone to know about His Son Jesus.

Optional prayer time:

Show all the headlines (apart from the one about sheep herding!) and pray through them, giving thanks that Jesus is the fulfilment of all these things.

A message from long ago – Christmas

Bible base:

Luke 1:68-70; Isaiah 9:6-7

Teaching objectives:

To discover that the message that Jesus was coming from God was sent to people long before His birth.

You will need:

‘Text words’ on acetate or card
a mobile phone with the text message ‘A child is born! He will rule forever from the throne of His ancestor David.’ Set the phone to send the message to its own number when you press the ‘send’ button. Alternatively, write the words out as a letter in an envelope.
A sign saying ‘Isaiah’ to put around a pupil’s neck.

Introductory activity:

Show the pupils the following ‘texts’. Are they able to translate them?

XLnt excellent

Pls please

CuL8r see you later

Pcm please call me

LOL lots of love or laugh out loud

Bfn bye for now

Mbrsd embarrassed

Today we are used to receiving messages from people almost immediately, thanks to e-mail, text messages, telephones etc. God has been sending people messages for thousands of years, but sometimes we have to wait a long time to see exactly what God means by his messages.

Imagine we are now in the year 700 BC; that’s about 2700 years ago! Let’s meet a man who lived then, called Isaiah.

Choose a volunteer and put a sign saying ‘Isaiah’ around their neck. Choose about ten other children to come to the front at this point too; you will explain their role a little later.

About 2700 years ago, the Bible says that God sent a message to Isaiah – you can still read the message in the Bible. Today we’re going to imagine the message coming through in a form we are familiar with.

Press the ‘send’ button on your mobile phone, or ask the first person in the line to open the envelope.

Give the phone to ‘Isaiah’ to read out the message to the assembly. Encourage the pupil to pretend to be excited.

Isaiah was very excited about this news. But then he got older and older and still this promised ruler had not appeared. Imagine that this line of pupils is a long line of different generations of one family. Before Isaiah died, he passed the news on to his son, so that when God’s promise happened on earth he would see and understand.

Ask ‘Isaiah’ to tell the message to the next pupil in a loud voice and pass them the phone.

Isaiah’s son was very excited too, but then, many years later, when he too was an old man and the promised ruler had still not appeared, he told his daughter/son so that the mssage would not be forgotton.

The next pupils should pass the message along the line.

Continue to explain about the message being passed on through all the ‘generations’, asking the pupils to pass it on as you do so, until the last person has received the message and the mobile phone. Check that the message is still correct.

The people had to wait a very long time to see God’s message come true. In fact, the people who first heard the message had been dead for hundreds of years before anything happened. Christians believe that God had sent messages to other people years before too, which gave other details about what this baby would be like; for example, which family he would be part of and where he would be born.

So when, eventually, a baby was born in the right place from the right family and when some amazing things happened around the time of His birth, people remembered the things that Isaiah and the others had passed down to them. They believed that this was going to be a very special baby indeed!

Optional prayer time:

Say thank you to God for people like Isaiah who faithfully wrote down what they heard from God, to prepare people for the arrival of His Son. Thank Him that we can still read these messages for ourselves in the Bible.

Message for Mary – Christmas

Bible base:

Luke 1:26-38

Teaching objectives:

To show that Christians believe God can have surprising things to say to anyone, not just important people.

You will need:

• Twenty-one cards with the following options written on them: Mary, Bob, Joseph; In her teens, In her twenties, In her thirties; In Jerusalem, in London, In a tiny village; The king, An angel, A ghost; God, The king, Another angel; You will be a famous singer, You will marry the king, You will have a baby, The baby would be God’s Son Jesus, The baby would be a great leader, The baby would be King forever.

Introductory activity:

Run the following multiple-choice quiz either with the whole assembly or with a few volunteers at the front. (The correct answer is in capitals.)

1. How long did the 100 years war last?

a) 100 years

b) 200 years

c) 116 YEARS

2. What is a camelhair brush made of?

a) Human hair

b) Camel hair

c) SQUIRREL FUR

3. What creature are the Canary Islands named after?

a) DOGS (from Latin)

b) Canaries

c) Goldfish

4. What was King George VI’s first name?

a) Gerald

b) ALBERT

c) George

5. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

a) China

b) NEW ZEALAND

c) Malaysia

Find out how highly the pupils have scored. There were a lot of surprises in that quiz. Today’s story involves quite a few surprises too.

Include the following paragraph if you are doing this assembly following on from ‘A message for Zechariah’:

Do you remember what Zechariah and Elizabeth, the old couple in the last assembly, were praying for? They really wanted a child, and God eventually answered their prayers when an angel came to tell them that they would have a very special son, who would prepare the way for God’s Son. The young girl in today’s story was definitely not praying for a child! She was surprised by what God chose to say to her.

We are going to build up a picture of what this person was like and then together work out the story of what happened to her.

Choose three volunteers to come to the front and help you to hold up cards that will tell the story.

Firstly, we need to find out what this mystery person’s name was.

Give each of the three pupils one of the following three names to hold up: Mary, Bob, Joseph.

Pupils should vote for which one they think the right answer is. Explain that you have already given them a clue! (i.e. you referred to ‘her’)

Tell them the correct answer and display the name ‘Mary’ at the front of the assembly hall.

Follow a similar pattern for the following facts. The correct answer is underlined in each case:

What age was she? In her teens; in her twenties; in her thirties

Where did she live? In Jerusalem; in London; in a tiny village

Mary was not an important person – probably no one outside her village even knew she existed! So, you can imagine her surprise when someone quite unexpected appeared to her one day! Who do you think it was?

Give them the following three choices: the king; an angel; a ghost

When they have guessed, tell them the correct answer and display it at the front.

What a surprise! Mary was very worried when an angel appeared before her! But the angel reassured Mary and told her not to be afraid. He said that someone more important and amazing than him was very pleased with her and wanted to give her a message. Who do you think this was?

Give them the following three choices: God, the king, another angel

When they have guessed, tell them the correct answer and display it at the front.

Mary was not expecting a message from God! She probably didn’t think that a young girl like her living in a little village was important enough for God to speak to. But God knew all about her and had a special job that only she could do.

So, what was the message? It seems quite ordinary at first, but actually it might be the most amazing message that anyone has ever received. Can you guess – or do you know – what that message was?

Give them the following three choices:

You will be a famous singer
You will marry the king
You will have a baby

When they have guessed, tell them the correct answer and display it at the front.

Mary was going to have a baby! But this would be no ordinary baby – He was someone very special indeed. You may have guessed already who it was:

Give them the following three choices:

The baby would be God’s Son, Jesus

The baby would be a great leader

The baby would be king forever.

This was a trick – all three are right! Mary’s baby was Jesus, God’s own son. But the angel also said that because Jesus was God’s son, he would lead the people and would be king forever.

Mary was just an ordinary young girl when God asked her to do a very important task for him. Mary said yes because she trusted God and wanted to do what he said.

The Bible says that no one is too ordinary or unimportant for God to be interested in them. Christians believe he has things that he wants to tell each person and things that he wants only them do.

Optional prayer time:

Say thank you that God knows everything about each person’s life. He is interested in them, no matter how unimportant they feel.

Message for Zechariah! – Advent

Bible base:

Luke 1:5-25

Teaching objectives:

To show that Christians believe God answers prayers. Sometimes the answer is unbelievable, but they believe he can be trusted.

You will need:

Chewy fruit sweets which are sold in tightly-wrapped paper.
Clothes to dress up two pupils – one boy and one girl – as old people, eg a tweed jacket, a shawl, an old-fashioned handbag, etc.
Two envelopes addressed to Zechariah, with ‘God’ written on the back as the sender’s name. One envelope should contain the words “Your wife, Elizabeth, will have a son’ and the other the words, ‘He will persuade people to turn to God and will prepare the way for God’s Son.’

Introductory activity:

If you are doing this assembly as part of a series before Christmas, ask the pupils what presents they are hoping to receive. Alternatively, at other times in the year, ask if anyone has a birthday coming up. Ask them to raise their hand if they want to tell you about the presents they would like to receive.

Ask three pupils to come to the front of the assembly hall. Ask them if they are right or left-handed. Put a chewy fruit sweet wrapped in paper in their other hand and ask them to unwrap it using only that hand. Encourage the rest of the pupils to cheer them on.

When they have finished, ask them why they kept trying to get the sweet opened. It is because they wanted to eat it. If they didn’t care, they would have given up.

Today’s story is about a man called Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Just like our volunteers, there was something that they really wanted. It wasn’t just a sweet however, and they had wanted this thing for many years.

Choose a boy and a girl to come to the front to be Zechariah and Elizabeth. Start to dress them up in costumes as you build up a picture of what they were like.

Zechariah and Elizabeth lived a long time ago in a hot country a long way from here, but to help us imagine them more easily, we will dress them up in modern clothes. They were also very old – older than your grandparents – so we will dress them up to look like older people.

Zechariah and Elizabeth had lived a long and good life, and had been very happy. But one thing in their life made them very sad: they had no children. They both loved children, but they had never had any of their own. Now they were so old, there was no chance they could have a child. This was the only thing in their life that really made them sad. Encourage the pupils at the front to look sad.

The Bible says that Zechariah and Elizabeth loved God very much and had always tried to obey him in everything they did. Because they loved him so much and believed that he loved them even more, they used to talk to him all the time about everything they were thinking and feeling.

They believed that God was very powerful and that he was the only one who could help them. Every day they would tell him about how much they wanted a child.

Zechariah was a priest, and one day he was in the temple on his own, praying to God when something amazing happened: an angel appeared! Zechariah was very afraid, but the angel told him not to be. He was sent from God to give Zechariah a message.

Give one of the envelopes addressed to ‘Zechariah’ to your volunteer. Ask them to open it and read what it says:

‘Your wife, Elizabeth, will have a son.’

At last, here was an answer to their prayers! But that was not the end of the message.

Give the pupil the second envelope to read out:

‘He will persuade people to turn to God and will prepare the way for God’s son.’

God had heard their prayers and had answered them, but his answer was even better than they had imagined. Not only would Elizabeth have a baby, but this baby would have a very special job, preparing people for God’s son, Jesus.

The message was so amazing that Zechariah found it very hard to believe. Elizabeth was so old! But Elizabeth believed the message for one simple reason.

Ask ‘Elizabeth’ to check on the back of the envelope to see who the message is from and tell the rest of the assembly.

Elizabeth knew they could trust this message because it was from someone they knew: God. She knew that God loved them and wouldn’t lie to them. Now God had answered their prayer in an amazing way!

Luke’s Gospel is an exciting message to Theophilus (only mention Theophilus if you have already done the previous assembly) and to us, but this is the first exciting message within his story. Christians believe it is a message that shows us that God is in touch with people and answers their prayers in more incredible ways than they could ever imagine. Elizabeth’s son was John the Baptist, sent to prepare people for an even more exciting message still to come.

Optional prayer time:

Give thanks that God heard Zechariah and Elizabeth’s prayers and answered them. Thank him that he is still in touch with people today.

The light of the world – Christmas

Topic:

Christmas

Aim

To think about the significance of light for Christians at Christmas, a festival which is all about the birth of Jesus, the Light of the World.
To consider ways in which we can show the qualities of ‘light’ in our lives.

Things you’ll need

Flip chart or similar divided into 2 columns– one labelled ‘light’, the
other labelled ‘dark’
A note pad and pencil
Words which fit the categories ‘light’ or ‘dark’ (eg love, peace, kindness, fear, lies, fighting etc) written clearly on separate strips of card or paper. Include the words ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’. You may like to have some spare strips ready so you can add other words during the assembly.
Blu-tack
A candle and matches

Bible Base

1 John 1:5
Luke 2:32
John 8:12

Content

1 Show the flip chart with the two columns labelled ‘light’ and ‘dark’. Talk about words linked with light and darkness (eg sunshine, shadows, lightning, night-time). Ask the children for their suggestions and jot them down as a reminder for yourself of what they have said.

2 Ask them to show you whether they think these words belong in the ‘light’ or the ‘dark’ column, in the following way. As you call out the words they have suggested they must either:

put their hands over their eyes to show the word belongs in the ‘dark’ column;
flick their hands open and closed in front of their eyes to show the word belongs in the ‘light’ column.

3 Introduce another way of thinking about light and darkness. Show the words on the cards you prepared before the assembly (love, fear etc) one at a time. Explain any they don’t understand. Ask the children which column each card belongs in and then stick it in the appropriate place using Blu-tack.

4 Explain that Christians believe that ‘God’ should go in the ‘light’ section because the Bible says: ‘God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1:5, Youth Bible). Ask the children if they agree with this.

5 Talk about Jesus, ‘the Light of the World’.

Explain that at Christmas time, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Bible says that when Jesus was six weeks old, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him to God because that was the custom of his people.
There was an old man in the Temple called Simeon. When he saw Jesus, he tookh im in his arms. He said that Jesus would be a light for the people to see (Luke 2:32).
When he grew up, Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness’ (John 8:12, Youth Bible).
The Bible shows that Jesus was a man who was loving and kind, a good man who helped people and spoke the truth, a man of joy and peace. (You could remind the children of some examples from Jesus’ life).

6 If the children think these things written about Jesus are true, which side of the chart should ‘Jesus’ should go on? Christians believe that Jesus always showed these qualities of ‘light’ in his life and never those of ‘darkness’.

Application

A Christian viewpoint

Light is special for Christians at Christmas time, because they remember the qualities of ‘light’ lived out by Jesus, as they celebrate his birth. Christians believe that following Jesus brings these qualities of ‘light’ into their lives as well.

For everyone

Look at the words you have stuck in the ‘light’ column. Ask the children which qualities of light others might see in them.

Response

1 Light the candle. Ask the children: If you go into a dark room and turn on the light, what happens to the darkness? Does the darkness ever put out the light? Christians believe that these qualities of ‘light’ are ‘stronger’ than the things that are on the ‘dark’ side, just like light is ‘stronger’ than darkness.

2 Look again at the words on the ‘light’ side. Ask the children to think about situations where they might be able to show ‘light’ in the darkness.