Church on the Corner

Starchasers: Sessions (Archive)

Spring Term 2012: Meeting Jesus

This term we’re going to be looking at some of the people who met Jesus in Luke’s gospel. Through these encounters with Jesus we learn about Jesus Himself and how other people responded to meeting the ‘Son of God’. The challenge to us today is how will we respond to discovering Jesus and meeting Him?

The weeks when we have Starchasers and the message of the mornings are:

25th March: Luke 19v1-10
Theme – Zacchaeus
We started with a question. How would you know if someone was really sorry? How could you tell? We had lots of answers from the kids including looking sorry, not doing it again (changing behaviour), doing something nice for the person you’ve upset and listening to you mum next time!
Today’s story was all about someone who’d changed, who turned over a new leaf and was sorry for what he’d done. But how did people know he was sorry? We’ll find out later.
We told the story of this man Zacchaeus. Not a popular man. He was the chief tax collector which meant he worked for the Romans, the occupiers who most Jews hated. He was also a cheat and would take more than he should from people and stole from them. This made Zacchaeus very wealthy but it wasn’t enough. So when Jesus came to town Zacchaeus wanted to see him. Zacchaeus was very small so he had to climb a tree in order to see Jesus. Jesus sees Zacchaeus up the tree and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house – a great honour.
The other people weren’t please thinking – a man like that, why’s Jesus going to his house? But on meeting Jesus Zacchaeus was changed, he was transformed. And how did people know he was a changed man? He gave half his money to the poor and paid back four times what he cheated people out of. Jesus brought real change to Zaccaheus’s life which lead to real actions from Zacchaeus.
We thought about how Zacchaeus had changed, had turned over a new leaf. In our groups we had a leaf on one side we wrote what Zacchaeus was like before and the other what he was like after. How had meeting Jesus changed him? And the question we finished with was if we’re following Jesus how should we change? What change would people see in us?

11th March: Luke 10:38-42
Theme – Mary & Martha
We started off the session by meeting a family. A family that included Mary, Martha and Lazarus. The family were good friends of Jesus and they were prepared to stick up for Jesus even when people were out to get Him. They kept opening their home up to Jesus even when the leaders were looking to arrest Jesus.
We also asked where we met have met the family before, especially the brother Lazarus. We’d heard about him last year in a story at the start of the countdown to Easter, when Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead. A remarkable story, and like last session, one that shows Jesus’ power over death.
We then went on to today’s story from Luke. We got one of the kids to be Martha and she was brave and invited Jesus to her house – normally it would have been her brother, the man, who would have invited Jesus. And when Jesus was there she was busy doing chores to make Jesus welcome. One of the kids showed us the hive of activity that would have been happening with Martha cooking, cleaning, setting the table and so on. And what was her sister Mary doing while all this was going on? Sitting listening to Jesus. We asked the kids what they thought and they generally thought Mary should have helped her sister and not leave it all to Martha.
Martha was so aggrieved she asked Jesus to have a word with Mary. We asked the kids what they thought Jesus would say and the answers included telling Mary not to be so selfish, telling Mary off and telling Martha ask her yourself!
But what Jesus actually said was a bit of a surprise. He didn’t tell Mary off instead he said ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her’. Although Martha was worried about making Jesus welcome and showing Him hospitality Jesus said the more important thing was to be with Him and listen to Him. That’s not to say what Martha was doing wasn’t important but it was more important to listen to Jesus and spend time with Him, like Mary was doing.
We looked at the story more in small groups. Asking questions of each other to find out more about everyone in our group. Asking questions about the story including how both women tried to make Jesus feel welcome. And asking what we would ask Jesus if we had a chance to speak with Him. At the end we made friendships bracelets to remind us of the friendship between Jesus and these two women.

26th February: Luke 8:40-56
Theme – A ruler & an ill woman
We started this week by meeting two people. One was an important leader, Jarius, and the other a poor, ill woman. Very different people but both were utterly helpless.
And they’d come to Doctor Stavs for some advice. The man’s daughter was ill and Doctor Stavs examined her and said there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t help Jarius’s daughter at all.
Then the woman came to Dr. Stavs. The woman had been bleeding for 12 years and nobody had been able to help her. Stavs tested her blood and urine and tried spiders webs, shock and frogs but nothing seemed to work. (I’m not entirely convinced Doctor Stavs was a real doctor…). Both were helpless, there was nothing they could do.
Except of course, Jesus was in town…
We acted out the story and got the kids to form a large crowd to greet Jesus when he arrived back. Jarius was one of the people who came to see Jesus and he fell at Jesus’ feet, begging that Jesus would come and heal his daughter. Jesus agreed and they set off to Jarius’s house.
The crowd went with Jesus and people were pushing and shoving to get close to him. And then Jesus stopped. He asked who touched Him. There was a pause and Simon Peter pointed out that lots of people were pushing against him and touching him. But Jesus meant something different, power had gone from Him. It was the ill woman who had touched him and she came forward to admit it was her. She was frightened and feel at Jesus’ feet. She told Jesus it was her that touched Him and as soon as she had she was healed. Jesus told her that her faith had healed her adn she could go in peace.
While this was all happening a person came from Jarius’s house to say his daughter was dead. It was too late. What little hope Jarius had was gone, there was nothing Jesus could do for her now.
But Jesus had different ideas, he encouraged Jarius to believe and they went to his house. People laughed at Jesus for saying the girl was only asleep but Jesus brought the girl back to life. Her parents were amazed but Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone what happened.
We recapped the story later by watching a clip from the Miracle Maker. Again we saw two hopeless situations where Jesus was able to show His power and bring hope.
And we finished by writing our thoughts in our treasure notebooks. What did we want to remember about Jesus from today’s story and what didn’t we understand but wanted to note down?

12th February: Luke 7:36-50
Theme – A rejected woman
We started the session by going over our memory verse:
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness. He will have the light that gives life.”
John 8 v 12
We lit a candle at the front to represent Jesus and turned off the lights in the hall. Then as each person said the memory verse they came up to light a tea-light from the candle and took it back with them. This was to remind us that if we follow Jesus we don’t live in darkness but rather we have the light that gives life.
Before we started the story we thought about what would happen if one of the kids in the group came to their house. What are some of the things we’d do to make them feel welcome. Some of the answers were take off their coat and scarf, shake their hand and say hello, get them a seat, make them a cup of tea and put the TV on for them. We’d do this to make the guest feel welcome and comfortable. In Jesus’ day you’d also want to make your guest feel welcome and comfortable but you’d perhaps do some different things. You’d give them water to wash their feet because the roads were dusty and their feet would be hot. You’d greet them with a kiss to welcome them. And you’d pour oil on their head to help them freshen up. A good host would do this for his guests.
We then acted out today’s story. Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus round to his house. But when Jesus came Simon didn’t do any of these things for Jesus – no water, no kiss and no oil. While they were eating and talking a woman came in – a woman who’d done some bad things and was rejected by people because she had done many wrong things. She came in and stood behind Jesus. She cried and cried and the tears wet Jesus feet. She then dried Jesus feet with her hair, then kissed them and finally took some expensive perfume out and poured it on Jesus’ feet.
Simon the Pharisee thought – this Jesus can’t be a prophet otherwise he’d know what type of woman she is and wouldn’t let her near Him. But Jesus did know what type of woman she was and He knew what Simon was thinking so He told a story. A man is owed £500 by someone and £50 by someone else. He forgives both their debts so who loves him more? Simon said the one who owed him £500 because he’d been forgiven more.
Jesus pointed to the woman and said she had washed his feet with her tears, dried his feet with her hair, poured oil on them and hasn’t stopped kissing them. She loves me a lot because she’s been forgiven a lot. But you Simon didn’t give me any water, or oil or greet me with a kiss. The person who’s been forgiven a little loves a little. Jesus then turned to the woman and said – Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace! There was much whispering among the other guests about the sort of person who can forgive sins.
Afterwards we thought more about the story Jesus told about the man who forgave someone £500 and someone £50 – who loved him more? The one who was forgiven more. We also thought about if a man knew two Liverpool fans and he gave one tickets to the Carling Cup Final and one tickets to a reserve game on a wet Wednesday night. Who would love him more? The one who got Carling Cup Final tickets as the man had done more for them.
And this was like the situation in the story. The woman realised she’d done a lot of things wrong. She realised she’d been forgiven a lot. She realised Jesus had done a lot for her so she showed a lot of love to him.
But Simon the Pharisee thought he was a good man and he’d didn’t have much need for Jesus. So he only showed a little love to Jesus. He felt Jesus hadn’t done that much for him. But actually Jesus had forgiven him a lot. Jesus had done a lot for him. To forgive him Jesus had to come to earth, to die and to rise again. It took a lot for Jesus to forgive him and Jesus had forgiven him a lot. So he should have loved Jesus a lot. But Simon the Pharisee didn’t realise that.
And Jesus has done a lot to forgive us. And Jesus has forgiven us a lot. So should we show Jesus a little love or a lot of love?
We ended with a time of confession. As we were thinking about forgiveness we asked Jesus to forgive us for the things we’ve done wrong and the things we should have done but didn’t. We then finished with a response prayer about realising what Jesus has done for us so that we could be forgiven.

29th January: Luke 5:1-11
Theme – Simon Peter, James & John
We started the session with a recap of the first two sessions and the people who met Jesus – Simeon, Anna, the religious teachers and his mother Mary. (For more information see below!). The three people in today’s story were also amazed by Jesus. So much so their response was to leave everything behind and follow Him.
We started with some mock job interviews. In came the first candidate who was very clever, passed lots of exams, was very confident (almost cocky) and seemed to be good at lots of things. Did he want to join? There he ummed and ahhed and made excuses and said he’d see how things were over the next few months, maybe in 6 months he could make a decision.
The second candidate didn’t really seem up to much. Wasn’t really good at school work, couldn’t really read and write, hadn’t amounted to much in life. In fact his main skill was fishing. But he was prepared to join right away. If it was a job interview who would we choose? Would we choose the same sort of people Jesus chose?
We then looked at the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter, James & John. (Simon Peter was called Simon but Jesus later gave him the name Peter – we’ll call him Simon Peter today so we know that he’s same Peter who was one of Jesus closest friends). The kids acted out today’s story with a few chairs (boats) and a football net (fishing net). We saw Jesus coming to the edge of the shore and the crowds were gathering around him. We saw the three fishermen come back from fishing all night but they had caught nothing. Jesus got into Simon Peter’s boat and asked him to push out a little from the shore. Jesus then taught the people from Simon Peter’s boat.
After that Jesus told Simon Peter to head out to the deep part of the lake and try catching some fish. Simon Peter knew that there was no chance of catching fish but did it because Jesus asked him too. And then… the net was bulging with fish, so much so the nets started to break, the boat sunk a little bit and James and John had to come and help them take the catch back to shore. The fishermen new that what Jesus had done was extraordinary, miraculous. They were astonished at this and Simon Peter fell on his knees and said to Jesus ‘Go away from me, I’m a sinner!’.
But Jesus didn’t go away instead he gave the three of them an offer of leaving their fishing boats behind, following Him and come fishing for people. Jesus wanted them to follow Him and help build His group of followers, His church. And Simon Peter, James & John left everything and followed Jesus. This man was so remarkable they had to do as He said and follow Him.
We also looked at the story in the Miracle Marker film to recap and emphasized that the three fishermen knew how remarkable it was for Jesus to do what He did. The miracle of the fishes was tailor-made for them!
We finished in small groups with our heart-notebooks again. We wrote down what we wanted to treasure and be reminded off about Jesus in this story. We also wrote down what things we didn’t quite understand about Jesus but wanted to hold on to.

22nd January: Luke 2:41-52
Theme – Religious teachers
This session we learnt about a time when Jesus was 12 years old. Again his parents were going up to the temple in Jerusalem, this time to celebrate the Passover, just like they did every year. We read the story from Luke’s gospel while the kids listened.
We heard that after the festival Mary & Joseph returned home and although Jesus wasn’t with his parents He was somewhere in the big family group that was heading home. Or so his parents thought. But after a day they looked for Him amongst their family and friends and couldn’t find Him. So Mary & Joseph headed back to Jerusalem to look for Jesus there but for three days they couldn’t find Him. Then, after three days of looking, they found Jesus in the temple with the religious teachers. Jesus was listening to them and asking questions. The teachers were amazed with Jesus’ understanding and wisdom.
When Mary & Joseph found Jesus they were astonished too but more because they wondered why He’d stayed here rather than coming home with them and didn’t He know how worried they were! Jesus replied – where else would I be but in my Father’s house? They didn’t understand what Jesus was saying but we also learnt that Mary treasured these things (and more besides as Jesus grew) in her heart.
Taking up the theme of Mary treasuring these things in her heart we introduced the idea of the heart bucket. In this case it was a small bucket with a big red heart stuck on the front. We looked at some of the things that were inside – silver, gold, coins and a big jewel – all treasure. We said that Mary kept these things about Jesus in her heart, she remembered them, she thought about them. These things were precious to her and they helped her learn more about Jesus. Some of the things she didn’t quite understand but she also held onto them, these precious things.
In small groups we had our own treasure notebook which we also decorated. Inside we wrote some of the things we wanted to treasure, to keep, to remember, to think about. We wrote those things we wanted to treasure about Jesus from the story of Him at the temple – His wisdom, His going to His Father’s house, His understanding. And we also wrote some of the things we didn’t quite understand yet – Didn’t He know His parents would be upset? What did He mean by His Father’s House?

Theme – Simeon & Anna
We started the morning with waiting. Steve came on and sat and waited. And looked at his watch and waited. And drummed and fingers and waited. Through writing down on a pad and getting a kid to read out he conveyed that he was waiting for something to happen. Someone was going to be chosen. But who. And we waited. And then waited some more. Finally the countdown from 10 and then the name was revealed.
It gave us an an idea what waiting was like, even for a short time. You’re wondering what’s going to happen, who it’s going to be, you really want it to come now. We also shared some things we waited for and what that was like. That included birthdays, exams and the London Olympics.
And today’s story was all about waiting. We met Simeon who was given a special promise by God – he would see the Messiah before he died, God’s chosen one. (We don’t know how the promise was delivered but in acting it out Simeon got a letter with his name on it). And so Simeon waited and waited and waited. One day Jesus’ parents Mary and Joseph went up to the temple. They were good people, devout and Godly, and so were keeping the Jewish law by going up to the temple when Jesus was 40 days old. They went with their offering, two turtledoves or pigeons, because they were too poor to afford a lamb.
That day Simeon was led to the temple by the Holy Spirit and when Simeon saw Jesus he knew Jesus was the Messiah. He took Jesus in his arms, thanked God and said this prayer of thanks to God:
Lord, I am your servant, and now I can die in peace
because you have kept your promise to me.
With my own eyes I have seen what you have done
to save your people
and foreign nations will also see this
Your mighty power is a light for all nations, and it will bring honour to your people Israel.
Simeon blessed Jesus’ parents but he also had a warning for Mary that some people would reject Jesus and Mary would suffer.
And the day out at the temple wasn’t over yet! A prophetess, Anna, was also there. She was an old lady of 84 whose husband had died some years ago. Anna never left the temple and she spent all her time there worshipping and praying to God. When Anna saw Jesus she thanked God and told people asking about Jerusalem being saved about Jesus.
Some strange things had happened to Mary and Joseph since Mary found out she was pregnant. We asked the kids what some of those things were, including today’s story. Simeon, his prayer and his warning, Anna and her response to Jesus, angels, strange visitors from the East, shepherds, an unusual star, gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh… it was a lot to take it. We asked the kids what Mary and Joseph might have been thinking and one response was ‘maybe they were believing more and more that Jesus was special’.
We finished by using Simeon’s prayer of praise for some choral speaking. In that we say, not sing, the prayer but go louder and softer in different parts and have some parts with one voice, some with several and some with everyone. We split the kids into two groups and went through the words thinking how they would emphasis the key bits before ending with the two groups choral speaking the prayer.

 

Autumn Term 2011: Long way from home

This term we’ll be looking at the exile of the Jews and the return home. We’ll start by looking at the warnings and promises in Jeremiah, then life in exile in Daniel and finally the return to Jerusalem in Nehemiah.

The weeks when we have Starchasers and the message of the mornings are:

11th December: Nehemiah 12
Theme – Celebrating & Praising God
We started by thinking about celebrations – what sort of things do you celebrate and how do you celebrate them. One of the kids had a birthday so we had a few celebrations for that including singing and eating cake.
And what about times when a whole city, in fact the whole country, celebrates? We looked at one of the biggest celebrations ever in London – in 1945 when World War 2 ended. And we also looked at a more recent celebration – the Royal Wedding in April this year.
And in today’s story the people of Jerusalem, and indeed the whole country of Judah were celebrating. Why? We recapped last session’s story to remind us why – because the people had returned to the city and now the city, including the walls, had been rebuilt.
So the cry went out across the country for people to help with the celebrations. Nehemiah called Levites to purify things before the celebrations. We’re not sure how the Levites purified things but we got some kids to come up and sprinkle them with water. They sprinkled the gates, the walls, each other and finally all the people.
Nehemiah then called together singers and musicians to help lead the celebrations. We gave some kids instruments and got them to rattle, shake and play them. And finally Nehemiah called the leaders and people together to help celebrate so everyone else got involved as well.
Nehemiah split the group into two groups and sent them different ways around the walls. We split ourselves into two groups and walked around the gates and towers. Each time one group would reach a gate or tower they’d play their instrument and shout – ‘God is great we sing and shout it’. And each time the other group reached a gate or tower they’d shout ‘God is great we celebrate’.
We went round the whole walls like this before both groups came together. But then we said the people weren’t just celebrating because they were happy, they were also thanking and praising someone. Thanking and praising someone who’d brought them back to the land and helped them with the rebuilding. Who? God of course! So the people went to the temple and there offered gifts, offerings and sacrifices to thank and praise God for what He had done.
Spurred on by Nehemiah’s example we started to think about how we could thank and praise God. Again we split into two groups. One group decorated flags with things we could praise God for and this included our family, making new friends, animals and Starchasers. And another group made a giant paper chain and each link had something to praise God written on it. We had family, friends, school, health, the environment and many, many other things on the chains. We came back together as a group and shared and finished by praising God through prayer.
To wrap up the term we looked back at the two lego scenes we first saw in Jeremiah 32 all those weeks ago. One was what the country looked like at the time of Jeremiah 32 – a war zone with the country in ruins. And the other looked like what God promised it would be like in the future – things would return to normal, the place would be rebuilt and they’d farm there again. Now in Nehemiah we see God keeping His promise and the people back in the land with the city rebuilt. God had a plan for the people of Judah and He didn’t forget them. We closed with our memory verse to help us remember that.
“I know what I have planned for you,” says the LORD. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.
Jeremiah 29 v 11

27th November: Nehemiah 1-6
Theme – The return: Pray and keep going!
As we come to the end of our series this term we’re starting to see more of God’s Big Plan for the people of Judah. We started the session with a recap of all the sessions we’d done so far (ambitious I know).
We saw that through a prophet called Jeremiah God warned the people to change and turn back to Him. But they didn’t, kept turning their back on God and so God sent the Babylonians to invade and capture them. But God also gave them a promise that they’d return to the land and to the city of Jerusalem again.
That promise seemed very far off when they were taken to Babylon and we looked at the lives of four men standing out for in Babylon – Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But God had kept His promise to the people of Judah. The Babylonians were themselves attacked and taken over by the Persians and the Persians allowed some of the Jews to return to Jerusalem.
And this is where today’s hero Nehemiah comes in. As we told the story we had a prop for several key words in the story, the first being a knee slap everytime Nehemiah was mentioned. (Well it is panto season.)
Nehemiah (KNEE SLAP) heard reports from Jerusalem (STAR OF DAVID) that the city walls were in ruins and the gate burnt down. In short the city was in a bit of a state. This made Nehemiah sad (SAD FACE). Nehemiah prayed to God (KNEEL AND PRAY). And Nehemiah was so sad that when he went to the king (CROWN), (Nehemiah was the king’s wine-taster (WINE GLASS)), the king asked why he was so sad. Nehemiah told the king about Jerusalem and the king let Nehemiah return to Jerusalem to help build the walls. Complete with letters (um, LETTERS) to give him permission.
On his return Nehemiah oversaw the rebuilding of the walls. He organised people in groups to give them a section to work on, armed them (SWORDS, SPEARS, BOWS) to protect the walls, issued trumpets (TRUMPETS) to call for help and of course prayed to God. Some people didn’t want Nehemiah to succeed, three people in particular, but Nehemiah trusted God and carried on building. And through prayer and by trusting God Nehemiah and the people finished the walls in just 52 days!
We finished the story with a song of ‘Our God is and awesome God’, similar to the prayer Nehemiah prayed when he heard about what a state Jerusalem was in.
And finally in our small groups we prayed. Just as Nehemiah prayed throughout the rebuilding we can bring all parts of our life to God in prayer. We thought of something happy to thank God for and something unhappy we could ask God to help us with.

13th November: Daniel 6
Theme – Standing out for God III
We had a special rule for this morning only at Starchasers – Do not go near the lions’ den (formerly known as the PE cupboard). And if you needed any further warning we rigged up some speakers so that every time the door was opened the lions inside would roar. The scene, and indeed the den, was set for today’s story.
Since our story last time the Babylonians have been overthrown by the Medes and the Persians and now Darius was king. Like Nebuchadnezzar he spotted that Daniel was a very talented person and so Darius thought he promote Daniel ahead of all his other advisors and ministers. Not everyone was pleased for Daniel and a few of his fellow advisors plotted against him. But what could they find to accuse him off?
The one thing that was different about Daniel was his faith in God so they went to Darius and persuaded Darius to bring in a new law. The law was that for 30 days no-one was to pray to any god or any person other than King Darius. Darius put the law in writing and now it couldn’t be changed no matter what. The penalty for breaking this law? Being thrown in the lions’ den (CUE ROARS). Daniel heard about this law but carried on praying to God three times a day as he always did.
The other advisors told the king and told him Daniel would have to be thrown in the lions’ den (CUE ROARS). The king was upset and made every effort to save Daniel but he couldn’t. The law couldn’t be changed. (CUE ROARS).
And so the king gave the order and Daniel was thrown in the lions’ den (ODD NO ROARS) and a stone was placed over the entrance and the entrance sealed. The king said to Daniel – “May God rescue you!”. And all night the king could not sleep, eat or enjoy any entertainment.
While the king slept we played a game, Sleeping Lions of course. And in the morning the king went to the den (ODD, STILL NO ROARS). King Darius called out to Daniel and amazingly Daniel replied! Daniel said God had sent an angel and shut the lions’ mouths and Daniel was safe! Daniel was taken out of the den and the king was very happy! He wasn’t so happy with the advisors who tricked him and they were thrown into the lions’ den (CUE LOTS OF ROARS).
In our small groups we looked at the story using colours. The kids were asked what they learnt from the story using different colours and some of the replies included:

• God ruled and was in charge – Yellow, Purple
• God brought peace to the situation – Yellow, Green, Blue, White
• Blood that was meant to be Daniel’s – Red
• The advisors were cold-hearted – Blue
• Daniel did break the law – Black
• Daniel stood out from those around him – Yellow on Black

We ended the session by getting one of the kids to read out the letter that Darius sent round the kingdom after Daniel was rescued from the lions’ den. Daniel’s faith in God and God’s power in rescuing Daniel lead Darius to say:
“In every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.”

23rd October: Daniel 3
Theme – Standing out for God II
Daniel and his three friends had made it through Nebuchadnezzar’s boot camp and were now working in the king’s service. Daniel’s friends were called by their Babylonian names – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
In today’s story Nebuchadnezzar had built a giant gold statue, approximately 27 metres tall and 3 metres wide. We showed a picture of what the statue might have looked like next to a group of people and it was very tall and very impressive.
The king wanted to bring all his officials together to worship this statue. When the music played all of them were to bow down and worship it. But not everyone did. Three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, would not worship the statue, they would only worship God.
When the king heard this he was furious. We had one of the kids be the king and another three be Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They came before the king and the king demanded they bow down to the statue and they refused. The king was furious and the kid acting him did a great job of showing us what an angry king looks like. The punishment for not bowing down was to be thrown into a fiery furnace and we showed the furnace the king was talking about (created using a large cardboard box, some tissue paper, bike lights and a little imagination).
But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wouldn’t bow down. The king said to them that no god would be able to save them from his punishment. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied that God could save them. But even if God wouldn’t save them they still weren’t going to worship anyone other than God.
The king was so mad he ordered the three men to be tied up so our fifth actor, ‘soldier’, did the honours. The king ordered the furnace be heated up seven times hotter than normal. So hot that when ‘soldier’ threw them in the furnace he was killed by the heat (It was a small but important part, ‘soldier’).
So we shut the cardboard box with the three men in it. It looked like they had paid with their lives. But then Nebuchadnezzar looked inside the furnace. There weren’t three men in there but four. He saw a fourth person in there walking around. Nebuchadnezzar described this fourth person as a son of the gods or an angel.
So Nebuchadnezzar called Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to come out of the furnace and when they came out we all checked their clothes and sniffed them. Their clothes weren’t at all burnt and there was no smell of smoke on them. The king was so amazed he praised God and called him the Most High God.
Key things we took from this story were that God is mightier than even the most powerful king and empire on earth. That Jesus goes with us and watches over us. And that we are called to stand out for God.
In our small group we made our own fiery furnace cards and inside was our memory verse for the term:
“I know what I have planned for you,” says the LORD. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.
Jeremiah 29 v 11

Sunday 9th October: Daniel 1
Theme – Standing out for God.
The people of Judah lost to the Babylonians. They have been captured and taken to Babylon. But they still have God’s promise that He has a plan for them, the promise that one day they will return to the country. But in the meantime they have to live in a foreign land, far away from home.
We started the session by showing some photographs of foreign countries to get them thinking about being in a different land. What things might be different? The children said, the weather, the language, the buildings, the clothes, the food and the daily routine. The people of Judah were going to have to do a lot of adjusting!
And over the next few weeks we are going to be looking at four people in particular, four people from Judah called Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. We got four kids up front to be these four people in today’s story and we gave them a name card each.
One of the things that was changed were their names and they each were given a Babylonian name: Daniel was renamed Belteshazzar, Hananiah – Shadrach, Mishael – Meshach and Azariah – Abednego. So we changed the name of each of the four kids name cards.
These four people followed God and although they were living in a different country they still worshipped God, even when that meant standing out and being different. These four young men were selected to be trained up for three years and then the best ones would enter the royal service. Sort of like a Babylonian X-factor boot camp.
But Daniel and his friends didn’t want to eat the food or drink the wine given to them by the king. We’re not sure of the reasons why, it might have been the Jewish food laws, it might have been that the food was offered to idols or some other reason but because Daniel and his friends followed God they didn’t want to eat it. Even if that meant standing out and being different. Instead they asked if they could eat only vegetables and drink only water for ten days.
So we passed round all the rest of the kids some cocktail sausages for them to eat. But Daniel and his four friends were only given carrot sticks. They stood out and were different to everyone else (and some of them weren’t happy about it!). And God blessed their stance and at the end of the ten days they were fitter and healthier than everyone else. So their guard let them continue eating vegetables and drinking only water.
God also gave these four young men wisdom so at the end of the boot camp they went into the King Nebuchadnezzar’s service and were very, very good at their job. We talked about how these four were prepared to stand out for God and be different, even in a difficult situation.
And in our small groups we thought about the times we found it difficult to stand out and be different because we believed in God – at school, at work, at football training, wherever. (Some kids didn’t find it difficult in any situation). We offered these situations to God in prayer. And we also prayed for those countries where it can be difficult to be a Christian today.

25th September:  Jeremiah 31 v 1-6, 32 v 1-15
Theme – Trust God and His promises for the future
We recapped the warning God gave the people of Judah last week via a saucepan full of string (you had to be there). If they didn’t change and turn back to Him, God was going to bring disaster on them. And guess what? They ignored Jeremiah’s message from God and didn’t change.
True to His word God sent the Babylonian army to attack Judah. The Babylonians were the biggest, strongest country in the world at this time and so things were looking bad for Judah. God gave Jeremiah a message – Judah were going to lose, their land was going to be taken over by the Babylonians and the king of Judah was going to be taken off to Judah. The king of Judah wasn’t too pleased at hearing this and threw Jeremiah in jail!
And so, using a few toys and props we re-created what the land of Judah was like. We put out a brown sheet on a table to resemble a field in the middle of a battle. There were soldiers everywhere so we put toy soldiers on the sheet. Trees were burned, animals injured and homes ruined so we put a few broken toys around as well. In short the land looked a mess.
Then something slightly odd happened. Jeremiah’s cousin, Hanamel, came to Jeremiah. He had some land to sell and wanted Jeremiah to buy it. (Jeremiah was his closest relative so had the first chance to buy the land). Now we looked at the brown battlefield we’d created and asked what was the problem with buying land at this moment? It was a war zone! The land was a mess! And in fact it would be worthless if the Babylonians were going to win – and God said they were going to win.
But God told Jeremiah to buy the land. To give Hanamel the money, get the paperwork and put it in a clay jar to keep it for a long time. Why? Why did God want Jeremiah to buy the land? Because God had given Jeremiah a promise. A promise that although the people would be taken off as prisoners to Babylon, one day they would come back to the land. A promise that showed that God still had plans for the people of Judah. A promise that gave them hope for the future.
We looked at this promise in Jeremiah 31 v 3-6 and Jeremiah 32 v 15. God promised that the people would return to Judah. They would buy and sell fields again. They would build houses, build farms and plant fruit. So we created a second plot of land on a different table. One with a green sheet. One with a rebuilt house. One with trees growing, farmers farming, animals that were fit and well and with fruit placed around the land. God promised that although the land at the moment looked like the brown battlefield one day it would return to normal and look like the green farm again.
Jeremiah trusted God and bought the land. Jeremiah was showing that he believed God when God said that things would return to normal and the land would be worth something again. Jeremiah still knew that God had a plan for the people of Judah and Jeremiah was showing the people that he trusted God’s plan. It might not be their children it might be their grand-children or great grand-children who would some back but people would come back to Judah again one day. God still had a plan for them.
The next year Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and people were taken prisoner and taken off to Babylon. Just like God said would happen. But the people of Judah had God’s promise that one day they would come back to the land and life would return to normal again.
And we finished with the memory verse, taken from a letter Jeremiah wrote to the people who were taken off to Babylon as prisoners. It reminded them that God still had plans for them:
“I know what I have planned for you,” says the LORD. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.
Jeremiah 29 v 11

11th September: Jeremiah 18 v 1-12
Theme: God is in control and wants His people to change
This term we’re looking at the last part of the history of the Old Testament. So we started by putting the period we’re looking at into context.
We talked about the land where the Israelites lived. They lived in Israel with David and then Solomon as their king. We showed a piece of paper for this country. But the people turned their back on God. God warned them but they still turned their back on Him. So God split the kingdom in two – we ripped the paper into a bigger part, Israel in the north, and a smaller part, Judah in the south. The people still turned their back on God and God sent warnings through prophets like Elijah and Elisha but the people ignored them. So God sent the Assyrians to attack Israel and they captured the northern country – we scrunched up the bigger piece of paper. And Judah also turned their back on God and so God sent prophets to warn them.
We looked at one of those prophets Jeremiah. God told Jeremiah to go to the a potter’s shop, watch the potter at work and God would give Jeremiah a message. So we too went off to the potter’s shop.
Alas our skills let us down a little here so we had to make do with a video. We saw the potter shape and work the clay to make a pot, using water and a wheel. Who was in charge here? The potter or the clay? The potter of course. And the potter was like God, God can shape and use nations like the potter uses the clay. God is in charge.
And the Jeremiah saw a pot that went wrong. Something wasn’t right with the clay and the pot went wrong. (And when a pot goes wrong it really goes wrong!). In our video the potter brought his hand down on the pot, crushed it and started again using the clay to make another pot. God said that Judah had gone wrong. Judah were meant to be God’s people, following God and worshipping Him. Instead they had turned their backs on him and worshipped idols. So God had a plan against Judah. Like the potter on the wrong pot God was going to bring disaster on Judah.
But. God didn’t want to bring disaster on them. We showed a still of the potter’s hand just before it came down on the pot. That was like where God said the people of Judah were. So what could they do?
We played a little game to make God’s message clear. We paired up and you & your partner stood at opposite ends of the hall. When you heard the word change (or changed, changes, changing etc.) you and your partner had to swap places. We read out God’s message to the people and there were 9 ‘changes’ in all! It was pretty obvious God wanted the people to change, God wanted the people to turn back to God.
And what did they do? Unfortunately they ignored Jeremiah and didn’t change. In fact they decided to turn on Jeremiah and make fun of him. This didn’t seem the wisest course of action…
We finished the session in our small groups and in them we made some very simple pots using clay. We saw how you could shape and work the clay like a potter and how if the pot went wrong you scrunched the clay up and started again.

Summer Term 2011: The Bible

This term we’ll be looking at the Bible. What’s in the Bible? What’s it about? What’s the big story in the Bible? And how can we read and understand it for ourselves?

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

10th July
Theme – Putting it into practise
Over the last four weeks we’ve been looking at four questions to ask when we read the Bible for ourselves. They are:
Q1. When does this happen in the big story?
Q2. What type of book is this from?
Q3. What does this tell us about God?
Q4. What does this tell us about God & us?
Now this week we were going to put it into practise looking at one of my favourite Bible stories – the conversion of Saul in Acts 9 v 1-19.
We started by looking at what Saul was like before this story. We looked at him agreeing with the stoning of Stephen, him wanting to arrest the followers of Jesus and him threatening to kill them. We wrote up on one flipchart sheet what the kids thought Saul was like – Mean, violent, rude, aggressive, hating the church.
We then went through the story in Acts 9. We read the passage out and at certain points we stopped and the kids had to do a freeze-frame to show what was happening in the story at that point. We learnt that Paul was threatening to kill people in the church. That he wanted to go to Damascus and arrest followers of Jesus there. On the way there was a flashing light and he fell to the ground and Jesus spoke to him. When Saul got up he was blind so he had to be helped into the city of Damascus. When he was there God called a man called Ananias to go and see Saul. Ananias prayed with Saul, laid hands on him and Saul could see again. Saul was baptised, he ate and drank and his strength returned.
Finally we found out what this man Saul was like after he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. He became a great leader, he told people all about Jesus, he encouraged people in the church and helped them. We wrote on another flipchart sheet what Saul was like after. And in fact he changed so much he changed his name to Paul. So Saul who hated the church was changed into Paul this great leader in the church in Acts 9. A great story about God loving unlovable people and God being able to transform people.
In small groups we looked at the passage again going through the four questions. We got the kids to write and/or draw their thoughts on what they learnt from the story and we’ll share that with everyone at the Starchasers service next Sunday!

26th June
Theme – The Bible is made up of lots of books
We started by asking if anyone knew what the word ‘Bible’ meant in Greek. No-one did but luckily we had our resident Greek expert, Stavs, along to help out. Bible means ‘Library’ or ‘Books’ and the reason for that is that the Bible is made up of a lot of different books.
Different types of books, written by different people at different times. All telling us about God and our relationship with God.
With a bit of guesswork we found out that there were 66 books in the Bible in total, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. So we brought out our big empty Bible which only had a 6 books in it. We needed to make 60 others to go in it.
In our small groups we set about making the other books. Some made the Law books, some the History books, some the gospels and so on. Each group making different books to put in out big book.
And while we were making them we also looked at some verses in those books that showed us what sort of things were in those books. E.g. Gospels tell us about Jesus life on earth and Poetry & Wisdom books contain songs, prayers and sayings about God and about life.
At the end we pulled all these books together into our big book by the different groups:
OT – Law (5)
The beginning, God choosing a people and giving them rules to live by.
OT – History (12)
A history of God’s people. From entering the land God promised, Judges ruling over them, Kings ruling over them, the Kingdom being split, going into exile and then the return to Jerusalem
OT – Poetry and Wisdom (5)
Songs, Prayers and wise sayings about life and God.
OT – Prophecy (17)
Prophets hear God’s word and tell it to the people. They explain the past, say what God will do in the future and tell about Jesus in the future
NT – Gospels (4)
The story and of the Son of God Jesus
NT – History (1)
A history of God’s people, the church, after Jesus goes back to Heaven.
NT – Letters (21)
Letters written by Christian leaders to a church or a person to encourage them in their faith.
NT – Prophecy (1)
Prophets hear God’s word and tell it to the people. The Prophet John tells about things that happened around 2,000 years ago right up until the end of time.
So we now had all 66 books, all grouped into different types of books in our big Bible. And when we read the Bible it’s worth asking ourselves what book is it from and what type of book is it.

12th June
Theme – The big picture in the Bible
At the start of the session we recapped over what we’d learnt so far. That the Bible is a book about God and the Bible tells us about God’s relationship with us. We even brought out the rope trick again to look at the story of our relationship with God from beginning to end in the Bible.
But what of the all the stories in the Bible? How do they fit together? How do we know the order things happened in the Bible? Well we did a quick 5 minute tour of the Old Testament (with actions) and a 3 minute tour of the New Testament (with actions). Ready for it? Here goes:
The big picture – Old Testament
Out of nothing
(CROUCH DOWN)
God made everything
(LEAP UP)
Including us humans
(STAND PROUDLY)
God gave the first humans, Adam and Eve, one rule – don’t eat from the tree of knowledge
(ONE FINGER)
But they thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK)
And they broke His rule and ate from the tree
(EATING FRUIT)
Adam and Eve were sent from the garden and the relationship with God was broken
(POINTING GET OUT)
But God had a plan to put things right.
(THUMBS UP)
People thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God so he sent a great flood
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK – RAINFALL)
But God called Noah
(CALL NOAH)
And God saved Noah and his family. And God sent a rainbow
(RAINBOW)
To promise He wouldn’t send a great flood like that again
(HOLDING OUT HANDS)
God called Abraham
(CALL ABRAHAM)
Abraham was very old and had no children
(WALK OLD)
But God promised Abraham a son, a land and everyone would be blessed through his family
(HOLDING OUT HANDS)
And God gave Abraham a son, Isaac
(CRADLE BABY)
Isaac had a son called Jacob or sometimes he was called Israel
(CRADLE BABY)
During a famine Jacob’s family went down to Egypt
(WALK DOWN)
And hundreds of years passed and Israel’s family grew and grew and grew
(BIGGER AND BIGGER)
The Egyptians were scared of them and made Israel’s family their slaves
(WHIP)
But God called Moses
(CALL MOSES)
And Moses led Israel’s family out of Egypt
(WALKING UPSTAIRS)
But they thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON GOD)
And they walked in the desert for 40 years!
(WALK AROUND ON THE SPOT)
But when Moses died God called Joshua.
(CALL JOSHUA)
And God was with the people as they went into the land God promised them. They fought the people there
(FIGHT)
And God gave them the victory and the land
(HAND ALOFT IN VICTORY)
In the land the people were ruled by Judges, like Samson
(STRONG MAN POSE)
And Deborah
(CLEVER – POINT TO FOREHEAD)
Some judges were good and followed God
(POINT TO GOD)
Some were bad and thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON GOD)
The people wanted a king so God gave them a king – Saul
(CROWN SIGN)
But Saul thought he knew better than God and he turned his back on God
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON GOD)
So God chose David
(SLING ACTION FOR DAVID)
David was a good king and followed God
(POINT TO GOD)
And God promised David a great king would come from his family
(HOLD OUT HANDS)
The kings after David weren’t so great, most of them thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God.
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON GOD)
So God split the country into two – Israel in the North and Judah in the South
(RIP SELF IN TWO)
But the kings still didn’t listen and thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on God
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON GOD)
God called prophets like Elijah and Elisha
(CALL ELIJAH & ELISHA)
To warn the people and the kings
(SHAKE FINGER)
That they should follow GOD
(POINT TO GOD)
But they ignored God’s warnings. So empires came with their armies and beat Israel and Judah
(FIGHTING)
And the people were taken prisoner and taken away from their land
(DRAGGED OFF IN CHAINS)
The people in Judah went to Babylon. And God said they should keep following God
(POINT TO GOD)
And some did. People like Daniel and his friends
(LION ROAR)
And a bigger army came and beat the Babylonians
(FIGHTING)
They were the Persians and they allowed the people to go back to their land and some of them went back to re-build
(BUILDING)
But it wasn’t as grand as before and some people cried
(CRYING)
But God said this wasn’t His plan. God called other prophets
(CALL OTHER PROPHETS)
Through them God gave promises of a great person who was going to come and rescue everyone, not just the people of Judah.
(HOLDING OUT PROMISES)
And the people waited to see who that would be…
The big picture – New Testament
It started in a stable
(HOLD NOSE)
A baby was born – Jesus
(BABY)
A special baby, with a special star to show He was special
(STAR)
This baby was the Son of God.
(POINT TO GOD)
This baby grew into a man
(CROUCH DOWN AND GROW)
And this man, Jesus, did amazing things
(BEND LEG THEN APPEAR AND WOW)
And taught the people amazing things
(TEACHING AND WOW)
Some people listened and followed Jesus
(NOD HEAD AND FOLLOW)
And some thought they knew better than God and they turned their back on Jesus
(POINT TO SELF AND TURN BACK ON JESUS)
The ones who turned their back on Jesus plotted to kill Him
(PLOTTING FINGERS)
But Jesus knew He had to die. To die for us. That was what God promised
(HOLDING OUT HANDS)
So Jesus was killed on a cross
(CROSS SIGN)
But then the most amazing thing happened. Jesus came back to life
(LIE DOWN AND GET UP)
And we can share in this new life of Jesus. A new life with God.
(BRINGING US BACK TOGETHER AGAIN WITH HANDS)
40 days after rising from the dead Jesus went back up to Heaven
(RAISE EYES UPWARDS)
And Jesus promised the Holy Spirit which came to His friends and followers
(FIRE WITH FINGERS ON TOP OF THE HEAD)
And Jesus’ friends and followers, went out and told as many people as possible this good news about God and Jesus and us.
(TELLING EVERYONE)
And they tried to live and follow God, as Jesus wanted them to
(POINT TO GOD)
And today we want to tell people this good news about God and Jesus and us.
(TELLING EVERYONE)
And we want to try to live and follow God, as Jesus wants us to.
(POINT TO GOD)
And the last book of the Bible tells us that one day in the future, everything will be made new
(PING NEW WITH FINGERS)
And we will live with God on a new, perfect Earth.
(BRING HANDS TOGETHER)
In the small groups we then looked at the story of Daniel in two books that give an overview of the whole Bible to see which book they liked best. The older ones reviewed:
The Manga Bible
The Comic Book Bible
And they preferred the Comic Book Bible as it was colour, the language was easier to understand and it was laid out better.
The younger ones reviewed:
The Big Bible Storybook
Veggietables – Bible Storybook
And they preferred the Veggietales one as it was more fun!
This wasn’t just a reviewing exercise as we’ll be buying the books to give to the kids at the end of term as prizes. Comic Book Bible and Veggietable Bible Storybook are now on order!

29th May
Theme – The Bible is a book about God and us
We started the session with a recap of what we looked at last time – well it had been three weeks! We asked what was one way we could find out more about God? Answer – read the Bible as it’s a book all about Him. And we recapped some of the things we’ve learnt about God from the Bible how He loves us, cares for us and sent His Son. But the Bible isn’t just a book about God…
The Bible is a book about God’s relationship with us. You, me, everyone, in fact every person who has ever lived. Now the Bible can be a difficult book to read from cover to cover but it is useful to know the big story in the Bible so we told it using a rope and a pair of scissors.
In the beginning in Genesis We were joined to God, in a perfect relationship with God. Just like this rope, one end is us and one end is God and we’re joined together. But there was a problem – sin. Sin is us thinking we know better than God, us saying to God, I know better than you, I’m going to do what I want, not what you want. And that sin cuts us off from God – so we cut the rope. Now we were separated from God and there was nothing we could do to put things right.
But God could do something about it and God reveals than plan in the Bible. He’s going to send someone from Abraham’s family, He’s going to send someone who’ll be great king like David and lots of prophets told us what this person would be like and what He would do. This chosen one, this Son of Man.
And who was that person? Jesus! And we read about Him coming to earth at the start of the New Testament. And the Bible says Jesus took the punishment for our Sin by dying. But Jesus didn’t stay dead he rose again and we can share in His new life, new life with God. So because of Jesus dying and coming back to life we can be joined back to God. We tied a knot in the rope so we have God and us joined together again.
And this was amazing news and people went out and shared this with as many people as possible and that’s why we know about it today. And then in the last book in the Bible, Revelation, it says we can look forward to things being made new, being made perfect. We will once again be in the perfect relationship to God. At this point we slipped the knot off the rope and showed it was perfect, just as before.
So that was the big story in the Bible, a book about God and His relationship with us. And as we read the Bible we want to ask two questions:
-       What does this tell us about God?
-       What does this tell us about God’s relationship with us?
We then looked at some of our favourite stories in the Bible and asked those two questions about it. I shared one of my favourite stories – the story of Saul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus. (We told it using a few props, a Go To Jail card, a stone, a map, a light, a blindfold and a letter writing kit). And we asked the kids the two questions above. The replies included that God loves us – even someone like Saul, God can forgive us and that God can change us.
In our small groups we then looked at a few of our favourite stories and asked the same two questions. We looked at how these stories tell us about what God is like and His relationship with us.
8th May
Theme – The Bible tells us about God
We started of the session with a game to help the kids get to know the leaders better. The leaders would give the kids a clue and they would have to guess who it was, if they didn’t get it they’d get another clue until they guessed it right. The leaders’ heroes included Barack Obama, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Thierry Henry and J. K. Rowling. The highlight though was one kid guessing my hero right in zero guesses – Steven Gerrard.
We then asked the kids how they could find out more about their heroes. Take Steven Gerrard for example how could you find out more about him? Answers included from the news, on the internet, Sky sports and in the newspapers. I then pulled out a biography of Steven Gerrard and said that I found out a lot more about him by reading a book all about him. We then asked the same question about Barack Obama and, warming to the theme, the kids said reading a book about him straight away.
And for us leaders there is someone even more important to us than our heroes, someone more special than them – God. And how could we find out more about God? By reading a book about Him – the Bible! There are other ways but the Bible is a great way to find out more about God. It’s a book God has given to us and it tells us what He’s like and what He has done. The Bible is written by people God has spoken to, people God has revealed Himself to in dreams and visions, people who have seen some of the things God has done and people who met and talked with Jesus while He was on earth.
So this book, the Bible, is special to us as it tells us all about God. And in small groups we looked at some of the things it says about Him. We looked at 9 passages in the Bible to see what they told us about God. We learnt that God is Holy, a king, doesn’t die, loving, doesn’t change, powerful, amazing and much more.
We took what these verses said about God and turned them into prayers to God. We wrote on a luggage label ‘We thank you God because you are…’ prayers to praise God. We then tied these prayers to helium balloons, went outside and said them together. As we said Amen we let go and watched the balloons rise, symbolising our prayers rising up to God. A fantastic way to finish off the session about how great God is!

Jesus: Countdown to Easter

This term we’ll be looking at Jesus’ final days as told in John’s gospel. This is a period of time so important to John that he devotes over half of his entire gospel to this period. We’ll be seeing how Jesus is in control of the whole situation and is preparing his friends and disciples for what lies ahead. Jesus shows them He has the power over life and death by raising Lazarus from the dead. He shows He is control by predicting His death and the events around it. He prepares His disciples by teaching them and praying for them. And finally Jesus show His power and glory in His death and resurrection. All told by one of his closest friends who was right there with Jesus during these last days and who has come to understand what was happening then.

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

27th March – John 20
Theme – Jesus has the power over life and death
At the end of the last session it looked like the Easter story had a very sad ending. Jesus had been arrested and killed on a cross. It was a difficult, horrible story and it looked like it was all over.
But Jesus had shown his disciples that He was still in control. He had said before He died that Judas would betray (turn against) Him, that Peter would say three times he never knew Jesus and Jesus would be killed by being lifted up (as He was on the cross.). Jesus was in control of events even when it looked like things were going badly wrong. What happened next was incredible, unbelievable almost. So incredible in fact that even Jesus’ friends had difficult taking it in.
We started the session with a challenge for the kids. Who thought they were strong? Those that did we got out the front to try and break an egg with their hands. Easy? They had to squeeze the two ends of an egg between their thumb an forefinger. Who thought they were strong enough to break it? Most kids thought they could do it but no-one could. And Jesus was about to give an even more amazing demonstration of power and strength. Forget eggs Jesus was about to show he was more powerful than death!
We then went through the story of that Sunday morning in John 20. Ros played the part of Jesus and his dead body was put in the tomb on Friday evening. The tomb was sealed up and two guards were placed in front of the stone. Saturday was a special rest day so no-one visited the tomb then but then some women came on Sunday morning and how different things were then! (By this stage Ros had sneaked out so the tomb was empty.) The stone had been rolled away and Mary Magdalene saw that Jesus’ body was gone. Had it been stolen? She ran to get Peter and John and when they got there they too saw the stone moved and Jesus’ body had gone. They didn’t yet know it was because Jesus had come back to life.
And then Mary saw someone, she presumed it was the gardener but when He said her name she knew it was Jesus. It was Jesus! She went to tell the others what she’d seen. Jesus appeared to many of his other friends and they too saw He was alive. They were overjoyed!
One person who hadn’t seen Jesus yet was Thomas and it was all a bit much for him. He didn’t believe it and said unless he saw Jesus with his own eyes and touched Jesus with his own hands he wouldn’t believe it had happened. But a week later Thomas did see Jesus and Thomas also believed he’d come back from the dead.
All these people saw Jesus come back from the dead. It was difficult to get their heads round it but they’d seen Jesus and knew it was true.
Finally in the small groups we thought a little more about what it would have been like to have been one of Jesus’ friends that day. What would you have thought if you were there? Would it have been confusing, weird, amazing?  All three? Would you have been like Thomas and wanted to see it for yourself?
This truly was an amazing event and is right at the heart of the Christian gospel.

13th March – John 18v1 – 19v42
Theme – Jesus’ arrest and death happens just like He said it would
Before today’s story we looked back over some of the predictions Jesus had given His friends, the disciples, about what was going to happen to Him. While they were all eating together Jesus had said that Judas would betray Him (John 13 v 21-26) and that Peter would say three times he didn’t know Jesus (John 13 v 37-38). Jesus also talked a lot about His death, Jesus knew He was going to be killed. And Jesus told His friends that He would be ‘lifted up’ so His friends would know how He would die. We went over these three predictions and asked the kids to look out for them in the story.
We used The Miracle Maker film to tell today’s story. After a meal with Jesus and His friends they went out into a garden together, the Garden of Gethsemane. All except Judas who went off to Jesus’ enemies, the chief priests and the Pharisees. In the video we saw the chief priests’ soldiers come and arrest Jesus, led by Judas. They knew who Jesus was as Judas greeted Jesus by kissing him. Judas had betrayed his friend, just as Jesus said he would.
Jesus was arrested and taken to the chief priests and Pharisees who tried to find a reason to sentence Jesus. Meanwhile in the courtyard outside Peter had crept in to try and find out what was happening. But people there recognised Peter and asked him if he knew Jesus. Not just one, or twice but three times Peter said he didn’t know Jesus. Just as Jesus said he would.
Jesus was found guilty by the priests. But only the Romans could have Jesus killed so the priests took Jesus to the Roman ruler, Pilate. Pilate eventually gave the order to have Jesus killed. Jesus was nailed to a cross and crucified. The cross was lifted up. Jesus had died in the way that He said He would.
So was Jesus in control of these events? He knew what was going to happen but didn’t do anything to stop it. If Jesus could have stopped it why didn’t He? One clue to answer this is in a letter John wrote:
True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. God sent his Son to be the way to take away our sins.
1 John 4 v 10
Jesus was prepared to go through with this because He loved us. Jesus went through with this to make things right between us and God. Jesus was in control but still choose to let it happen.
We finished this session by lighting a candle and giving the children a few minutes silence to reflect on these events. During the silence they could say thank you to Jesus for what He did.

27th February – John 14v15 – 17v26
Theme – Jesus prepares His disciples
We’re now moving towards the end of Jesus’ time with His friends before He was killed. In this session we looked at how Jesus prepared His disciples for what lay ahead – Jesus’ death and life without Jesus being on earth.
First of all Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to His friends. The Holy Spirit would help them when Jesus was gone. To illustrate this the two teams were asked incredibly difficult questions (e.g. Q. Who was the King of England in 795 AD? A. Offa – see what I mean). Sometimes they’d have Steve helping them and sometimes they didn’t. With Steve’s help the teams were able to do things they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do. And with the Holy Spirit’s help the disciples would be able to do things they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do.
Jesus also gave His friends some advice. One piece of advice was to stay in Jesus, to keep following Jesus. We read John 15 v1-9 where Jesus says ‘I am the vine; you are the branches’. Just like the branches need to stay in the vine to live so we need to stay in Jesus.
Another command Jesus gave was our memory verse:
“I give you a new command: love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you”
John 13 v 34.
We were impressed with how many kids could remember the verse and this important command that Jesus gave His friends, and us.
Finally Jesus prayed for His disciples. So we prayed for each other in our small groups. We prayed, as Jesus did, for unity, that we would be one and that Jesus would help us to love each other.

13th February – John 13 v 18-38
Theme – Jesus is in control of events
The story for this session takes place at the same meal as last time, the meal where Jesus washed His friends’ feet. But before we got to the story we played a little game, a game you might not have heard off before but it was called ‘What will Stavs do?’. The kids were given a poser like ‘You see someone fall over when they are running for a bus, would you…’ and then they were given three options. The kids then had to guess ‘What will Stavs do?’, A, B or C. (The answer to the above was B – laugh). The aim was to get the kids thinking about the future and how difficult it was to know what was going to happen.
Which brought us nicely to the story. As it was the same meal as last session we arranged the tables in the same way and had the kids lie around them as if they were at a big meal. We then selected a few of the kids to be the main characters in the story – John, Peter and Judas. While they were eating Jesus said that one of the friends gathered there would turn against him, would betray him. They all wondered who? Who would let Jesus down after all they’d been through together? Peter told John to ask Jesus who He was talking about, who was going to betray Jesus. Jesus told John it was the person who he’d give a piece of bread to and that person was Judas. Judas took the bread and left the group and went out into the night.
A little later on Peter tells Jesus that he would lay down his life for Jesus. Jesus knew better than Peter what Peter was going to do and Jesus told Peter he would deny he knew Jesus three times. Three times Peter would say he never knew his friend Jesus.
Jesus was showing His friends that He was in control of events. He knew what was going to happen, He knew what His friends were going to do and He was prepared to go through with it, no matter how terrible it would be.
In our small groups we explored Jesus being in control a little more. Not just guessing about what might happen, not just someone who’d been very organised in advance but someone who can control events, people and even life and death.
And we’d see in a few weeks’ time that what Jesus said would happen did indeed happen.

30th January – John 13 v 1-17
Theme – Jesus shows his friends humility
We began this session with a recap of last week’s story. We looked again at the crowds turning out to see and cheer Jesus. Jesus had come into Jerusalem on a wave of popular support and been greeted like a great king.
But not everyone was pleased with Jesus. The religious leaders, the priests and Pharisees, wanted Jesus dead. But Jesus was in control, He knew He was going to die and He was going to let it happen. So what was this great person going to show His friends before He died?
We move on a few days to just before the Passover and Jesus and His friends are gathered together for the evening meal. So we set out the tables, got the kids to lie by the tables on the floor and passed round some fruit for the kids to eat to get into the scene. Then Jesus did something that seems an odd thing to us but was something people normally did then. Jesus went round and washed His friends’ feet. (Actually it was odd Jesus was doing it, normally it would be a servant or someone low down). If you visited someone’s house your feet would probably be sweaty and dirty so you’d want to wash your feet before you arrive.
So at the meal Jesus took a towel and a basin of water and went round and washed His friends’ feet. We didn’t do feet washing but a few kids washed their hands and dried them. We went round the table as Jesus would have gone round His friends.
Until Jesus got to Peter. Peter didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet, it felt wrong to Peter that his leader was washing his feet. But Jesus said Peter needed to let Jesus wash his feet. Peter, as he sometimes did, went too far the other way and wanted Jesus to wash all of him! Jesus said there was no need and Jesus just washed Peter’s feet. Jesus then finished washing the rest of His friends’ feet and went back to His place.
When Jesus got there He asked them if they understood what He had just done. They called Him Lord and Teacher, and that was right as that was what Jesus was, but just as Jesus had washed their feet to they should wash each others’ feet. Jesus was setting an example, and example of humble service. His friends should look to help and serve each other. His friends shouldn’t think themselves too important to do something to help each other. They should be prepared to help and serve each other and be prepared to do the nasty jobs, the jobs that don’t get any credit for doing them.
After the story we looked in more detail at what Jesus had done. Washing feet seems a bit odd to us, but it might be a bit like if someone came to your house you’d take their coat, offer them a drink, make them feel welcome. Except it was more disgusting than that as it involved washing feet!
We got Michael up front to demonstrate why that was necessary. In those days people walked around in either open sandals or perhaps even barefoot. So Michael took off his socks and shoes and walked around a bit. As they walked around their feet probably got sweaty. And in those days you didn’t have tarmac on roads or pavements so you’re feet might get dusty. So we got Michael to walk in a tray of sand to show his feet getting dusty and sandy. And if it rained it might be muddy so we got Michael to walk in a tray of mud. And after tramping around in mud and sand he showed his feet to the kids to get the expected response of ‘Urrgggghhhh!’.
So you can see why when you went to someone’s house you needed and wanted your feet washed. You’d want that to feel clean and freshen up. And we asked the kids if they thought it would be a nice job, most said no (but not all!). And who did you think did it, the most important person in the house or one of the least important? One of the least of course, it’s washing feet! Dirty, smelly feet! We were about to go into small groups when Michael pointed out his feet were dirty and needed washing. After trying to duck out of it he pointed out to me that if I’d been listening to what I’d been talking about perhaps I should wash them. Not think myself too important for the job. So I got the basin and the towel and washed Michael’s feet, to groans and shouts from the kids. It was disgusting!
Once Michael had got His shoes and socks on He taught us a memory verse later on in John’s gospel from the story of Jesus washing His friends’ feet. It sums up rather nicely what Jesus was trying to say, and He would show even greater love for His friends later on.
I give you a new command: love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. John 13 v 34

23rd January – John 12 v 12-19
Theme – The Triumphal Entry
We move on a few days from Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and word was spreading about what Jesus had done. Those that had seen the miracle were telling others and soon a great crowd had come to see this Jesus they had heard about.
We started the teaching by playing a game of Jewish Whispers. For this game one of the kids took a palm leaf, they then passed the palm leaf onto someone else and told them about Jesus. The Cool team passed on the message ‘Jesus has raised to Lazarus from the dead’ and the Hot team passed on the message ‘Come to Jerusalem and see the one who will save us’. Soon the whole room had heard about Jesus and had a palm leaf ready to cheer him into Jerusalem. (This time of year was also a big Jewish festival, the Passover, so a lot of people had come to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.) The crowd went out to meet Jesus and waved their palm leaves but what was Jesus going to enter the city on?
We gave the kids four choices to see what they would expect him to come in on. (A) An open top bus like a famous sports team might ride, (B) An elephant which would look very impressive and mighty, (C) A horse like a general in the army might ride or (D) A young donkey. The kids had obviously heard this story before as most said the answer was (D), a young donkey. This great figure, this king, was going to enter the capital city on a young donkey.
We got the kids to act out this scene by waving their palm leaves and shouting what the crowd was shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” (Hosanna! means Save us!). This was the scene that greeted Jesus when he entered Jerusalem.
This odd scene of a great crowd cheering someone on a young donkey was actually predicted hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Zechariah 9v9-10 talks of a great king entering Jerusalem on a young donkey, exactly had Jesus had done. Jesus’ friends didn’t realise it at the time but this was yet another way that Jesus was showing people that He was the Messiah, the Chosen One. And this great king in Zechariah had come to bring peace to the nations.
But not everyone was happy about this. Last time we saw that the religious leaders, the priests and Pharisees, had decided to kill Jesus and now they were even more unhappy. To them it looked like the whole world was now following Jesus. Something had to be done.
Where would this story take us next?

9th January – John 11
Theme – Jesus has the power over life and death
We started the session by showing video clips of people trying amazing things. Things such as trying to get a spare in two bowling lanes with one ball, trying to jump a ramp on a small plastic tricycle and trying to fly using some fizzy water bottles (shaken). Some amazing things that make you go ‘Wow!’ or least they would do if they succeeded. We asked the kids to guess whether the person (I say person they were all men, it’s always men) could do it or not. ‘Can he do it?’ And when we saw the full clips some could do it and some couldn’t.
This term at Starchasers we are going to be looking at Jesus’ life, particularly the time towards the end of Jesus life, the events leading up to Easter. And we started with a story about Jesus when a lot of people were asking the same question ‘Can He do it?’ Some thought yes, some thought no. Jesus had done some amazing things so what was this thing that made people ask ‘Could Jesus really do it?’.
First of all we set the scene. Jesus and His closest friends, the disciples, had been together for about 3 years. They and others who followed Jesus were amazed by the things Jesus had done. But not everyone was amazed, the religious leaders in Jerusalem were less impressed and began to plot against Jesus.
And today’s story took place in Bethany, near Jerusalem. So going there was going to be risky for the disciples and Jesus. But in Bethany lived some friends of Jesus – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. And one day Lazarus took ill. Very ill. As we went through the story we told it with the help of the wonderful Brick Testament and the kids making appropriate actions (e.g. amazement, ill, waiting, smelling etc.).
When Jesus heard about Lazarus He said Lazarus’s sickness wouldn’t end in death. It would end in glory for God and the Son of God. And then Jesus did something odd. He waited. In fact he waited for two days. Then Jesus announced that Lazarus was dead and He was going to wake Lazarus up. The disciples were confused and frightened but went with Him.
When Jesus got there He met Martha and then Mary. Then both believed that had Jesus got there when Lazarus was ill then Lazarus wouldn’t have died. And some in the crowd were wondering why Jesus couldn’t keep Lazarus from dying. But Jesus couldn’t bring Lazarus back from the dead could He? It all became too much for Mary who cried, then the people with her cried and Jesus was saddened and He cried too.
So Jesus went to the tomb where Lazarus was and asked them to open it. Despite Martha suggesting it might smell a bit as he’d been dead for four days they did it anyway. Jesus then thanked God and called out to Lazarus and out he came! Still covered in the cloths they wrapped him in but Lazarus was alive! The people there were amazed. Jesus really could do that! He really did have power over life and death.
After a slightly silly break with the Mummies game we looked again at the story and Jesus showing his closest friends that He had the power over life and death. Why was that important? Well although people were amazed by what Jesus had done for Lazarus the religious leaders in Jerusalem got even more upset. Now they planned to kill Jesus. The high priest, Caiaphas, said ‘It is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed’.
When Jesus went to Jerusalem there was going to be trouble and there’s where He is heading. He’d just shown His friends that He was in control over life and death but even they would find it difficult to believe that Jesus was still in control over the next few days.

Autumn Term 2010: Elijah & Elisha

This term we’re going to be looking at two great prophets of the Old Testament – Elijah & Elisha. When they lived it was a really difficult time to be a prophet of God. Ahab and his sons were ruling and Jezebel was queen and queen mother. And they were the worst rulers in Israel’s history as they turned people away from God, wanted people to worship the false-god Baal and were killing the prophets of God. For Elijah and Elisha it was a really difficult time to stand out for God.

But throughout this term we’ll see that God was still in control, He was the one true God. God was in control of the rain, death, nature and even kings and armies. Ultimately God would remove Ahab, Jezebel and their family from the throne and give it to someone else. Even when it seemed like God was far away He was still working, He was still in control.

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

12^th December – 2 Kings 8-10
Theme – God keeps His promises
This week at Starchasers we were thinking about waiting for promises to be kept. So we started by seeing how good the kids were at waiting. We gave each of them a marshmallow and promised them if they kept it in their hand for three minutes and didn’t eat it then we’d give them another one. Could they wait? It was hard work for some, especially the leaders! But nearly everyone could wait 3 minutes and they were rewarded with a second marshmallow.
Three minutes could seem like a long time but in our story of Elijah and Elisha we were still waiting to see if some promises God gave Elijah would be kept, and that was over 20 years ago! When Elijah was in the cave on Mount Sinai God spoke to Elijah in a small, gentle voice. He told Elijah that Elisha would be a prophet after Elijah, Hazael would be king of Aram and Jehu would be king of Israel. Now we already knew that the first promise had been kept as we’d been learning about Elisha for the last few weeks, but what about the other two promises?
And so we came to today’s story, a grizzly, sometimes violent story but one that showed God’s word is true. We started with the king of Aram, Ben-Hadad, the same king who attacked Israel last time. He was now very ill and Elisha told Hazael that he would become king of Aram – the same promise God gave Elijah. Hazael took matters into his own hands and smothered Ben-Hadad with a wet cloth and so Hazael became king of Aram – just as God said he would.
Then we turned to Israel where Joram was still king and his mother, Jezebel, is still around. Elisha sends a prophet to anoint Jehu as king and Jehu sets out to confront Jehu. Jehu then gets rid of Joram (shot with a bow and arrow) and Jezebel (pushed out of a window) and indeed all of Ahab’s family. Jehu became king of Israel – just like God said he would.
God took the crown away from Ahab’s family and gave it to Joram and his family. And Jehu got rid of Baal worship in Israel and was a better king than Ahab. But… he still wasn’t that good a king. Jehu still worshipped other gods, not just the one true God. Jehu didn’t follow God like king David had done. He was better than Ahab but he wasn’t great. Was this it? Was this the big ending? We’d waited all this time for a king who wasn’t much better than the last one?
Except that wasn’t the end. There was the promise of another king who would come after Jehu. The people of Israel would have to wait even longer for Him, this perfect king. In small groups we looked at some promises about this king. We saw He would be from Abraham’s family. We saw that He would be of David’s line (family). We saw that He would be born in Bethlehem. Who was this perfect king? Jesus, of course.

28th November – 2 Kings 6v24 – 7 v 20
Theme – God’s power over kings and armies
After the events of last time, where God helped a poor woman and a rich woman through Elisha, we turn back to the king of Israel.
King Ahab was dead (killed by an arrow in battle) and his oldest son Ahaziah was dead (fell from upstairs in his house, both deaths were impressively acted out by the Starchasers kids. So the new king was Ahab’s second son, Joram.
But things were going badly for Joram. He was in his capital city, Samaria. For the purposes of the story we turned the Hot team into Samaria with the area cones being the city walls. A neighbouring country, Aram (aka the Cool team), had it in for Israel. The king of Aram, Ben-Hadad, got his army together and surrounded the city of Samaria – this is called a siege. So the Cool team marched around the Hot team area with the Hot team trapped inside. The Cool team looking menacing and threatening towards the Hot team. The army of Aram stopped anyone getting in and out of Samaria so the people there had no food. In fact they even had to eat donkeys’ heads and bird poo!
Joram, trapped inside sent for Elisha. Why? Well the kids wisely said to ask for God’s help but alas Joram wasn’t as wise as them! Joram wanted to kill Elisha as he blamed Elisha and God for the siege. Luckily Joram was stopped before he got to Elisha and Elisha told Joram that the siege would be over by tomorrow. By the next day the army of Aram would be gone. Really? Not everyone believed what Elisha said but we’d see…
We then played a game with the Cool team surrounding the Hot team and trying to attack them – a twist on the old dodgeball classic.
And then we asked the kids, if you were in Samaria, if you were surrounded by a large army and had no food, who would you want to help you? The answers ranged from aliens to air-drops from America to armies from other countries. But who were the key people God used? 4 men with skin diseases. 4 men who lived outside the city away from everyone else.
We got these four men out and after a few coloured stickers they looked the part. Now these four men had three choices. (1) Stay where they were with no food and die. (2) Go to Samaria, where there was no food, and die. (3) Go to the army of Aram. They might kill them (they would die) but they might not (so might not die). Not a great choice but they thought they’d go for option (3). So they were going to go to the Aramean camp later…
However, in the meantime God sent a sound like lots and lots of horses and chariots (we banged the floor) and a large army (shouts and noises). The Aram army around Samaria were scared and fled (Cool team ran to the edge of the hall, leaving coats scattered everywhere). And then the four men came to the Arameans camp.
They found no-one there just lots of food and drink (well in our case some Haribo). They ate and drank as they were very hungry and thirsty. Then they thought they’d better tell the people in Samaria so went to the walls and shouted over that the Arameans had gone!
King Joram thought it was a trap so picked a few men to go out and look. (The kids crept out carefully into the Cool team area). But it was true, they were gone. God had saved Samaria just like Elisha had said!
We then asked the kids two questions. (1) How did the story show God was in control? Answers included because Elisha had said so beforehand and it was God who sent the noises and sounds. (2) Why do you think God used the four men with skin diseases? Answers included because it might help the rest of the people accept them and God uses all sorts of people. We then finished by praying in our small groups.

14th November – 2 Kings 4
Theme – God’s power to save from poverty & death
Last time we learnt that Elijah went up to heaven with horses & chariots of fire and a whirlwind. Elisha was going to be a prophet for God after Elijah and carry on the work. We began this session with a recap of the story of Elijah going up to heaven, told using an adapted version of Land-Sea-Air. In our version it was Bethel-Gilgal-Jericho-Jordan and as we went through 2 Kings 2 the kids had to run to the place being read out. We quickly learnt that Elijah and Elisha moved around a lot in that story!
We then turned to the stories in 2 Kings 4 which showed God working through Elisha, just as He had worked through Elijah. Both stories were acted out by the kids using the full range of their acting talents and the Starchasers prop department. In the first story we learnt of a poor widow who’s husband had been a prophet of God. When her husband died she had no money and so her two sons would be sold as slaves. Elisha asked her what she had and she said only a small jar of oil. Elisha told her to collect as many jars as she could from her neighbours and so the widow set off round the other kids (neighbours) to see how many jars she could get – as it turned out quite a lot. This lead into a game where her two sons were able to fill jar after jar with oil (well in our game table-tennis balls) and so the woman had enough oil to sell to clear her debts and for her and her sons to live off.
The second story involved another woman, this time a rich one. The rich woman had made a room in her house for Elisha to stay in when he needed it and had been good to Elisha. Elisha wanted to know if there was anything that she wanted to thank her for taking care of him. Elisha promised her a son next year, even thought the woman’s husband was very old. And sure enough next year the woman and her husband had a son. The son grew older but there was bad news ahead. One day the son was in the field with his dad when he complained of a headache. His dad took his son to his mother but unfortunately the son died. The woman went to get Elisha and he came to the boy. Elisha laid on top of the boy and the boy came back to life and sneezed seven times.
Two stories that showed God working through Elisha and helping a poor woman and a rich woman. We looked at these stories in small groups in more detail and asked what they told us about God.

24th October – 2 Kings 2
Theme – God’s plan continues after Elijah
We’ve been learning at Starchasers this term about Elijah but now we’ve reached the end of his story. But as we learnt last time God had told Elijah that Elisha was going to carry on God’s plan after Elijah.
We started the session with a themesetter thinking about some people who’s work had carried on after them. Indeed they might not even have seen the results of their work in their lifetime. We looked at:
Martin Luther King Jr. and his campaign for civil rights. Many others carried on after him and now Obama is president of the USA.
Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists and he explained a lot about physics but it didn’t stop with him. People like Stephen Hawking carried on Newton’s work and indeed Hawking was a professor in the same subject at the same university as Newton.
Richard Whittington set up a charity in the 15th Century to help poor people and the charity is still carrying on that work today.
John Wycliffe was one of the first people to translate the Bible into English and the Bible we read today is a result of people carrying on his work.
And finally, William Higginbotham. Never heard of him? He invented the one of the first computer games in 1958, Tennis for Two. Check it out here and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s as good as any game today.
The kids and other leaders were also able to give us a few examples of their own e.g. Rosa Parks & Emily Pankhurst.
With all these examples in our mind we turned to the story in 2 Kings 2 about Elijah going up to heaven and Elisha carrying on Elijah’s work. Elijah and Elisha went to the Jordan river, Elijah took off his hairy coat and hit the water with it. The water parted and Elijah and Elisha crossed over on dry land.
Before Elijah went up to heaven Elisha had asked Elijah for a double portion of his spirit, so he could carry on God’s work. Then as they were walking together there was a chariot of fire with horses of fire and a whirlwind that took Elijah up to heaven.
We did our best to create this amazing scene with sparklers, pom-poms and fans but it certainly would have been nowhere near as impressive as what Elijah and Elisha saw. But we were able to use our imaginations to think what it might have been like.
When Elijah was gone, Elisha picked up Elijah’s hairy coat and went back to the Jordan river. Just as Elijah had done before, Elisha hit the water with the coat and the water parted. The Spirit of God was with Elisha, just like it had been with Elijah.
In small groups we looked at the idea of our part in the bigger picture of God’s plan. We thought about people who’ve passed on what they know about God to us and we thanked God for them. Family, friends, people in church. And we also thought about what it means to be part of this huge plan that goes back to Elijah (and before!) and will carry on after us. Scary! Exciting! Gobsmacking!

10th October – 1 Kings 19 - Steve
Theme – God encourages Elijah
And the end of the story last time things were looking really good for Elijah. He’d just shown the people that God was the one true God and that Baal was just a false god. The king was listening to Elijah and obeying him. Surely things were coming to an end and Elijah was going to lead the people back to God?
Except, as we learnt in the story, it didn’t quite work out like that. We acted out the events of 1 Kings 19 and found things worked out rather differently for Elijah. When the king, Ahab, went back to the queen, Jezebel, and told her what happened she was furious, absolutely livid. She was so angry that she wanted to kill Elijah. And when Elijah heard this he was scared and ran. In fact Elijah was so down he felt he couldn’t go on, he just wanted to die.
But God didn’t abandon Elijah, instead God encouraged Elijah. God encouraged Elijah in different ways. He sent an angel to Elijah. God spoke personally to Elijah. Not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire but in a gentle whisper. God told Elijah that he wasn’t alone, there was still 7,000 people who followed God in Israel. That might not be a lot in the whole country but it wasn’t just Elijah vs. the whole country.
And finally God showed Elijah that God’s plan was going to carry on after Elijah. God told Elijah to pour oil on three people (pouring oil is a way of selecting a person for a special task). God told Elijah to pour oil on Hazael who would be king of Aram, on Jehu who would be king of Israel and on Elisha who would take Elijah’s place as prophet. God was showing Elijah that yes Ahab and Jezebel would be defeated and overthrown but he may not see it. God’s plan was going to take longer than perhaps Elijah had been expecting.
After the story we had a game to remind us of how God encouraged Elijah called ‘Bible Whispers’. In groups of 6 or 7 one person got a verse from the Bible where God was encouraging his people and they then had to pass it round the group by whispering. The last person in the line then had to repeat the message they heard and see how close it was to the original. It’s fair to say there were mixed results but those verses were:

• Psalm 118 v 6
• Isaiah 41 v 13
• Deuteronomy 31 v 6

And the ways that God encouraged Elijah are not the only ways that God encourages people. In our small groups we did things a little differently this session. Instead of the leaders asking the kids questions the kids asked the leaders questions. They asked things like our favourite food, our family and the films we liked but they also asked about how God has encouraged us and about times we’ve found it difficult. We were able to share a little of how God has helped us. We then finished by praying for some of the things the kids found difficult and what things they wanted God to help them with over the next few weeks.

26th September – 1 Kings 18
Theme – God is the one true God
We started the session this week with a game of Truth or Lie. Leaders gave us two statements about themselves and we would have to decide which one was a truth and which one was a lie. Who knew that Shan ate Iguana on several occasions or that Helen once danced on TV?
And this set us up for today’s story when Elijah presented the people of Israel with two choices – to serve God or to serve Baal. The people would have to decide who was telling the Truth – Elijah or the prophets of Baal. Who was the one true God and who was the false god? Mary read the story of this choice Elijah presented to the people.
Elijah came to the king and presented him with this challenge. On one side would be the 450 prophets of Baal (and the 400 prophets of Asherah) and on the other side, um, just Elijah. They would each take a bull, prepare it for a sacrifice and put the meat on top of some wood. They would each then pray to their God to send fire to burn up the meat.
Elijah let the prophets of Baal choose which bull they would use and they went first. They shouted out to Baal all morning and all afternoon but there was nothing. No reply, no-one heard them. Indeed Elijah started making fun of them asking where their God was. Was he on holiday? Or perhaps he was asleep and they needed to shout louder!
After many hours of the prophets of Baal trying in vain Elijah had his turn. He took 12 stones to rebuild the altar of the Lord. He dug a small ditch around the altar. He put the wood and then the meat on the altar. And then he soaked it all in water. Three times! Then Elijah prayed to God. He asked God to answer his prayer and show the people that the Lord was the one true God.
Wham! The Lord sent fire down. The fire burned up the meat, the wood, the stones and even the water that had run into the ditch. The people fell down and cried out – The Lord is God! The people were in no doubt who the one true God was and who the false god was. (And at the end God even sent the rain again!)
We recapped the story again, this time using cake and biscuits. We built the altar using 12 stones (cakes). We then placed the wood on top (chocolate fingers). And finally on top of that we placed the meat (marizpan). We then soaked it in water (chocolate sauce). And then Mary put a firework in top to show the fire God sent down from to burn everything up. Our fire didn’t burn everything up but we found another way to consume everything!
We finished the session by thinking over the story again in small groups and asking the kids – do you believe God is the one true God? If so, why? And if not what would you want to find out to convince you?
So was this mission accomplished for Elijah? Would the country start following God after this powerful display? Find out next time.

12th September – 1 Kings 17
Theme – God is in control
At the start of a session we had a quiz between two teams. Well I say teams it was Ros against everyone else. Perhaps not surprisingly Ros lost and it seemed unfair and difficult as it was just him against everyone else.
But this showed us a little of how Elijah felt. He often felt that it was just him against everyone else. It wasn’t quite as bad as Elijah thought it was but nearly everyone else had turned away from God and very few people in Israel still followed God.
We looked back at the history of Israel and Judah to see what had happened and we learned that when Elijah was around things were pretty bad. The king, Ahab, and his queen, Jezebel, were the worst rulers Israel had ever had. They turned the people away from God, they worshipped a false-god Baal and they were killing God’s prophets. You can see why at times Elijah felt like it was him against everyone else!
But did this mean that God was not in control? Of course not! We looked at the story of Elijah and the drought and saw that God was still in control, even when the country had turned away from Him.
God had told Elijah that He was going to stop the rain, He was going to bring a drought on the land. Because of the drought there would be a shortage of food and water in the land but God was going to take care of Elijah.
First God took Elijah to a brook, which he could drink from, and God commanded ravens to bring Elijah bread and meat in the morning and evening. When the brook dried up God sent Elijah to a widow. The widow had only a little flour and oil left and that was about to run out. The widow thought that she would just be able to make one more meal then she and her son would starve to death. But God provided for them all by making sure the flour or oil didn’t run out as long as there was a drought.
Then the story took an unhappy turn when the widow’s son died. But God showed that He is even in control of life and death and bought the widow’s son back to life.
Looking back through the story we thought about how it showed that God was in control. Those who followed the false-god Baal believed that he was in charge of the rain but he had to submit to the god of death so for a season there was no rain. But God showed that He is in charge of the rain and death submits to Him!
So although Elijah might have felt that it was him against the world God was showing Elijah He cared for him and that God was still in control.

Summer Term 2010: Ruth

This term we’ll be looking at the book of Ruth. In this book we see remarkable kindness shown by two of the main characters, Ruth & Boaz. And at this time, the time of the Judges, kindness was definitely not the norm!  The book of Ruth is a refreshing change from what has gone before in Judges.

We’ll be going through the story of Ruth each week and then we’ll be getting the kids to make a film in which they tell the story of Ruth. We are hoping to show this film at the Parish-wide Starchasers service at St. Andrew’s Church on the 18th July.

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

27th June & 11th July– Ruth 1-4

For these two sessions we’ll be making a film of the story of Ruth to share with the rest of the Parish. If you want to see the finished film and find out what we’ve been learning about at Starchasers this term then please come to the Parish wide Starchasers Service, 10.30am Sunday 18th July at St. Andrew’s Church. Click on the picture above to download a pdf version of leaflet.

13th June – Ruth 4
Theme – God blesses Ruth and Boaz
The final part of our story of Ruth and how will it end? Last time we learned that Ruth was making moves towards Boaz to be their Kinsman Redeember but Boaz knew of someone who was a closer relative to Naomi than he was. So Boaz, who wanted to do things properly, was going to approach this man to see if he wanted to redeem and rescue Naomi and Ruth.
The story today was told through a couple of chatty ladies who liked to catch up on what’s going on over a cup of coffee. The two ladies were played by Stavs and Mary and they showed us what good actors they were by being very convincing as two gossips. In the first part we heard them talk about Boaz approach the closer relative and to see if he wanted to rescue Naomi and Ruth. Boaz did this in front of the town’s elders so everything would be done properly. Initially the closer relative wanted to buy Naomi’s family land but when he heard he would have to take care of Ruth as well he became less keen. So the closer relative passed this responsibility onto Boaz and to show that he took off his sandal and gave it to Boaz in front of all the elders. So Boaz was going to buy Naomi’s family land, take care of her and he was also going to marry Ruth. The ladies approved as Boaz was a lovely man and they hoped God would bless their marriage.
And nine months later we dropped in on the ladies again to hear what had happened. It turns out God had blessed Ruth and Boaz as they had a little boy, a son called Obed. After all the bad things that had happened to Naomi and Ruth this was great news indeed. At the start of the story it looked like their family line would not continue but now God blessed them.
And how did He bless them! Obed turned out to be the grandfather of David, who we learned about a couple of terms ago at Starchasers. From Naomi’s, Ruth’s and Boaz’s family came this great king. And that wasn’t all, generations later from this family line came Jesus who rescued the whole world. A truly amazing end to the story of Ruth.

23rd May –Ruth 3
Theme – Boaz is going to rescue Ruth & Naomi
At the start of the session we introduced the word ‘Goel’. It’s a Hebrew word but what does it mean? Well it means Kinsman Redeemer. Hmm, not much clearer there so we broke it down further. Kinsman, as some of the older kids knew meant a family member or relative. So a kinsman was a member of your family. Redeemer meant someone who saves or rescues. And this immediately made us think of Superman – cue Superman T-shirts, pretend flying and THAT theme tune. So now we had a better idea of what Goel, or Kinsman Redeember, meant. It was a close relative who rescued someone. And God had said in his law that if someone was in trouble or needed helped a close relative, or Kinsman Redeemer, should rescue them if possible. But what has that got to do with the story of Ruth?
We looked back over the story so far and asked who needed rescuing – it was Ruth and Naomi. They had returned to Bethlehem with no money, no food and no husbands. In those days that didn’t just mean they were poor but also that they had little chance of earning money or getting land so they could grow food. But last time we met someone who showed kindness to Ruth and Naomi – Boaz. And it turns out Boaz was a close relative so could he rescue them? Would Boaz be there Kinsman Redeemer?
And today’s story was all about a, to be honest, slightly odd courtship ritual between Ruth and Boaz and we got the kids to act out this slightly strange story.
When Naomi found out Boaz was a close relative of hers she takes steps to help bring Boaz and Ruth together. She tells Ruth to go to where Boaz was sleeping, which was on his grain pile. Well you’ve got to be wary of thieves in the time of the Judges. Once there Ruth uncovered Boaz’s feet and lay down. (This was apparently how they did things back then.)
When Boaz awoke he knew what Ruth was saying and was happy. (We think he quite liked Ruth all along.) But Boaz wanted to do things properly. He wasn’t the closest relative to Naomi so this other relative should be allowed the opportunity to rescue Naomi and Ruth first.
But Boaz didn’t just brush off Ruth and Naomi forget about them. He promised to go see this man who was a closer relative and offer him first refusal. If he didn’t want to rescue them then Boaz said he definitely would. This week we see not just Boaz’s kindness but his desire to do things properly, to obey God’s law. And he didn’t just abandon Naomi and Ruth but would help them sort it out. He was going to make sure someone redeemed / rescued them, even if it wasn’t him.
So what does happen? Tune in next time to find out…

9th May –Ruth 2
Theme - Boaz shows Ruth & Naomi kindness at the harvest

We started the session by thinking about surprises and what had surprised us recently. For the kids the responses included a surprise birthday present, that they were going to spend some time with their dad and that a Banksy had appeared outside their house overnight. Mary was surprised this week when she found an Australian bandy bandy snake in her garden! Here’s a picture of a one and the snake she found is now at London Zoo. And in today’s story we see that Naomi and Ruth are surprised by kindness, they are surprised when Boaz is kind to them.
When we left the story last time Naomi and Ruth had returned to Bethlehem but they had no money and no way of earning so what were they going to do for food? We told the story by getting the kids up the front and getting them to do an action each time their word was mentioned in the story. This included sign language for Ruth and Naomi, a flick of the cape for Boaz, using a sickle for the harvest, a light bulb for an idea an a saw for ‘saw’.
We learnt that Ruth went out to the fields to try and get some grain for her and Naomi. In those days in Israel when people harvested they were meant to let the poor people come after them and pick up the stalks and grains they’d left behind at the first attempt so Ruth joined this group of people. She ended up working in the field of a man called Boaz. Boaz showed kindness to Ruth and let her harvest in his field for the whole harvest. He offered her water to drink as she worked, protected her from any hassle she might have got from his men working there and asked his men to help make her job easier by leaving some grain behind for her to harvest.
Boaz had heard about the kindness Ruth had shown Naomi and he wanted to show kindness to Ruth as well. In fact, he went one stage further. He invited Ruth to eat with him and his men at mealtime. She wasn’t just a poor foreigner working in the field but she was made part of the group.
Ruth took a lot of grain back to Naomi and when she heard it was Boaz’s field she praised God. Naomi praised God for Boaz’s kindness and also because Boaz was a close relative of theirs so may be able to offer them more than just food (more next time!)
We also took a little time to explore kindness in the session. Kindness is a characteristic of God and a fruit of the Spirit. God has shown us kindness and He wants us to shown kindness to others.

25th Apr –Ruth 1
Theme - Ruth sticks by Naomi at a very difficult time
We started the session by setting the scene for the book of Ruth. And we did this using lemon juice. We had lemon juice in 3 cups and when we drank the lemon juice it tasted bad, it was very bitter. And this was what life was like when Ruth lived. It was a time when the judges ruled Israel and the book of Judges tells us that everyone did whatever they wanted. And that wasn’t good. Some people were killing each other, some were stealing from each other, some were beating each other up, there was civil war and many people weren’t worshipping God. Everyone did whatever they wanted. And the bad, unpleasant lemon juice reminded us of what it was like at that time.
But the book of Ruth is different to the end of the book of Judges. In it we see people caring for each other and showing kindness to each other. These people really stand out from the rest of the world. So into one of our cups of lemon juice we put some sugar. It made the lemon juice sweet and pleasant and really made that cup stand out from all the others. We shuffled the three cups up and invited different people up to the front to try the cups and see if they could see if one stood out. Each time they were able to spot the sweet one – the one that tasted sweet and pleasant and not bad and bitter. And just like that we see Ruth’s and Boaz’s kindness standing out from the rest of the world.
And so having given some background to the story we looked at Ruth chapter 1. We told the story by getting some kids up front to act out the story and play the different parts. And we also stopped at key points and asked the kids what they thought two of the main characters, Naomi and Ruth, may have been feeling at that point in the story.
So we met Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons Mahlon & Kilion. At the start of the story they lived in Bethlehem, in Israel, but there was a shortage of food there and they were very hungry. They heard there was food in Moab so the whole family moved to live in Moab. We got the family walking round the hall to their new home. And while they were in Moab the two sons married two woman from Moab – Orpah and Ruth. So we had our 6 main characters for the story.
But when they were living in Moab something really bad happened. Elimelech died. We asked the kids how Naomi must have been feeling and they said sad & unhappy. And things got worse when her two sons, Mahlon & Kilion, died. We asked how Naomi must be feeling now and the kids said very, very sad, lonely and anxious, as she wouldn’t be sure what to do now. And we asked how Ruth was feeling and again we got very sad and lonely as she had lost her husband. It was a time of great sadness for this family and these three ladies. And it was even worse in those days if you lost a husband or a son as usually they would be the person earning money and getting food for the family. These three ladies were not only sad but could also be very poor.
Now Naomi heard there was food once again in Bethlehem and, years after she had left, she set out to go to Bethlehem. Orpah and Ruth went with her but on the way Naomi said that they should turn back, go back to their own families and their own country. Both daughters-in-law said they would go with Naomi. Naomi begged them to turn back – she couldn’t offer them much of a life and she certainly couldn’t offer them another husband. They would be better off trying to make a new life in their own country. At this Orpah turned back to Moab. But Ruth refused to go, she stuck by Naomi and wanted to stay with her. And we looked at the words of v16&17 to see what Ruth said to Naomi. We asked the kids again what they thought Naomi and Ruth might be feeling at this point. There was a mixture of thinking they would be happy to be together, worried and Naomi being annoyed Ruth didn’t listen to her.
So both woman went to Bethlehem and went to live there. But what were they going to do for food?
Looking back at the story we focused on the kindness of Ruth. She didn’t have to stick with Naomi but she did. She wanted to help her mother-in-law and friend and not leave her on her own. Naomi needed a friend and she’d need someone to help her get food. But it wasn’t easy for Ruth, it was difficult for her to stick by Naomi. It meant leaving her country, her family, going to live as a foreigner, perhaps giving up her chance of starting her own family and struggling to get food to eat. Sometimes it’s difficult to be kind.
And we ended with the memory verse from Ruth 1 v 16, that reminded us of Ruth’s commitment and kindness to Naomi. As we are going to be filming the story of Ruth later we did the memory verse in the style of auditions for the part of Ruth. People came in to the director and read the memory verse as they imagined Ruth might have said it.
“But Ruth said, “Don’t beg me to leave you or to stop following you. Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” – Ruth 1 v 16
So we see Ruth’s act of kindness towards Naomi and what it cost here. But things were still difficult for them and Naomi and Ruth would struggle to find food in Bethlehem, even when the harvest was over.

Spring Term 2010: Jesus said “I am…”

This term we’ll be looking at John’s gospel and in particular Jesus’ “I am…” statements. We’ll look how Jesus describes Himself and see what they tell us about Him and His mission.

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

28th Mar –I am the resurrection and the life (John 10 (John11v25))
Theme - Jesus offers us new life through His death and resurrection
For our last session of term we were looking at Jesus saying ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. We didn’t look at the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead where Jesus said this statement but instead focused on Jesus’ own death and resurrection and what that means for us.
We told story of Jesus’ death and resurrection through cookery. Each ingredient reminded us of a different part of the Easter story and as it was added to the mix we read the passage it reminded us about.

We beat and smashed up some chocolate – Jesus was beaten by the soldiers
Vinegar – Jesus was given vinegar to drink on the cross
Egg whites – Eggs represent new life, Jesus died to offer us new life
Salt – Reminds us of the tears shed by Jesus’ friends and family
Sugar – The sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died for us
Put the mixture out on paper cases – Jesus body was wrapped in cloth after he died
Put cases in a tin and sealed the tin before it was placed in the oven – Jesus body was put in a tomb and then the tomb was sealed

So we left the story with Jesus being killed and placed in the tomb. In small groups we talked a little more about the story. What it must have felt like for Jesus’ friends and disciples after His death and then after His resurrection. What Jesus rising from the dead means for us – how we can share in this new life.
After small groups we gave out the cooked biscuits as we watched a video of a reading from Matthew 28. We heard how the women were told by an angel that Jesus rose from the dead. We heard that they saw and touched Jesus after He came back from the dead. We heard that Jesus told them to tell the disciples and then He told the disciples to tell everyone about it. And as we listened we looked inside our biscuits and saw they were hollow, reminding us of Jesus empty tomb.
Through making biscuits we learnt about the Easter story and how Jesus was the resurrection and the life. And we learnt that through Jesus we can share in the resurrection and this new life.

7th Mar –I am the true vine (John 15 (v5))
Theme - We can only live as Jesus wants us to if we stay close to Him
This session we were thinking all about fruit so to get us in the mood we had a blind fruit testing. We threw down the gauntlet to the kids to see if they could recognise different fruits when they tasted them blindfolded. Turns out they could, which was reassuring for those concerned about both the message behind the themesetter and the diet of our kids.
We then looked at the passage in John 15 v 5 where Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him, will bear much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.” We then produced a mock-up vine to show what it looked a bit like. A large vine (trunk) in the middle, branches attached to the vine and bunches of grapes (purple balloons) growing on the branches.
Why did Jesus use the example of the vine and fruit? Well where Jesus and His friends were vines would have been a common sight so Jesus was using everyday things to help explain things to His friends. Like the examples of the sheep, light and bread we looked at earlier in term, all things they would have been used to. So everytime they saw a vine they would have been reminded of what Jesus was saying.
So what was Jesus trying to say? This took place shortly before Jesus’ death so His friends would have been worried that Jesus was no longer going to be with them. But although a time was soon coming when they wouldn’t be able to see Him, He would still be with them but living inside them. Just like the life of the branch can’t be seen on the outside but there is life if it is connected to the vine and we know there is life because of the fruit.
It was to reassure His friends that He would still be close to them and to encourage them to stay close to Him, to remain in Him. And it was also to encourage us, those who follow Jesus, to stay close to Him as well, to remain in Him. If Jesus’ friends did that they would bear fruit, if we do that we will bear fruit.
What is this fruit? In our small groups we each took a bunch of grapes
(purple balloons) and burst them one by one. Inside each were written one of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5 v 22&23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We looked at them and thought who showed all these fruits? Jesus! And we discussed which ones we thought we’d like to have more of. We then split into pairs and prayed for each other, that we’d stay close to Jesus and bear these fruits of the Spirit. The small groups also gave us a chance to ask the kids how close they felt to Jesus and whether they felt they were in Him and bearing fruit.
We also looked at an everyday example from our lives that might make the same point Jesus was trying to make. Instead of vines and fruit we went for Fairy lights. We are the lights and if we stayed plugged into Jesus we can shine in the world.

28th Feb – I am the way and the truth and the life ( John 14 (v6))
Theme - Through Jesus we can know God and have new life in God
We started off this session by getting the kids to read through the first part of John 14. We heard about Jesus going to His Father’s house to prepare a place for us (there are many rooms there). But how can we get there? If we don’t know where Jesus is going how can we know the way? Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. If we want to find the way to His Father’s house we need to know Jesus. And if we want to find out what the Father is like we can look at Jesus.
We focused on the central verse about Jesus being the way and the truth and the life. First we gave the kids different words in the verse and then got them to arrange themselves in the correct order. Then we looked more at how Jesus can show us the way to God, can show us how to live and show us what God is like.
In small groups we explored this verse in a couple of other ways. We used a set of puzzles and activities to reinforce the message about Jesus being the way and the truth and the life. Among the older ones we took a sheet of paper and drew a line down the middle. On one side we wrote all the things we knew about Jesus and what He did (e.g. healing people, didn’t sin, died for us) and on the other we then wrote what that could tell us about God (e.g. powerful, Holy, merciful). Again it was a chance for the kids to discover for themselves more about Jesus and God.

14th Feb – I am the good shepherd ( John 10 (v11))
Theme - Jesus loves, guides and protects us
This week saw the return of an old friend, my pet orang-utan Boris. We asked the kids if Boris was my pet what sort of things would I do for him. I feed Boris, I give him water to drink and I play with Boris. We also saw that I know Boris and he knows me, He will follow me when I call him and that I protect Boris from the big scary dog next door. But why do I do all these things for Boris? What do I all this? Because I love Boris and care for him. Just like we would love, care for and look after our pets.
And this helped us to start thinking about today’s verse – Jesus said I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd looks after his sheep because he loves them, much like we look after our pets because we love them. Although we did mention that being a shepherd in Jesus’ day was tough, having to be outside all day, every day, having to sleep outside and being ready to fight off wolves and other animals. Shepherds were really tough, hard men. But good shepherds still loved and cared for their sheep.
So in what ways does a good shepherd care for his sheep? We looked at John 1o to see what Jesus said about being a good shepherd. We saw that a good shepherd knows his sheep (v14-15), a good shepherd leads his sheep (v3-4) and a good shepherd protects his sheep, and will even lay down his life for his sheep (v11-13). We split into three groups to act our these three scenes of a shepherd knowing his sheep (calling them by name and them coming), leading his sheep (to grass, water and the pen for the night) and protecting his sheep (scaring off a big wolf). So we see how a shepherd loves and looks after his sheep.
And if Jesus is the good shepherd who are His sheep? We are! His sheep are His people. So Jesus looks after us and cares for us because He loves us. Jesus knows us, leads us and protects us, even laying down His life for us. We then prayed for different places we are during the week and how Jesus is a good shepherd to us there, how He looks after and cares for us there. We thought about Home, School and Starchasers & Church and about how Jesus is a good shepherd to us in those places. We then prayed to thank him for looking after us there. We invited the kids to think of how Jesus looks after us in these places and some answers were:
Home – giving us our parents to look after and guide us, providing us with food and drink, being able to pray to Jesus there and get to know Him.
School – looks after us and is with us if we face bullies or things we’re frightened off, gives us teachers to teach us
Starchasers and church – guides and leads us by teaching us, can pray to Jesus there and get to know Him and gives us friends to look after us.
We finished by praying together to thank Jesus for being a good shepherd and looking after and caring for us, His sheep.

31st Jan – I am the light of the world ( John 8v12, Isaiah 9v2)
Theme - Life without God is like darkness, Jesus shows us new life, life with God
We began the session by thinking about darkness. First, what happens if we can’t see? We got people up in pairs, blinfolded both of them and then got them to try and feed each other cereal. The results were hilarious but they also showed us how difficult it can be when we can’t see. How difficult it can be to do things when we can’t see what we’re doing or have no-one to guide us.
We then asked the kids to think about some words that come to mind when they think of darkness and they said words like scared, frightened, lost, alone. This helped us think a little about darkness, when there is no light and what life is like without God. A life with no guidance, a life that is scary, alone and where we feel lost.
But thankfully we don’t have to live in darkness. Jesus said I am the light of the world and He offers us a different way to life, life with God. Jesus is the light of the world in that He guides us and shows us the way to God. And Jesus is the light of the world in that He shows us what God is like as He is the Son of God.
In our small groups we thought a little more about light. We each made a candle and holder and wrote on it “Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world’”. On the holders we tried to show different ways that Jesus is like light. Some people drew stars or a torch as they can guide us just like Jesus can guide us. Others wrote God as light reminds us of God’s presence and Jesus was the Son of God.
At the end of the session we lit all the candles and read from Matthew 5 where Jesus says we are like light. We are to go show God to the world and show people the way to God. We finished by praying together thanking Jesus that He is the light of the world.

10th Jan – I am the bread of life (John 6 (v48))
Theme – Jesus offers new life to the world
We started off this session by thinking about things we might compare ourselves to. We took ice as an example and what’s one thing you might think of when you think of ice? That it’s cold. So we might say we’re as cold as ice – something very apt given the big freeze at the moment! We went through a few other examples and then asked them to think about what they might compare the leaders to. We got back:
Gilly – Monkey, cheeky and playful
Mary – Parrot, very colourful
Stavs – Tiger, dressed in stripes and purr-fect
Shan – Gorilla, very hairy
Steve – Watermelon, round
The cheek of it. I’m much hairer than Shan. Anyway we did this to show that these comparisons can tell you a lot about a person. If you didn’t know us you’d know us better and know more about what we’re like if you heard one of these comparisons. And this term we’ll be looking at John’s gospel where Jesus compares himself to many things. He says “I am…” on many occasions and these tell us more about what Jesus is like and why He came to earth.
The first of one we looked at is bread. That might seem a bit odd so we looked at that in more detail. We got the kids to lie on the floor and got them to imagine what it would be like without food. Imagine going a few hours without food, what would you feel like? What would your stomach be like? What would you be thinking off? Now imagine if you missed two meals, you went hours without food. Now imagine it was a whole day since you’ve eaten, what are you feeling like? Then someone gives you some food, some bread. What do you do with the bread? What does that feel like? We then gave everyone a small slice of bread and got them to act out what they would do with it if they hadn’t eaten for a whole day.
Now this situation was very real to the people following Jesus. They’d gone hours without food, maybe even the whole day, and they were hungry. But Jesus did something? We asked the kids if they knew and when we told them there were over 5,000 people they were able to tell us about Jesus feeding the 5,000. He took a young boy’s lunch and with it fed over 5,000 people. These people knew how important bread was. They knew they needed bread, they knew bread was important for life.
These people then followed Jesus, perhaps looking for another miracle, perhaps looking for more food. But what did Jesus tell them? He told them: “I am the bread of life”. He told them that because they knew what it was like to need bread but they also needed Jesus. They needed Jesus and the new life with God He was offering. When Jesus said “I am the bread of life” He was telling the people they needed Him and they needed the life He was offering.
In our small groups we then explored the idea of Jesus being the bread of life further. We took a slice of bread each, a filling and then added some other ingredients and sauces. The kids then had to explain what ways they thought Jesus was the bread of life and how they could show that with their sandwich. We had:
Red sauce – Jesus’ blood and Him dying for us
Mayonnaise – White, reminds us of peace
Meat – Jesus gave His flesh for us
Cucumber – Round, Jesus made the world
Face – Some made a face from the ingredients, that showed Jesus was a person
Food – Jesus made all this food we eat
Daddies sauce – Jesus shows us the way to the Daddy, God the Father
We then closed in prayer to thank God for sending Jesus and for the new life He offers and to pray that we need Jesus.

Autumn Term 2009: David – The boy who would be king

Our series for the Autumn term will look at the life of David, from humble beginnings working as a shepherd on his dad’s farm to his rise to be one of the greatest kings ever of Israel.

Check back here after each session for a summary of what we’ve looked at.

13th Dec – Christmas: A king from David’s line (2 Samuel 7v11-16)
Theme – Jesus, whose kingdom will last forever
Throughout the term we’ve been looking at promises and in particular the promises that God gave David. We saw right at the start of term God promised David that he would be king and God kept that promise. In this session we looked at a promise that God gave David about his descendants and their kingdom lasting forever.
We started by getting the kids to look through the Bible for promises God gave about David, his descendants and a kingdom that lasted forever. We started with 2 Samuel 7v11-16 and also looked at Jeremiah 23 v 5-6, Isaiah 9 v 6-7 and Luke 1 v 31-33. We had to explain what ancestors and descendants were but luckily with a father and son in the group we could explain that by thinking about their fathers and their sons.
These verses told us all about a king. A king from David’s family. A king who be right and just. A king whose kingdom would last forever. And who was this king? Jesus!
We looked at the Christmas story and saw how Jesus kept these promises. His great (x a lot) grandfather was king David. He was born in Bethlehem, the city of David. A star was used as a sign to show a new king was born. And wise men bought him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, gifts fit for a king.
So at Christmas we see God keeping His promise to David about a king from his line whose kingdom will last forever. And that king is Jesus.

29th Nov – David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11&12)
Theme – David sins and needs to be forgiven

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen how David has trusted God and obeyed Him. We’d seen how God had made David king, had protected and looked after David and had blessed David in many different ways. But David wasn’t perfect, he could mess things up just like the rest of us. And we saw in this story how David went wrong, went really, really wrong.
Before we looked at the story about David, Stavs showed us a favourite plate of hers. It was a very precious plate to her and she gave it to Steve to look after. However, when Steve was putting the plate away he dropped it and the plate smashed. Steve hid the plate and asked everyone to cover up what he did. Unfortunately Stavs found the plate and Steve’s attempt to cover things up just made things worse. [Disclaimer - plate wasn't actually Stav's favourite and she knew it was going to be broken. You can relax now.]
And that reminded us of the story of David and Bathsheba. The story started when David’s armies were off fighting but David was back in the city. When he was there he saw Bathsheba, thought she was very beautiful and invited her back to his palace. But Bathsheba had a husband and David shouldn’t have done that. He tried to cover up his mistake by arranging to have Bathsheba’s husband (Uriah) killed while he was fighting in a battle for David’s armies. Uriah was killed and David married Bathsheba and she went to live with him. Had David managed to get away with doing something wrong? Had he managed to cover up his mistake?
No he didn’t! David couldn’t hide what he’d done from God. God sent a prophet, Nathan, to see David and Nathan told David a story. Nathan told the story of a rich man who owned many cattle and a poor man who owned just one lamb. The lamb was a pet lamb to the poor man, almost like a child to him. A visitor came to see the rich man and the rich man wanted to give his visitor a meal. But rather than take one of his own sheep or cattle he went and killed the poor man’s lamb and served that up instead. David was furious when he heard and thought the rich man would have to pay for what he had done!
Then Nathan pointed out that David was like the rich man. God had given David his kingdom, his riches and his wives and yet he still went out and stole the wife of another man – Uriah. In fact he had had Uriah killed so he could steal his wife. David realised his mistake and realised he couldn’t hid his mistakes from God. He prayed to God, he said sorry and God forgave him. God still punished David for his sin but God was able to restore their friendship and David could carry on serving God.
And in small groups we thought about some of the mistakes we made, when we’d done things wrong. We can’t hide them from God or cover them up, instead we need to say sorry and ask God to forgive us.

22nd Nov – David brings the Ark back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6)
Theme – David didn’t worry about what others thought only God

We met someone new today at Starchasers – Colin. He looked a bit like Tom but it wasn’t him. It really wasn’t. Someone completely different. And Colin wasn’t very good at making choices. For example Colin had a football match and a concert on the same day and couldn’t decide which one he should go to.
We helped Colin by getting him to think about which one was more important to him and that’s the one he should choose. That’s the one that should come first. And it wasn’t just the football vs. band problem he’d also double booked the next week as well. It was his friend’s party that he really wanted to go to but it was the same day as his mum’s birthday meal. What should he choose? It was tough but he thought his mum’s birthday was more important so he chose that, his mum came first. So Colin helped us to think about what is more important, what comes first for us. And that was the theme of today’s story.
Last week we learned that David had become king, just as God had promised. David was now king over the whole country of Israel and then he captured the city of Jerusalem with God’s help. David had made Jerusalem his new captial city so David was now king over the whole country ruling from Jerusalem. And David was going to bring the ark into Jerusalem. The ark was a holy object that was very important to the Israelites, where it was it showed that God was present there. By bringing the ark to Jerusalem David was showing the people God was there with them and David was showing that it was God who was the true king of Israel.
So David was bringing the ark into the city of Jerusalem and it was a big deal for David. As it was being brought in David danced and leapt about praising God. He took off his kingly robes as he was dancing. The people cheered and sounded trumpets as it came in. And when it arrived David blessed the people and gave out bread, dates and raisins to celebrate.
Then David went home to bless his house and his wife Michal was there. And she wasn’t happy. Oh no. She’d seen David dancing and jumping before God and she didn’t like it one little bit. She thought he hadn’t acted in a very kingly way taking his kingly robes off and dancing around like that. What would people think! And David replied – I did it for the Lord. David didn’t worry that people might think less of him, he was only worried about what God would think. That’s what really mattered to him.
So we carried on our theme of thinking about what’s more important to us, who is going to come first. We’d seen Colin had put his band first and his mum first. Then we looked at today’s story about David and saw two choices – between God and other people. Were they more worried about what God thought or what other people thought. Who was more important to them? Who was going to come first?
We asked who David put first in today’s story? God had come first for him, he wasn’t worried about other people thinking he was acting silly or not in a kingly way, he was just worried about what God thought and wanted to praise God. What about Michal, David’s wife? She put other people first, she was more worried about what other people thought than God. She was ashamed and embarrassed about how her husband had acted.
And then in small groups we asked about the times when we find it difficult to put God first, when it’s difficult to worry more about what God thinks than other people. It could be telling people what you believe or telling them about what you do on Sunday. Or it could be when people want you to do something but you know God wants you to do something else. Leaders and kids shared times when we found it difficult to put God first and to remember that God is more important. The times that came out in small groups were different for different people and they included -  at school or work, playing with people who live near us or with our family if they didn’t believe in God. We closed in prayer for God to help us and be with us in those difficult situations over the next week.

8th Nov – David is made king (2 Samuel 2&5)
Theme – God always keeps his promises

We started off this session by thinking about promises. We got the kids to think about a promise someone had made to them. For example, someone promised to take them to the park, to get them something for their birthday or to help them with their homework. So we all knew what a promise was.
Then we looked at keeping promises. We looked at three people to see if we thought they kept their promises. First up was Homer Simpson and we looked at a promise he made to his daughter Lisa and a promise he made to his son Bart. We saw Homer didn’t keep his promise to Lisa but did keep his promise to Bart. How do we think Lisa felt? Sad, let down, embarrassed and disappointed were some of the answers the kids gave. How do we think Bart felt? Happy, glad, excited and relieved were some of the answers the kids gave. So we were starting to think what it felt like if someone kept a promise to us and if someone didn’t. Much better to keep a promise and not let someone down.
We then looked at a second person and a promise they gave – Steve! We brought out a nappy full of a suspicious brown substance. I promised the kids that the stuff in the nappy was ok to eat and that it would even taste a bit sweet. Most of the kids didn’t believe me and only two trusted me enough to actually try it! Now, like Homer, and probably like all of us, I sometimes keep my promises and I sometimes let people down. I definitely wasn’t saying I always keep my promises. But what we were showing was that if someone gives you a promise it can be difficult to trust them, sometimes it isn’t easy, sometimes it can be difficult to trust that promise.
So far we’d learnt that we feel better when people keep their promises to us and trusting people to keep their promises can sometimes be difficult. Now we looked at a third person and a promise they gave – God. We looked back to what we heard at the start of term about a promise God gave David. This was that David would be king one day. So we got the youngest kid out to be David as a young boy receiving the promise from God that he would be king. And David was shown to be the chosen one by having oil poured on his head. Then we picked out the oldest kid and they were to be David as a young man. Years had passed between David getting the promise but now Saul had died. Did David become king? Yes he did! God had kept his promise! First David was king over part of the country then finally over all the country. It had taken years, longer even than the gap between the youngest and oldest kid at Starchasers but God kept his promise. So we put David as king in a crown & robe, got him to wave, played some coronation music and got the rest of the kids to cheer. David was king! God kept His promise!
Now this was just one promise we looked at from God and the Bible is full of promises from God. And you know what, God has kept every single one of them. God always keeps His promises. God never lets us down. So we can trust God. But is it always easy to trust God to keep His promises? We looked at David again and what happened between him as a young boy and him becoming king? David had waited years to be king, he’d fought a giant Goliath and had to go into hiding as Saul was trying to kill him. It probably wasn’t easy for David to keep trusting God for that long and through all that but he did. It wasn’t easy but David kept trusting God.
And finally we looked at some promises that God has given us. Ones such as that when we pray God will hear us, that God offers us life and life to the full and that God will give us what we need. Can we trust God to keep those promises? – yes! But it sometimes isn’t easy to trust God. We thought about different situations when we might think it would be helpful to remember those promises. We then thought about what promise from God we really wanted to hear about right now. And as we stood by the key promise for us right now we closed in prayer.

25th Oct – David spares Saul (1 Samuel 19-26 esp. 24&26)
Theme – Loving your enemies / The Heart bucket

After David defeated Goliath he became an high ranking officer in Saul’s army and was very popular among the people. As David became more popular and more famous Saul (the king) grew more and more jealous of David. That jealousy lead to Saul wanting to kill David and David had to flee for his life.
God kept David safe and God gave David two different chances to kill Saul – once while he was, ahem, relieving himself in a cave (chp. 24) and once when Saul was asleep (chp. 26). Both times David spared Saul’s life even though Saul wanted to kill him.
We then introduced the idea of a “Heart Bucket”, a bucket to represent the heart. We looked in Saul’s “Heart Bucket” and in there was a yucky, green substance – jealously. That lead Saul to want to try and kill David and behave in a way that didn’t please God. We also looked in David’s “Heart Bucket” and in there we found TRUST – David was trusting in the Lord. He wasn’t rushing God’s plan and he didn’t want to get revenge on Saul for trying to kill him, instead he showed Saul love.
In the small groups we asked the kids what does God see when he looks into our hearts? Is he pleased or sad? What things please him,what makes him sad? What do we do if there is ‘yucky’ stuff in our hearts? What might that yucky stuff be? And we talked about how God can deal with those things in our heart:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God” Psalm 51 v10
“If we confess our sins he is able & just to forgive us.” 1 John 1 v9

11th Oct – David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17)
Theme – Trusting God when faced with danger

In this session we looked at what is probably the most famous story about David – when he takes on the giant Goliath.
We started off by comparing the two characters in the story – David the youngest of eight sons who was still too young to fight for his country and Goliath a 3 metre tall giant who had trained all his life as a warrior. We wanted to get across to the kids just how uneven a contest this was and how frightening Goliath was.
To tell the story we split the kids into Israelites (Hot team) and Philistines (Cool team). And they shouted at each other across the valley. And then Goliath came out. 3 metres tall, rippling with muscles and dressed in armour as heavy as a normal man. He came out daring the Israelites to challenge him and mocking them. He wanted one man to come out and fight him, the Philistine champion, and the winner would take all. He was a terrfying sight and the Israelites were frightened, even their king, Saul.
One day, as Goliath was bellowing, shouting and taunting David came to the Israelite camp to take food to his three oldest brothers. He heard Goliath’s chants and said he would take him on! David the young shepherd boy was taking on the mighty warrior! Although everyone else was scared David wasn’t. He’d beaten lions and bears when protecting his sheep and, most importantly of all, he knew God was with him. God would protect His people and the victory would glorify God. Goliath was scary, very scary, but David was prepared to trust God.
So what happened? When David came out to fight Goliath Goliath laughed at him. Goliath said he would beat David and feed him to the birds and wild animals. But things didn’t turn out as Goliath thought they would. David used his sling and hit Goliath in the head with a stone and Goliath fell to the ground. David took Goliath’s sword, killed him and cut off his head. Seeing Goliath was dead the Philistines turned and ran and the Israelites chased after them. Against all the odds God had given the Israelites the victory!
And in the small groups we looked at things God might ask us to do might frighten us? Do we trust God will be with us? We used the words of Psalm 27 v1 to close in prayer:
“The Lord is my light and the one who saves me. I fear no-one. The Lord protects my life. I am afraid of no-one.” – Psalm 27 v1

27th Sep – David is chosen as king (1 Samuel 16)
Theme – David was going to be king but he knew he had to trust & follow Go

We love the idea of stories that start with an ordinary person suddenly discovering that there’s something special about them and we see it time and time again in books, films and TV programmes. At Starchasers we looked at a clip from the first Harry Potter film when Harry gets a midnight visit from a strange man telling him there’s something special about Harry. He’s not an ordinary boy but a wizard. We got the kids to think about how they would have felt in Harry’s position about someone arriving to tell them they were someone special. Some kids said happy, some said excited and some said confused as they didn’t know whether they could trust this strange visitor or not.
Although the Harry Potter stories are great they are made up and aren’t true, people aren’t really wizards but that idea of finding out you’re special is interesting. We then looked at a true story from the Bible where somebody found out that God said they were special, that God had a special role for them.
The story involved a prophet (someone who had a word from God and took it to the people) called Samuel. God had sent him to a man called Jesse in Bethlehem and God was going to choose one of Jesse’s sons for a special role. Samuel went through all 7 of Jesse’s sons that were bought before him and God said no to all of them! But it turns out there was an eight son, the youngest one who was still out looking after the sheep. This son, David, was brought to Samuel and God told him YES! This is the one. God chose David to be the king of Israel. This ordinary boy from Bethlehem, the youngest of 8 sons was going to be the king! And to show that David was God’s chosen one Samuel poured some oil on his head.
We then asked the kids again how they would feel in David’s position if Samuel came to their house to tell them they were going to be king. Again we had happy and excited but we also had worried, worried because what would they know about being king, they just knew about looking after sheep.
In the small groups we told the kids that God had a plan for them, had something He wanted them to do. Now it might not be to be a great leader or a ruler but God does have a plan for them. And again we asked them how they felt about that. Again some said happy and excited and some also said scared, scared because what if God asked you to do something you didn’t want to do. (Great answer!)
We then ended by looking at a Psalm of David. We saw how David was looking after sheep then was told that he would be king. What was it about David that meant God chose him as king? Well to be honest we don’t really know. In fact there might not have been anything particularly special about David at all. What we do know is what God told Samuel when he was looking at Jesse’s sons:
“God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16v7
God knows everything about us, God knows us better than we know ourselves. And God knew He wanted David to do this job. And it’s interesting to see how David responded. He didn’t start lording it over his brothers or boasting about the fact that he would be in charge or tell people they’d have to start doing things his way. Instead he trusted and followed God. Although David would be king, David knew that God was really in charge.
And we saw this in one of the Psalms that David wrote – Psalm 23. From his time as shepherd he knew what a good shepherd did for his sheep, he cared for the sheep, looked after them, protected them and guided them. And the best thing for the sheep was to follow the shepherd. And David saw God as his shepherd, someone who knew best and someone who should be trusted, followed and obeyed. This is summed up in our memory verse for the week:
“The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need” – Psalm 23v1

13th September – Getting to know you (Psalm 139, Romans 5v6-8, Zephaniah 3v17)
Theme – God knows everything about us and He loves us

At the start of a new school year we get to met knew people and start to get to know them. We had some new people at Starchasers and had new teams so we were thinking of how well we know each other.
We started off by seeing how well we knew various TV, film and indeed other characters (including Captain Redbeard who a few people may have recognised from Bemerton Soul). With the Hot and Cool team going head-to-head to see how well they knew these characters we found out the answer was very well indeed!
We saw that we knew a lot about these characters and they looked at how well does God know us. We looked at Psalm 139 and Stavs acted out the chapter as we read it. We saw that God knows everything about us and He knows us no matter where we go or what we do. Or as one of the kids put it: How well does God know us? – Infinity and beyond.
So God knows us everything about us. The good things and the bad things. He knows the things we want Him to know and the things we may not want Him to know. Yet how does God feel about us knowing everything about us? We looked at Romans 5 where we see God loved us and loved us so much He sent his Son to die in our place and we looked at Zephaniah 3 where God will sing and be joyful if we are one of His people. In short – We are God’s treasure, just like we were looking at at Bemerton Soul.
In the small groups we did a few games to get to know each other a little better and find out what we did in the summer holidays. The kids then had a chance to respond to what they thought about God knowing everything about us and that God loves us so much.

Summer Term 2009: Life in the Spirit

Our series for the Summer term is “Life in the Spirit” in which we’ll be looking at what it’s like to live as a Christian and what hope Christians have for the future. The Holy Spirit helps us and strengthens us as in our Christian life and it is also the “firstfruits” of the glory that lies ahead.

12th July – Life as it should be (Revelation 21 – 22 v6)
Theme – One day everything will be just as it should be – A perfect world & God living with us

We ended our series on Life in the Spirit with a look forward to the hope that Christians have for the future. What are we looking forward to when Jesus returns?
We started with a short video featuring some Vox Pops of people from Church on the Corner saying what they think heaven will be like. And then we looked at Revelations 21v1-5 to see what life will be like when Jesus returns.
We saw that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. All the bad things and things that make us unhappy and cause us pain will be gone. Everything will be made perfect. And, best of all, God will be living us. Things are what they should be. Us living in a perfect world, in a perfect relationship with God.
In small groups we gave the kids a picture of the earth from space and then asked them to write down some of the things that upset them in this world (e.g. sickness, bullying, falling out, pollution, death). We crossed these out as these won’t be present in the new earth and the new heaven. We then asked them to think of some things they love about this world (e.g. friendship, community, fun) and said they would be present in the new earth and new heaven. Finally we  wrote God across the earth to show that He would be living with us in this perfect world.
What a hope, what a prize! As the end of Revelations says: “Jesus is the One who says that these things are true. Now He says ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

28th June – Press on towards the goal (Philippians 3v12-21)
Theme – We need to keep going in life in the Spirit

Our session this week had a gardening flavour to it. Mary shared with us her joy as a new allotment holder and she talked us through the process of growing courgettes.
A courgette plant started life as a small seed but as as you watered it and it got warmed by the sun the seed grew into a shoot and then a small plant. As it continued to grow you had to watch out for problems like snails and weeds as they could stop the plant growing. It took a while for the plant to grow but Mary kept going as she thought of the prize that lay at the end of it, some delicious courgettes that she had grown herself.
And to cap it all off Mary bought along a fully grown courgette plant that she had dug up that morning. It was massive! and you could see 3 or 4 courgettes growing on this one plant. Well worth all the effort!
Mary said that living as a Christian was a bit like growing plants. Our faith can start off as a small seed but it can grow. As we learn more about God and get encouraged by other Christians our faith grows. However, on the way are difficulties, things that can put us off and stop us growing or even cause us to lose our faith. At these times it’s important to think about what the prize is at the end of it, what we as Christians are striving for – A perfect life with God with a new heaven and a new earth (more next session!). By keeping our eyes on that prize, the promise that Jesus will return, we will continue to grow to be the people that God wants us to be.
In our small groups we talked more about some of the difficulties we might face as Christians and what we can do to help us at those difficult times. We thought of things like finding out more about God from the Bible, talking to God and listening to God through prayer, going to church to worship and praise God and being encouraged by Christian friends and families around us. Keep growing, keep changing and keep our eyes on what lies ahead!

14th June – Gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12)
Theme – We all have different gifts but need to work together as part of one body

This week we were thinking of gifts and in particular gifts of the Spirit, another way the Holy Spirit helps us prepare for Jesus’ return.
We started off inviting the leaders up the front to the hot-set. They had to tell us the best present they had ever received and why it was so good. Then they had to tell us about a gift of the Spirit they had been given or someone else they knew had been given. They told us why the gift of the spirit was so good and how could it could be used to help others.
We then got two of the kids to read 1 Corinthians 12 v4-11. We had a memory test to see how many of the gifts in the passage the kids could remember. And then we looked again at what we were supposed to do with the gifts – to support, serve and encourage each other.
In the second part of the session. We looked at the human body – we drew a picture of a stick-man and a stick-woman in our two teams, Hot and Cool. We then asked the teams to think of different things that the different parts of the body are good at – e.g. head for thinking, feet for walking, hands for holding, mouth for talking & eating etc.
The idea was to show that although the parts of the body are different to each other each body part has something useful to do. And the body needs all these different parts to work properly.
And so with us and the Gifts of the Spirit. We are all different but we all have something useful to do. The body, the church, needs all these different people to work properly.

24th May – Our Helper (Romans 8 )
Theme – The Holy Spirit helps us pray

This week we were looking at how the Holy Spirit helps us and in particular how it helps us pray.
Our two new friends, Boris and Lucy, were back again and this time we see Boris struggling with a pair of headphones he’s just bought. He’d love to listen to his music on them but he can’t get them on his head as his arms are too weak (well he is just a puppet). But with Lucy’s help he managed to get them on. She helped him with something he was finding difficult.
That lead into talking about the Holy Spirit. There are some bits of living as God wants us to live that we find difficult but God doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us. And one of the ways is to help us to pray. Sometimes we aren’t sure what to pray for or how we ought to pray for something but the Spirit helps us. The Spirit does this with groans that can’t be put into words.
What does that look like? Well we aren’t exactly sure but we listened to some pieces of music with no words (Morning, Jupiter & Star Wars Imperial March) and asked – how did they make us feel? – what were they trying to say? And we can see how things could be expressed without using words.
And to finish we put this into practise by praying in our small groups.

10th May – Pentecost: The Holy Spirit Comes (Acts 2, Romans 8v9-25)
Theme – God kept His promise about the Holy Spirit and we can trust that Jesus will return

We met two new friends at Starchasers this week, Boris and Lucy. Boris was an orang-utan, which is like a gorilla but hairer and orange-er, and Lucy was a girl, which is like a boy but less hairy and less orange.
Boris loved bananas and Lucy loved chocolate and both promised to go to the shop for me (located under the table conveniently) and get me a banana and a chocolate bar respectively. When they returned Boris had eaten the banana on the way home so didn’t keep his promise to me but Lucy had kept her promise and bought me a chocolate bar. We asked the kids who they would trust more to go to the shop the next day to get a banana / chocolate bar. I said I’d trust Lucy more next time as she kept the first promise so was someone I’d trust to keep their promise next time.
We then looked at the story of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and when God kept the first of the two promises we looked at last week. We re-enacted the story and heard a noise like a strong wind, saw flames of fire that split up and stood over us and then we could speak different languages. The Holy Spirit gave the disciples the power to speak different languages and this meant lots of people from different countries, who were in Jerusalem at the time, could understand them and hear them talking about Jesus.
Peter stood up and told the crowd about this very special person, Jesus. He told them about the wonders and miracles Jesus did. He told them that Jesus died and rose from the dead. And he told the crowd that they needed to say sorry to God and follow & obey Him. That day over 3,000 people decided to follow God and were baptised. What a way for God to keep the first promise!
In the final section we then looked at the two promises from last week again. If God kept the first promise could we trust Him to keep the second promise – that Jesus would return? Yes! In fact God has kept all His promises, every single one, so we can definitely trust Him.
And the Holy Spirit is more than just God keeping His promise, it’s a guarantee that Jesus will return, that we will share in this future glory with God. The Holy Spirit isn’t just something the disciples received, it’s something that every Christian receives. If you’re a Christian the Bible says you will have the Holy spirit. So every Christian has the Holy Spirit, every Christian has that guarantee that Jesus will return.

26th April – Ascension: Two promises (Acts 1v1-11)
Theme – God promised the Holy Spirit & that Jesus would return

This week at Starchasers we were thinking about things that we look forward to. We thought about some things we’re looking forward to – holidays, birthdays, football match, getting a new kitchen. We thought about how it made us feel (excited, nervous, happy, pleased, can’t wait) and we thought about how we would have to prepare for these things (e.g. pack, send out invites, train, clean room). When we look forward to something we feel excited about it and we have to prepare for it.
We then looked at what happened to Jesus after Easter. What did Jesus do when He came back from the dead? We learnt about Him appearing to over 500 people after His death. And we learnt about a promise that Jesus gave His disciples, His closest friends:
Promise 1: In a few days you will be baptised by the Holy Spirit
And one day when Jesus and His friends were together He told them again the Holy spirit was coming. He also told them to tell people all about what they had seen and to tell people all about Jesus. To tell people all over the city, Jerusalem. To tell people all over the country, Judea. To tell people all over the world.
When Jesus finished speaking He rose up into the sky, up into heaven and a large cloud hid Jesus from their sight. The disciples stood staring at the sky and we stood staring up through the skylight at this point in the story.
While we were doing this two men dressed in white appeared on the video screen. They told us that this same Jesus we’d seen go up into heaven would come back the same way we saw Him go. And this was the second promise we learnt about:
Promise 2: Jesus will return.
So the disciples had two promises to look forward to and we discussed how they would have felt and what they would have done to prepare for these two things. And we are still waiting for Jesus to return and we are still looking forward to Him coming back.
The leaders shared how they felt about Jesus returning (excited, nervous, happy) and some of the things we should do to prepare for Jesus coming back (tell others about Jesus, obey Jesus and live how He wants us to, Enjoy God).
For the rest of this term we’re going to be looking at this further. We’re going to see how the Holy Spirit helps prepare us for Jesus coming back. We’re also going to see how the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that Jesus is coming back.

Spring Term 2009: Who do you say I am? – Mark

Right at the start of his gospel Mark makes some pretty big claims about Jesus, about who He is and why He has come to earth. (”This is the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God”). This term, as we work through the book of Mark, we’re going to find out more about Jesus and see if He is who He’s claimed to be.
We’ll be looking at various events in Jesus’ ministry that Mark writes about and see what that says about the type of person Jesus is and why He came to earth. His miracles, His teaching and how He deals with people.
And we’ll also encourage the kids to think who do they think Jesus is. This will be captured in our memory verse:

Then Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
Mark 8v29

To view the archive of what we looked at in previous terms click here.

Session 6: 29th Mar – Easter (Mark 14-16)
Theme – Jesus died to save us. Jesus had the power to rise from the dead.

We’ve reached the end of Mark’s gospel and come to the most remarkable thing that Jesus did. We looked at what Jesus had to do to save us.
But what was Jesus saving us from? What was our problem? We all sat at one end of the hall and at the other end were some bright lights to represent God. And inbetween us and God were several black sheets that cut us off from God. These sheets were our sin (just in case they missed the point we wrote SIN on them in 4 feet high letters!) and this sin cuts us off from God. And we could do nothing about it. Only Jesus could save us.
But what needed to be done? We asked the kids about what happens if they do something wrong at school or at home. There’s a punishment, like detention, lines etc., because you did something wrong. And there has to be a punishment for our sin. An awful, horrible punishment which shows just how serious a problem our sin was.
We looked at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on The Miracle Maker DVD and saw He knew what was going to happen and was asking God if there was another way. Yet despite this Jesus still prayed for God’s will to happen and Jesus was still prepared to go through with it for us. And so Jesus was arrested and we saw on the DVD what Jesus went through, including being put to death on the cross. This was what Jesus was prepared to do for us.
And because He took the blame for our sin this barrier between us and God was removed and we could be in God’s presence and know God. We took down the big SIN barrier and bought the kids round the lights to show we could come to God now because of what Jesus did. Jesus was prepared to die to save us. To bring us back to God.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. What happened on the Sunday was even more remarkable. Jesus rose from the dead, He came back to life. We looked a little at the story on Easter Sunday and the people who saw Jesus after He died. Jesus had the power to rise from the dead.
Knowing what we’ve learnt this term and knowing what we learnt that morning we asked the kids in the small groups – Who do they think Jesus was? We asked which of the following best described what they thought:
-    He is Christ, Son of God
-    Not sure, want to find out more
-    He isn’t the Christ, Son of God

The key question we’ve been asking all term is “Who do you say I am?”

Session 5: 8th Mar – The Greatest Commandment (Mark 12v13-17,28-34)
Theme – The power of Jesus’ teaching

This session we looked at Jesus’ teaching to see that He spoke with wisdom, power and authority. Obviously we couldn’t cover all of Jesus teaching in one session but we looked at Mark 12 as an example.
We started off by giving the two teams a list of famous names and then getting them to rank them in terms of who they thought was the most powerful and why. For both groups Barack Obama came out top because he was in charge of the most powerful country, he had done something that no other person had done in becoming the first black president of the USA and he had given hope to a lot of people. We then asked where Jesus would go on the list and thankfully both teams put Him at the top!
We then looked at the idea that one of the places we see Jesus power is in His teaching and in His dealing with people. We read Mark 12v13-17 and saw how Jesus was able to handle people trying to trick Him and catch Him out. The result was that those listening were amazed by how Jesus answered the question.
Then we looked at how Jesus answered the question of what was the greatest commandment in Mark 12v28-34. Jesus says the two most important ones are love God with all your heart, soul, mind & strength and love your neighbour as yourself. Through all Jesus teaching the greatest lesson He teaches us is about love – both in what He said and what He did.
We spent the rest of the session going through these commandments and learning them. First through some actions the kids devised and then making a bookmark to remind us of Jesus’ words. If we want the kids to remember one thing about Jesus’ teaching it’s these two commandments.

Session 4: 22nd Feb – Blessing the children & The rich man (Mark 10v13-31)
Theme – How Jesus deals with different people

It’s not just in the power of Jesus’ miracles that we see what type of person He is but also in how He deals with people. Mark 10 gives the story of two different groups of people and how Jesus dealt with them both.
First there were a group of  children who the disciples tried to stop from seeing Jesus. Surely He would be too busy to see them and wouldn’t have time for kids? Jesus wasn’t happy that the disciples were turning them away and insisted they come to Him. He then took the children in His arms and blessed them.
Next came a rich, young ruler who wanted to know how to get eternal life. Jesus took the time to talk to him and explain to him. But he also didn’t shy away from telling him the truth about what he needed to do – sell everything he had and give it to the poor. Although the truth was difficult and it meant the man went away disappointed Jesus was prepared to tell him what he needed to here.
We went through the story as a mime, with different actions for key words in the story. From obvious words like being cross (angry face, stamp foot) to the less obvious like shoo away (touch your shoe). We went through it a few times to give the kids a chance to do the actions and to get them familiar with the story. The mime also gave us a chance to see the reactions of different people – Jesus cross, disciples shocked, rich man sad and so on.
The key point of the morning was that Jesus made time for everyone, not just the rich and powerful but the young, the weak and the poor as well. Jesus had real love for all of them and real love for all of us as well.

Session 3: 8th Feb – Feeding the 5,000 (Mark 6v30-44)
Theme – The power and compassion of Jesus

Last time we saw the power of Jesus and we see that again in this passage with another miracle, but this time we also see the compassion of Jesus.
We started with a short video of celebrity chef Martynella and her adoring fans who had come to see her. But, alas, Martynella didn’t have time to see them so sent them away disappointed.
How different was Jesus’ response in a similar situation. Despite being tired (and hungry!) Jesus took time to teach the crowd who came to see Him because He felt compassion for them.
Again we told the story with the kids lying or sitting on mats, duvets and pillows and to imagine themselves in the story. (We did this so last session didn’t seem like a one-off but rather one of the ways we can do things). We told them about the large crowds coming to see Jesus. How He felt sorry for them and taught them. Then we told them about the need to feed the large crowd. So Jesus took 5 loaves and 2 fishes a young boy had, thanked God for them and then broke them up to give out to the crowd. Everyone had enough to eat despite there being more than 5,000 people present! And there was plenty left over as well!
Who is this Jesus? A man with the power to feed 5,000 people with just one young boy’s lunch and also someone who showed compassion and love to this great crowd as well.

Session 2: 25th Jan – Jesus heals a paralysed man (Mark 2v1-12)
Theme – The power of Jesus – to forgive sins and heal

For this session we tried something a little different. Before the story we laid out some mats on the floor, gave the kids some blankets and duvets and got them to lie or sit comfortably while we told the story.
We then told the story – Jesus was in a house and so many people had come to see Him the house was completely full. Some men had bought their friend, a paralysed man, to see Jesus but they couldn’t get into the house. Instead they made a hole in the roof and lowered their friend through the hole to see Jesus.
Jesus turned to the paralysed man and told him his sins were forgiven. And to prove that He could forgive sins He also told the paralysed man to get up, pick up his mat and walk. And he did! The crowd were amazed and said they had never seen anything like this before.
As we told the story we asked the kids to imagine themselves in the story.  What it was like? Who was there? What happened? At the end of the story we asked them to listen to see if Jesus had something to say to them.  We wanted to allow space for God to talk to the children and to allow them space to tune in to what he is trying to reveal.
Then in the small groups we invited the kids to tell us where they imagined they were in the story and what they thought was happening. We also asked them what they thought this story said about Jesus and if Jesus had a message for them.

Session 1: 11th Jan – Who do you say I am? (Mark 1v1-13)
Theme – Jesus is the Christ, God’s chosen one come to save us

We started off the session by making some claims about the leaders. We said that Stavs could speak fluent Greek, Mary was a superb cook and Peter could do parkour (sort of like free running). We then asked the kids what they’d like to know or find out to be convinced that these claims were true. They said things like – get them to speak greek, try some of their cooking, get them to show you some, get them to translate some greek words from a dictionary & ask someone who’s tried their cooking. [I'll leave you to guess which things they said about which claim, hopefully it's fairly obvious.]
Then when we looked at Mark’s gospel we saw some big claims that Mark made about Jesus right at the start in verse 1. Mark claims that Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ. We explored what “the Christ” (or sometimes “the Messiah”) meant and summarised it as God’s chosen one come to save us. These are big claims, huge claims, that Mark is making and what would we want to know or find out to be convinced about them. As we go through Mark’s gosepl this term we’ll be looking and what Mark tells us about Jesus us to convince us of these claims.
And we started with how John the Baptist became convinced that Jesus was the Christ. This happened when Jesus was baptised by John and God himself said that Jesus was His beloved Son. A pretty good confirmation if you ask me!
That convinced John the Baptist that Jesus was the Christ but in the small groups we asked them who they thought Jesus was. Did they think He was God’s chosen one come to save us? What more would they like to know and find out to be convinced that Jesus was the Christ? This is something we’ll be looking at in every session as we discover more about Jesus in Mark’s gospel.

Autumn 2008: TRUST – Joshua & Judges

This term we’re following on from the story of Moses last year to look at Joshua and Judges. The key point of the whole term is that we can trust God and trust the promises He has made. And at the centre of everything we’re going to be teaching is Joshua’s challenge to the people of Israel at the end of the book in Joshua 24 from where our memory verse is taken.

“You must choose for yourselves today. You must decide whom you will serve…As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” – Joshua 24v15

Session 8: 14th Dec – Samson (Judges 13-16, esp. 16)
Theme – Trust God and keep on trusting God.

In our themesetter we looked at a clip from the Simpsons where Lisa was conducting a test on her brother. She wired a cupcake up to an electric battery and each time Bart touched it he got a shock. And  Bart kept on trying to get the cupcake despite getting a shock each time.
Then we had a real life example with Shan being offered the choice between orange juice and lime juice. Despite the fact the lime juice tasted very bitter and unpleasant he kept on choosing the lime juice and not the orange juice. We all thought that Bart and Shan we’re being stupid as they kept making the same mistakes over and over again.
And when you read through Joshua and Judges you can feel the same about God’s people. They keep making the same mistakes. They keep turning away from God, despite all that He’s done for them.
In this session we learnt about our final judge of the term, Samson. The Israelites were being ruled by the Philistines and God used Samson to help defeat the Philistines, although in a most unusal way. We learnt that Samson had been set apart for God from birth and had to keep some special rules, one of which was to never cut his hair. And God gave Samson amazing strength and Samson had used this to beat the Philistines on several occasions.
But Samson’s weakness was women, and one woman in particular – Delilah. She had been paid by the Philistines to learn the secret of Samson’s strength so they could capture them. So she kept pleading with Samson to tell her the secret of his strength. Through the use of many bad wigs and other props we learnt that the secret of his strength wasn’t 7 new bow strings, new ropes or weaving his hair into a loom.
The fourth time though Samson told Delilah if she cut his hair off he’d be as weak as any other man. So Delilah cut his hair off and at that point God left Samson. He was captured, thrown in prison and the Philistines blinded him.
But that wasn’t the end. The Philistines threw a party to celebrate capturing Samson and he was bought out so they could laugh and jeer at him. But in prison his hair had started to grow back. And when Samson prayed to God his strength returned and he was able to push over the two pillars he was placed between. That brought down the whole building and, although Samson died when the building feel down, he was able to defeat all the Philistines present. God had used Samson to help His people, even if it was in a very unusual way.
Yet what happened after Samson died? The people turned away from God and did there own thing. WHAT?!!?? Even after all that He had done for them? Why did they keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Then we thought, hang on, do we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Do we trust God for a little bit and then turn away from Him? We’d be learning all term about Trust and how God was someone we could trust. He keeps His promises, He has the power to do what He says He will and He knows what’s best for us. So what should our response be? We need to trust God and keep on trusting God. Not just for a little while or until it gets difficult but to trust God and keep on trusting God.
So TRUST GOD AND KEEP ON TRUSTING GOD!

Session 7: 30th Nov – Gideon (Judges 6 – 8 )
Theme – Trust God even when we are frightened of what He wants us to do

There’s a bit of a pattern emerging. After Deborah last week the Israelites once again turned away from God, then the Midianites (and others) invaded and made the Israelites suffer. The Israelites then  cry out to God for help. Once again God hears their cry and rescues them.
This time God calls Gideon to rescue His people but Gideon is a bit unsure and needs some persuading. He needs three signs from God before he agrees to lead the Israelites – the first was when God burned up a food offering, the second was when a fleece was wet but the ground was dry and the third was when a fleece was dry but the ground was wet. Finally, after all that, Gideon agreeed to lead the people.
And God made sure that the people knew that it was Him who had given them the victory. From the initial 32,000 men who turned up to fight God selected only 300 to fight the Midianites. And with those 300 God used trumpets, torches and glass jars (well balloons in our case) to defeat the Midianites.
In our small groups we thought about things that scared us or frightened us and when we find it difficult to trust God. We prayed for the situations over the next couple of weeks when we wanted reassurance.

Session 6: 23rd Nov – Deborah (Judges 4-5)
Theme – Even when they turned away from God, God still kept His promise to His people and rescued them

Oh dear. Things have taken a turn for the worse, after Joshua dies the people turn away from God. As God had promised (Joshua 24v19-20, Judges 2v14-15) when they turned away from Him He would not be on their side and so we see a king defeat and oppress the Israelites.
But even though the Israelites turned away from God, God still kept His promise to the Israelites and remembers His people when they cry out to Him. We learned how God used Deborah and Barak to defeat the army of the king who was oppressing the Israelites and how God rescued His people.
God keeps His promise that even when we mess up and turn away from Him, He will rescue us if we turn back to Him. In small groups we looked at some promises God gives us in the bible, we had some children’s books to look at along this theme.The children made a small hanging with their favourite promise on.
Numbers 23 v19 – ‘God is not like men who lie,He is not a human who changes his mind. Whatever He promises he does,He speaks and it is done.’

Session 5: 9th Nov – Israelites take the rest of the land (Joshua 10-12,24)
Theme – Joshua & the Israelites trusted God and He kept His promise

For this session we went right back to the start of term – to look at the promise that God had given to Abraham then to Moses and finally to Joshua. The promise that God would give the Israelites the land. The people under Moses hadn’t trusted God and were frightened off when the spies bought back their report. But would Joshua and the people trust God and His promise? We found out last week they’d taken the city of Jericho but what about the rest of the land?
We picked up the story just after the Israelites took Jericho. The land was controlled by lots of kings and after Jericho God told the Israelites to go and fight the king of Ai. They did and they captured his city and we turned that part of the land red to show the Israelites were in control. After Ai, 5 kings came out to fight the Israelites but because God was on their side the Israelites won – again that area turned red. Then they went to the south of the country and God gave them the cities there and finally to the north of the country and God gave them the cities there. In all God helped Joshua and the Israelites defeat 31 kings and most of the hall was now turned red. They were (say them quickly…):

Jericho, Ai, Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon, Gezer, Debir, Geder, Hormah, Arad, Libna, Adullam, Makkedah, Bethel, Tappuah, Hepher, Aphe, Lasharon, Madon, Hazor, Shimro, Meron, Acshaph, Taanach, Megiddo, Kedesh, Jokneam, Dor, Goyim, Tirzah.

So God had kept His promise to give them the land. He had helped them beat all these armies, given them good farmland they hadn’t planted and given them cities with strong walls they hadn’t built. There were still parts of the land left to capture (more on that in later sessions…) but Joshua was very old now and God told him to divide up the land between the different groups, or tribes, of Israel. God had promised He would give them the land and He did.
And right at the end of the book of Joshua we find Joshua speaking to the Israelites and reminding them of what God had done for them. And Joshua issued this challenge to the people:

“You must choose for yourselves today. You must decide whom you will serve. As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” – Joshua 24v15

Think about what God has done and decide are you going to serve and trust Him.
And we issued the same challenge to the kids. You’ve seen what God did for Joshua and the Israelites and are you going to serve and trust Him. In the small groups and we replaced “you” in the verse with our name (and yourselves with “himself/herself”) and went through the verse to see what we would decide to do.
We looked at what it might mean to trust and serve God. To stand up for God in a difficult situation. To put God first even if that means giving up something we’d really like. To use our gifts to serve God. These were just some of the ways we can trust and serve God. And we’ll keep on looking at how we can trust and serve God during the rest of the term.

Session 4: 26th October – Fall of Jericho (Joshua 5v13 – 6v27)
Theme – Joshua & the Israelites trusted God and He kept His promise

Once again we were thinking about the theme of “Trust” and how God was someone the Israelites could and should trust. The Israelites have now entered the land God promised them and the time has come to take their first big city – Jericho.
In our teams we thought about different ways you could capture a city and what sort of equipment you might need. Inspired by what we’d seen on TV & on film we came up with great battle plans to take Jericho. We were going to use flaming arrows, battering rams, ladders, grappling hooks, siege towers and even dead animals, which we would fling over the wall. We thought we’d got some good ideas about how the Israelites could take Jericho.
But then we ripped up our battle plans. What??!!?? Why??? Because the Israelites weren’t going to do it their way, they were going to do it God’s way. And that involved walking around the walls with trumpets and the Ark of the Covenant. That sounded crazy but the Israelites did it because they trusted God. And if it worked then they knew it was because God had given them the city and not because of their own might and strength.
So we marched round our hastily-constructed city of Jericho for six days with trumpets, the Ark and the Israelite army. Then on the seventh day we blew the trumpets, shouted and the walls fell down just as God said it would! The Israelites captured the city and while doing so they rescued Rahab and her family so the Israelites kept their promise to her (see Session 2) .
And in our small groups we thought more about trusting God. It can be a difficult concept to understand so we’ve recapped it several times this term. We looked at: Why can we trust God? When is it difficult to trust God? What does it actually mean to trust God? Should it change what we actually do? And even if it seems difficult or strange to trust God we should because His way is the best way.

Session 3: 10th Oct – Crossing the Jordan  (Joshua 3v1 – 5v12)
Theme – When God does great things in our lives we need to remember them

The time has now come to cross the Jordan and God did it in spectacular style. God told Joshua what to do and he followed God’s instructions. The Israelites were able to cross the Jordan on dry land because God stopped the river and when they arrived in the promised land the people dedicated themselves to God once more.
During the crossing God commanded the people to take 12 stones from the river to help them remember what God had done. This meant in future generations people would ask and be told what God had done while crossing the Jordan. And that reminder was certainly needed.
We had great fun acting out the story with props for the Jordan, the Ark of the Covenant and the 12 stones. In the midst of the fun we also remembered God’s power, what He was able to do and that He was someone the Israelites could trust.
And maybe we need to remember what God has done for us in the past so the present or the bad times don’t get on top of us.

Session 2: 28th Sep – I spy part 2 (Joshua 1 & 2)
Theme – Rahab trusted God and knew He would give the Israelites the land

We’ve fast forwarded 40 years and Moses has died and Joshua has become leader of the Israelites. God reminds Joshua of His promise to give the Israelites the land and that He will be with them. Joshua sends two spies to spy out the land but they have to be hidden by Rahab to keep them safe. Rahab, who wasn’t an Israelite, had heard about God and what things He had done. She knew that God would be able to keep His promise and give the Israelites the promised land.
We read through the story as a group and then as we recapped the key events we invited the kids to come up one by one and sit in the hot seat. We asked the person in the hot seat how they think they would have felt as different people in the story. As Joshua getting the promise again from God, as the spies sent into the land, as Rahab hiding the spies and as the King of Jericho when he heard about the spies.
We focused especially on Rahab and how it was a very brave and difficult thing for her to do to hide the spies and why she did it. She did it because she trusted God and knew He would give the Israelites the land.
This lead on to us thinking about us trusting God. If God is someone who can be trusted then we need to choose to follow and serve Him. And we need to do that when things are going well and when things might be difficult or frightening.
This was summed up in the first part of our memory verse for the term:
‘You must choose for yourselves today. You must decide whom you will serve.’ – Joshua 24 v15

Session 1: 14th Sep – I spy part 1 (Numbers 13 & 14)
Theme – We should trust God and His promises no matter what we face

The first session followed on from where we left the Israelites last year. After they had escaped from Egypt God promised to give them the land of Canaan for their home. This was the land He had promised Abraham (e.g. Gen 15 v17-19) and God had reaffirmed the promise to Moses (e.g. Exodus 6 v1-8). The time had now come for them to enter this land God had promised them so Moses chose 12 people to spy out the land and bring a report back.
So we went spying. Hiding behind an inconspicuous white sheet we peeked through the holes to see what this land was like. We found lots of grapes, figs, pomegranates and good farm land. But we also found strong armies, walled cities and giants!
So when the spies came back they were scared. They were scared of the strong armies and the fortified cities and didn’t think they could take the land, even though God said they would. Only Joshua and Caleb trusted God when He said they would take possession of it. The people grumbled and rebelled against God. And God made them wander around the desert for 40 years so none of those adults would enter the promised land.
Is God someone that could be trusted? We looked at some things that make a person trustworthy:
Loves us – care for us so only want the best for us
Have kept their word before – If they’ve kept their promises before we would trust them again
Has the power to do what they said they’d do – Need to be able to back up their promises
And we saw how God had shown the Israelites that He loved them, that He kept His word and He had shown His power in rescuing them from Egypt. We’ll be returning to this theme all term but God is someone who we can totally and utterly trust.
Let’s not underestimate how difficult the task must have seemed to the Israelites. It looked like it would be really, really tough to take this land. This was a real challenge to them to trust God, but sadly they didn’t. Throughout this term we’ll be learning more about God and the more we learn the more we’ll see God is someone we can trust.

Summer 2008

This term at Starchasers the theme is “Life to the MAX”, based on John 10v10 where Jesus said that He has come to give us life and life to the full. Sometimes we forget that Jesus promises us “Life to the MAX” so we’re going to be looking at why God’s way is the best way to live.

Our memory verse for the term is:

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” – John 10v10

Session 7 – 14th July – Look to the future now (Romans 8, Revelation 21v1-5)
Theme – Things may be difficult now but we will share in God’s future glory. One day everything will be just as it should be – Us living in a perfect world and God living with us

Throughout this term we’ve been learning how life with God is Life to the MAX. It’s the best way for us, the church, everyone and the world. But if it is Life to the MAX then why are things still difficult, why do bad things still happen to us?
We started by talking about some of the things we enjoy making or creating. Paintings, clay models and pots, writing etc. And one of the things I love doing is taking photos. And particularly that moment when you download them onto your computer and see which ones are good and which ones are bad. And I showed one of my favourite photos, one I took in Barcelona:
Then someone took this photo and scratched it with scissors and drew on it with pen. How would we feel if someone did this to something we made? We can still see the good things in the photo, the colours, the shapes, the story etc. but it has been spoilt by the scratches and the pen.
And this is like our world – it has been spoilt by our sin. We can still see the good things in it but also in there are bad things like pain, sickness, hunger, death, pollution etc. because of our sin. And this means that even life with God will have difficulties and bad things will happen because of this sin.
But this isn’t the end of the story. Because what can we do about the photo, how can we make it right? We can print off a new copy, where everything is just as it should be, like it was meant to be.
And in Revelations 21v1-5 we see what God promises for the world. One day he will make everything new, a new heaven and a new earth. And on this new earth the sin is gone and everything is as it should be, like it was meant to be. All of the bad things will be gone (pain, sickness, death etc.) and we can enjoy all the good things. We can live like we were meant to live on a world like it was meant to be. And at the heart of it all is God who will be living with us.
So when Jesus offers us Life to the MAX it may be difficult now but we can look forward to a glorious future. When everything will be made new and made as it should be. Us living in a perfect world and God living with us.

Session 6 – 29th June – Care for the world (Genesis 1-3, Romans 8v18-27)
Theme – God’s life is the best for the whole planet. God created it and wants us to take care of it

In this last session we looked at how life with God was the best for everyone as we should be looking out for those in need. This session we were looking at how it is best for the planet itself.
At the start of the session we met Mr. I-don’t-care-about-you. Not a very nice person, he only loved himself and, as his name suggested, he didn’t care about other people. This meant he was a very selfish person who didn’t really care about how he treated other people or other things. He’d chuck down litter as he didn’t care about what other people thought of it, drive everywhere as he didn’t care about what the pollution would do to other people and basically did everything only thinking about himself. An extreme example but it showed how bad it is when we only care about ourselves.
But that’s not how God intended things to be. When he made the world He put us in charge of it, He made us responsible for it and wanted us to look after it (Genesis 3 v16-19). If we only care about ourselves it wouldn’t be a very nice place to live but if we look out for each other that will involve taking care of the place where we live.
In small groups we then looked at different ways we can help take care of this planet that God has made us responsible for. This involved things like cycling or walking to school (if possible!), recycling, turning off unnecessary lights, heaters etc. and some other great suggestions from the kids.
So life with God is Life to the MAX for all of us because if we take care of the planet as God wants us to it makes it a better place for all of us to live.

Session 5 – 22nd June – Everyone matters to God (Luke 10 v22-37 Matthew 25 v31-45)
Theme – God’s life is best for the whole world as He cares about everyone

In this last session we started to think about God’s way not just being about us as individuals but as a group of people. God’s way was best for the church, a group of believers, because we are asked to help and support each other. And God’s way isn’t just best for Christians it’s best for everyone as everyone matters to God. God cares for all of us and wants his people to look out for those who need our help.
We looked at an updated version of the Good Samaritan to see what it means to look out for other people, to help those who need it. It’s not just our friends we should look out for but everyone who needs our help.
Then we played a (very difficult!) game of hangman based on Matthew 25 to look at some of the ways we could help other people. If someone is hungry give them food, if someone is thirsty give them a drink, if someone is sick look after them and so on. And in the small groups we looked at groups of people who might need our help. In the oldest group, Starlets, we prayed for some of those groups of people – those who are hungry helped by Breakfast Stop at All Saints, those who don’t have a job helped by Prospex and those who are homeless helped by The Simon Community.

So life with God is Life to the MAX for all people as God cares for everyone and wants his people to look out for those who need our help.

Session 4 – 8th June – The Church (1 Cor. 12&13, Acts 2&4, Heb 3&10, 1 John 4)
Theme – We have other Christians to help, encourage & support each other

In this last session we learnt that we are not facing this life alone but rather that God has given us the Holy Spirit. In this session we learnt that we also have other Christians to help & encourage us.
We started off by looking at what the Church is. It’s not a building we go to or some particular place but rather it’s the other Christians we know. And the Bible tells us that we as Christians are to help & encourage each other, or as we put it – Big Up Each Other. And God has given each of us different gifts and different things we are good at. He wants us to use those different gifts to help and encourage each other – to Big Up Each Other.
So how can we Big Up Each Other? Some of the things we can do are to look out for each other, to be kind to each other, to forgive each other, to listen to each other, to pray for each other and to accept and welcome each other. In the small groups we thought about some of the ways we could Big Up other people in Church. We asked what we were good at and what we enjoy doing and how we could use that to Big Up Each Other. For the Starlets we even set them a specific challenge of something they have to do over the next two weeks to Big Up others.
So life with God is Life to the Max because we have other Christians to help and encourage us. And we also need to help & encourage others as well.

Session 3 – 25th May – The Holy Spirit is with us (John14, Acts2, Romans8 )
Theme – The Holy Spirit is a gift from God to help us and equip us

In this session we learnt that the Holy Spirit was a gift from God to help us and equip us for the life He wants us to lead.
We looked at someone about to set off on an expedition but just before they went they received a present from someone. The person gave them that present because they cared about them and also to help them with the expedition. The gift was a Swiss Army knife and we saw the many different things it could do and the many different ways it could help for the journey ahead.
And this life with God is like an expedition or journey and the Holy Spirit is a gift from God to help on the way. God gives us this gift because He cares about us and wants to help us. And the Holy Spirit can help us and equips us for life with God in many different ways. Life with God can be difficult and we can’t make it on our own but with the Holy Spirit we can do it.
So life with God is Life to the Max because we have the Holy Spirit with us to help us.

Session 2 – 11th May – A design for life (Genesis 1&2, 2 Corinthians 5v5)
Theme – God made us. God made us to have a relationship with him

In this session we looked at why certain objects were made and what they were best at doing.
For example – what was a hammer designed to do and what was a toothbrush designed to do? What happens if you use a toothbrush for DIY and a hammer to brush your teeth? (if you’re not sure of the answer try it for yourself…).
The result was that things work best when they are used for the purpose they were designed for.
We even had a go at making some things ourselves. We made things to fly (paper planes) and things to make noise (shakers and paper snappers). The paper planes were best at flying and the shakers and snappers were best at making noise.
Again, we saw that things work best when they are used for the purpose they were designed for.
And we are no different. The bible tells us that God made and designed us and the reason He made us was to have a relationship with Him. We were designed for life with God.
So one of the reasons why life with God is “Life to the MAX” is that is what we were designed for.

Session 1 – 27th April: Life to the Zero (Luke 5 v11-32, Ecclesiastes 2 v1-11)
Theme: Life without God doesn’t lead to happiness – But God is always there, waiting for us to turn back to Him.

In the first session we looked at choices and how good we are at making them. For example, do we prefer School time or School holidays, Chocolate or Ice Cream & Saturday or Sunday.
But the biggest choice we’re faced with is whether we want to choose life with or without God. And in the first session we looked at what life is like without God, when we go our own way and do our own thing.
To help us with this we looked at a video (see below), based on a story that Jesus told. In the video Tom left his father (J. Mortley) and went and did his own thing. Although he had fun for a while it didn’t last and he didn’t find happiness away from his father. Jesus said we’re like the son, Tom, and God is like the father, J. Mortley. When we do our own thing without God it doesn’t lead to happiness. And as the writer of Ecclesiastes found, just having fun may bring short term pleasure but it doesn’t lead to real, true, permanent happiness. We’re not saying these things are bad but on their own they don’t lead to happiness. Life without God is life to the zero.
But, as the parable of the Prodigal Son reminds us, God is always there, waiting for us to turn back to Him. Jesus used an extreme example in the son (Tom) to show that no matter how low we might feel, or how far away form God we think we are, we can always turn back to God and choose life with Him. And this life with God is new life, life to the full, life to the MAX.
During the rest of the term we’re going to looking at life with God and why it really is Life to the MAX.

Return to the main Starchasers page.