All-age worship

All-age worship for Easter 4 – John 10:22-30

/ Ian

Here’s a cracker, which although designed for the Parable of the Lost Sheep, has the same emphasis on “hear my voice”. Be sure to click on the Activities link, and then you can download .pdf files which include a teaching game and some pretty cool colouring in sheets for kids. Free to use.

Cecil the Sheep and the other storybooks and purchasable downloads might be just the thing for your children’s ministry!

Cecil interviews a shepherd

David Ewart has written an excellent background piece on the lection from John. In it, he discusses the subtlety of hearing and knowing the voice of Jesus, rather that just knowing about him. This would make a useful core idea for a sermon, especially if the voice of Jesus is contrasted with other voices we are urged or tempted to listen to. The congregation could be asked what some of those alternative voices are (expensive goo that is supposed to deny the reality of ageing and dying, for example).

Jerry Goebel writes:

To hear and to follow!

Life itself is a process whereby I become increasingly able to recognize Christ’s voice and follow or I become enamored with my own voice (like the demons, the Religious Leaders and the Nazarenes) and reject his call. Everyday I must practice listening, everyday I must place myself where I can hear his call, or everyday I will come to mistake my voice for his.

It is so important that we ask ourselves:

1.        “Where can I go that I am most likely to hear his call today?”

2.        “What can I do to make me humble enough to hear his words and follow them today?”

3.        “What practices do I need to pursue today that will silence my deception and heighten my reception?”

4.        “Will I know his voice better tonight than I did this morning?”

And most of all, “When he calls do recognize his voice and follow?”

Source: Jerry Goebel: 2005 ©

With younger people and children, a game could be played to see if they can recognise the names belonging to voices from the congregation – perhaps reading this lection! Another idea would be to choose some words of Jesus from a very contemporary version of the Bible such as “The Message” and have them read alongside words from other faiths or philosophies, and see if people can discern the words of Jesus.

If you have a data projector, advertising images could stimulate thinking about the “other voices” that surround us.

Agnus Day on John 10:20-22

Agnus Day on John 10:20-22

An obvious hymn choice: I heard the voice of Jesus say

which can be sung to KINGSFOLD

The Prayers of the People could involve periods of silence – “listening prayer” and include prayers for wisdom for leaders. This would be a very appropriate Sunday to pray for +Ross, our new bishop, and his family.

All-age (and children’s) resources for Easter 4: Acts 9:36-43

/ Ian / 1 Comment

A series of puzzles etc on the story of Peter raising Tabitha (not so sure about all the “right answer” stuff). Could help occupy younger people during an adult sermon.

Eeh by gum II: Potted Jam have an amusing “Capernaum St” script for Peter and his wife related to the raising of Tabitha here

Walter Brueggemann provides some pithy material for a sermon or homily in “Blogging towards Sunday”

“Dorcas is the only woman in the NT who is called a disciple“. This fact could provide a springboard for a reflection on, and celebration of the ministry of women in the Anglican church, lay and ordained. Dorcas’ charitable work in sewing could suggest inviting members of the congregation to display their handcrafts.

Marty Haugen’s excellent modern hymn “Gather Us In” which includes the line we shall arise at the sound of our name would be very apt. It is also ideal as a lively opening hymn on any Sunday. It can be found in “Together In Song” (AHB II) number 474. N.B. The accompaniment requires a dextrous pianist/keyboard player. Here is an Australian congregation singing an extract. The text may be read here

“Light for the Lectionary” Free online All-age resources

/ Ian

We’ve already praised Scripture Union’s handy little quarterly booklets for Lectionary-based all-age worship:

“Light for the Lectionary provides a rich toolbox of resources for anyone leading all-age services in churches using the Revised Common (or Common Worship) Lectionary. The weekly service outlines help you explore the Bible passage and include suggestions for prayer, a statement of faith, and games and music ideas. Each quarterly volume covers Sunday services and other special days.

Light for the Lectionary cover

To see how Light for the Lectionary works, visit the Light for the Lectionary taster page.”

But they also have free online resources for Sunday-by-Sunday worship. For example, if you use a digital projector, they have a PowerPoint presentation of photographs illustrating Psalm 23 for Easter 4. (You don’t need to buy PowerPoint – OpenOffice has presentation software in it for free, compatible with PowerPoint).

Have a look at their ideas for the forthcoming Sundays, and download what you’re interested in.


Great clip art legitimately for free: Easter 3 & RCL Sundays

/ Ian

How about this for your bulletin or screen?

Jesus hosts breakfast

Jesus prepares breakfast for his disciples

Cerezo Barredo provides Gospel illustrations for free on this Latin American website. Use the link below to access the Year’s pix. [To save the pic, open it by double-clicking on it, then right-click and select “Save As” to copy it to your computer – make sure you choose a folder that you can find again!)

http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/cerezo/indexCgraf.php

Google Translate will automatically provide English captions etc – this is easy to have in your browser if you use Google Chrome [Google’s free Internet browser] (Recommended).

Sample Dramatised Gospel Reading: Easter 3

/ Ian

You can copy and paste this reading if you want to use it!

Jesus Appears to Seven Disciples

Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. [Simon told the others what he had decided to do]:

‘I am going fishing.’

‘We will go with you.’

They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’

So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter,

‘It is the Lord!’

When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred metres off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.

‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’

So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. [Jesus called out an invitation to the disciples:]

‘Come and have breakfast.’

Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.* Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus spoke to Peter:

‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’

‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’

‘Feed my lambs.’

‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’

‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’

‘Tend my sheep.’

‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’

Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’

‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’

‘Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’

(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) [Jesus gave Peter one more instruction:]

‘Follow me.’

THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST

* If you want to be very creative you can adapt the text to provide a little more dialogue here, such as

“Shall we ask him who he is?”

“No, we daren’t – surely it is the Lord!”

or similar


Incorporating Dramatised Readings is easy to do

/ Ian

Yesterday at a team meeting we were discussing the use of dramatised readings in our liturgies. This is a great way of giving people who are not on the readers’ roster an opportunity to dip their toes into the water, and it adds colour and interest to your services.

It is not necessary to have any rehearsal for such readings, as long as the Narrator has a little preparation. In practical terms, the Narrator can be the person rostered on to do the reading, and then it is his/her responsibility (or the Worship leader’s) to find people to read the other parts (which will often be only one or two).

At our meeting one member mentioned a large tome called “The Dramatised Bible” which was certainly useful in its day. With the advent of free Bible texts online it is now redundant to purchase such a book.

Here is what you need to do (not much!):

  • Look up the relevant passage (usually one with some lively dialogue in it!)
  • Make sure to check the “remove verse numbers” box if that will be helpful (and note the other options here)
  • Use CTRL + a to select all the text, or use your mouse instead (click and drag)
  • Use CTRL + c to copy the text into your computer’s clipboard
  • Open your word processing program. (If you don’t have one, you can register for Google Docs for free, or download the free software package OpenOffice (a big download, but it rivals Microsoft Office for features)
  • Paste the text into a new blank document (CTRL + v) or right-click, select paste
  • Decide whether to print out the text in a larger font. 14 or 15 point is great for reading aloud
  • Now do some judicious editing: Make sure the beginning of the reading makes sense in context – if not, you could write in a few words to provide context. Remove unessential linking phrases like “After these things” and edit out all the “then he said” (and similar) text that you wouldn’t normally read in a script.
  • Make sure that you create enough paragraphs for legibility
  • Now there are some options for indicating who reads what:
  1. Print out the copies you need, and use a highlighter to indicate each person’s lines OR
  2. If you have only a small number of parts, you can select the text for each part and use underlining for one voice and bold for another voice and italics for yet another voice (&c) – leaving the narrator’s part in plain type
  3. If you are using a colour printer, you can use different colours instead or even as well – but check for colour legibility.

Once you get used to this, it is a ten-minute job.

TIP: If you are having problems getting readers of scripture to stop fumbling about in Bibles and reading the wrong bits and including paragraph headings and other crimes of liturgy, providing nice big print lections (readings) can save your remaining sanity and that of the congregation!!!

See the next Posting for an example dramatised reading for Easter 3