Issue 62
I have just returned from walking where Paul walked or, as this photo shows, jumping where Paul walked. Can you tell I am rather excited to be in Corinth? There was something wonderful about the feel of the stones under my feet. It helped me to put myself in Paul’s shoes. During our summer children’s camp programme, we asked ourselves these questions: - How do we help the children and leaders to step into the shoes of the people in the Bible story? - How do we help them to enter into their thoughts and feelings? - How do we help them to do this without having to jump on a plane?
This issue of the WAY2GO mag will give you the bare bones of the programme we developed, focusing on the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis. I would love you to try some of these ideas for yourself and let us know what happens. We really enjoyed using this approach and want to try it out with other Bible stories!
We began by choosing five people from the story and painting a large version of each. We chose Joseph, Judah, Reuben, Simeon and ‘The Brothers’, and displayed them around the walls.
Spe Th Str Str Sta Each day we read a part of the Joseph story straight from the Bible, and showed the children a clip from the movie ‘Joseph, King of Dreams’. We then divided the children up into five small groups, with a leader per group. Each small group was given one person to focus on, a different person for each day.
He refl
Each small group was given an activity pack to help them to ‘step into the shoes’ of their person. This included a speech bubble, a thinking bubble, two strips of card, one fluoro star, a permanent marker and felt tip pens. They were asked to write or draw their responses as follows.
Speech bubble: Thinking bubble: Strip 1: Strip 2: Star:
What do you think your person is saying? What do you think your person is thinking or feeling? What is one question they might be asking? What is one word you would use to describe your person? What do you think God might say to your person?
Here are some of the thoughts the groups wrote down on the stars, reflecting what God might say:
Even though they were mean, don’t be mean back. Forgive them!
Boys, why are you doing this to Joseph?
I have plans for the whole family. Let me take care of it. You will also get loved. I LOVE YOU!
Each small group fed back their responses to the whole group, before using Blu-Tack to stick the shapes around their person on the wall.
Emoji’s! Each group was then given a set of emoji’s. They loved this bit! They had to decide how their person would react to one of the other characters in the story. For example, what kind of emoji would Joseph use to describe how he felt about his brothers tossing him in a well? An angry emoji! They chose their emoji and used Blu-Tack to stick it onto that character.
As an individual exercise children were given a cardboard person shape to decorate to look like themselves. They were asked to choose which story character they felt the most like and to Blu-Tack their own ‘person shape’ next to that character. Did they feel like Joseph being bullied by his brothers? Did they feel like Judah losing someone he loved?
I loved listening to the discussions over what to write on the star (what might God be saying to the story characters). This captured for me that God is actively involved in the story, and God is actively involved in our lives. God wants to speak to us too, and this is vitally important for our children to understand. How could some of these ideas be incorporated into your church or community programme? If you do give some of these ideas a go, I would love to hear how it went. Email me at annette.o@sunz.org.nz