Explore & respond

Adult & All Age

Respond to the Word

Activities for adult and all-age groups

Play a panel game based on Family Fortunes . Have two teams of about four people in each. Ask ‘What will last the longest?’ Team members suggest an item of food which would rank high in a consumer survey as having long-lasting qualities (excluding tinned, bottled or frozen food). If they correctly identify one of those in a pre-prepared list they gain points. If they fail to identify more than three, the opposing team has the chance to complete the list. Answers might include: potatoes, figs, salt, sugar, rice, honey … Hold a second round with the opposite team starting first, using the same question, but using living creatures, and thinking about those that might avoid extinction. Answers might include: ants, bacteria, lichen, human beings, turtles… What are the things that last forever?

Play an endurance game. Invite contestants to hold something heavy, like a large book in each hand, with arms outstretched for as long as they can, or stand on one leg for as long as they can.

Retell the story of Babushka . Use a set of Babushka dolls to show how sometimes you can give away and still keep something. Give each doll to someone until you reach the last and smallest doll; when it is given away there is nothing left.

Play a game of riddles. Examples: What increases the more you share it with others? Joy. What is broken when you name it? Silence. What is it that you must keep after giving it to someone else? Your word.

Drama: Seeing the light

A simple two-actor sketch to illustrate the concept that we have to be willing to give up what we know, in order to grow into the life we are promised in God (John 12.23-26).

CHARACTERS: BUD, a seed, a dreamer; NIP, a seed, a sceptic.

SCRIPT:

The two seeds can start off in dustbins, if the practicalities can be managed. In any case they wear dull blue or grey raincoats and hats. Bud wears a bright colourful jumper underneath and needs a flower bud - fake or real as a prop. Bud's ascent can be mimed or performed using a stepladder.

They are cold and glum.

BUD: [Chin on fist. Rattles next door bin.] Nip? [urgent] Nip?!

NIP: [Starting to emerge exasperated] What now?

BUD: Do you think there's anything up there?

NIP: Up where?

BUD: Up there.

NIP: [incredulous] Above the soil?!

BUD: Yeah.

NIP: [pause, reaching top] Naarrgghh. Load of old compost

BUD: It's so cold and close and dark down here. Sometimes I think there's a whole world up there, waiting to be discovered.

NIP: You been drinking fertiliser?

BUD: There must be more to life than this...

NIP: You have been drinking fertiliser!

BUD: I dream there's someone who planted us in the soil and one day we'll grow and blossom above the earth, with lovely blooms -

NIP: Bloomin' stupid. Wish I had your faith.

BUD: [sad] I just feel down here...

NIP: Name me one person who left their shell and came back.

BUD: I'm slowly...

NIP: Paid a lot of money for this roof.

BUD: Dying...

NIP: A nice drink of water and I'd be completely and utterly happy.

BUD: Drink... [pause] where does water come from?

NIP: Dunno. Ask a worm.

BUD: How do they know?

NIP: Travel about a bit. Pop up in the air and great big flapping things bite their heads off - [realises he's made a mistake]

BUD: So there is an up there!

NIP: [trying to find a way out] Can't believe everything worms tell you...

BUD: I'm going to find out! I'm leaving!

NIP: Taken leave of your senses?

BUD: [pulling out a bud] These must be for something.

NIP: Mark my words, you'll catch it!

BUD: I stay here and die, or I take my chances up there...

NIP: Don't do it! [pause] I'll be lonely.

BUD: I'll tell you what I find. Then you can come too! [feeling change, begins to undo coat to reveal bright colourful jumper] Ooh!... ooh... argh... OOH!... argh... ooh... [the famous football song:] Ere we grow -

NIP: - Ere we grow? -

BUD: - Ere we grow. [breathless] Getting warmer. [starts to remove coat to reveal more of the bright jumper underneath] Push my way through the soil. [rubs eyes] Nasty stones! It's getting brighter! [shouts] Oh, NIP! It's BEAUTIFUL!

NIP: Oh yeah, sure... [feigns disinterest]

BUD: Everything's in colour! Lots of other flowers. NIP, IT'S WONDERFUL!

NIP: [to audience] These new converts, all the same.

BUD: [awe] There's someone up here. Must be the gardener. He's coming over to see me. He's ever so pleased. Now he's looking for you. He's wondering when you're going to come up?

[BUD looks at NIP. Then both raise eyes to imaginary gardener above. Hold. End.]

Author's note:
Over 20 years ago, someone told me a little about a sketch they had seen - the idea and final speech of this sketch. I've never seen that original sketch on stage or published, but it deserves a wider audience. I apologise to the author for adding my own script, and if he or she reads this, do come forward with the original!

Email Robin Chapman, the author of this sketch, with feedback.

Children & Young People

Respond to the Word

Activities for children and young people

For children

Follow my leader

Play ‘follow my leader’ again, with one of the leaders at the front of the line. End up with everyone sitting down together, and the leader turning to everyone and saying, ‘Well done! You followed me very carefully, and went everywhere I went.’ Jesus said in the reading that, if we followed him and served him, God would be very pleased with us. With the older children you might want to ask what it might be like to be ‘honoured’ by God (v. 26).

Seed pictures

Provide a range of colours and sizes of grains and seeds; red and yellow lentils, brown and white rice, dried green peas, and so on. Make patterns or pictures by gluing them on paper. The younger ones will want to do random patterns. Older children could make a mosaic of Jesus speaking to the crowd.

Seed cards

On the outside of a folded piece of A5 card, write ‘Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single seed …’ Stick one apple seed in the middle of the card and decorate around it with dark colours representing the earth.

Inside the card, stick lots and lots of drawn, coloured and cut out apples. Write ‘but if the seed dies, it bears much fruit’, and decorate round the apples with bright, sunny colours.

Sing a song

Learn and sing this song. It works very well in a round, and would be a good offering of worship to bring to the rest of the church. The children might want to march, or do actions as they sing.

Tune Frère Jacques

We will follow, we will follow
God’s own son, God’s own son
Showing him we love him, showing him we love him,
Day by day, day by day.

Dares

Prepare a list of dares — but ones that are safe to do (like singing a note until you run out of breath, patting your head and rubbing your tummy simultaneously, keeping still while someone tickles you, and so on). Each child rolls a die. If they throw a 6 or a 3,it is their turn to do a dare. Choose ones that are appropriate to the age of the child. Younger ones might like to play in pairs and do the dares together. Clap each attempt enthusiastically.

These things are fun. But Jesus was being challenged to do something he was going to find very hard — and he did it. God was really pleased with him.

Questions

Divide the older children into two groups. Give one group a copy of John 12.20-26, and the others, John 12.27-33. Ask each group to go through their verses and write any questions they might have about what Jesus said, and what happened. Then swap readings and questions, and start thinking about possible answers. Discuss both questions and answers together.

For young people

Counting the cost

In John 12.25-26 Jesus talks about the cost and the rewards of discipleship. Give your group a chance to explore these verses and to talk about how they can practically engage in this. What would it mean to lose their life or to follow and serve Christ? Invite the group to undertake an agreed task over a number of weeks. It may seem small and insignificant but so does a grain of wheat. Could you collect money for a special cause, take on a prayer project, make the effort to mend a friendship, decide not to gossip … ?

Honour

In this passage — which seems very bleak — there are glimpses of wonderful hope. What might it mean for us to be honoured by God for serving Jesus? Fame, fortune, or something rather different?

Follow the footsteps

(An ongoing activity from previous weeks.)

Note the words of Jesus in John 12.33, which provide another indication to those who spent time with Jesus as to how he would meet his death. Review notes from previous weeks to see the progression.