Bible heroes and villains series
Gather
Display pictures of local schools, shops, town centre, and so on.
Introduce the theme
Esther found herself in a place she wasn’t expecting, but found an opportunity to serve God.
Gathering game
Divide the group into pairs and give each pair a blindfold. People take turns to be blindfolded and led around the room by their partner. With young children, it might be better for an adult to do the leading.
After everyone’s had a go, talk about how it feels to trust someone else for your safety. Esther trusted God for her safety, even though she was doing something very risky.
Open the Word
The story of how Esther risked her neck to save the Jews is spread over the book of Esther, so it would be easier to read from a story book or a children’s Bible to get the whole story. Use this poetic drama.
Esther took a massive risk. The king could have her killed for daring to speak out of turn, simply being queen wouldn’t save her. But Esther trusted God and her relationship with God is central to the action. Esther put her faith in God and not her position in life.
Respond
A royal event
Make crowns.
You will need: gold card and lots of jewels; feathers to stick on; stapler
Cut out crown shapes from the card and invite the group to create their own crown. Use the jewels and feathers to decorate their creations. Help each child to secure their crown using the stapler.
While they are making their crowns talk about what Esther did. How might she have felt when she went to the king? Why did she go? Would we have been as brave?
Personal call
Create a poster reminder of the different callings to serve.
You will need: a large sheet of paper; ink pads.
Write ‘we can serve God in different ways’ across the paper.
Invite people to press their fingers on the ink pad and then make their fingerprints on the piece of paper.
Spend some time looking at the prints. They are all different. No two fingerprints are ever the same. Esther was called to serve God in a very specific situation, and we will all be called to serve in different ways, we just have to choose to say yes.
End with the closing prayer:
For the times when we have been less than heroic,
Lord we are sorry.
For the times we have not used our hero talents,
Lord we are sorry.
Give us the courage not to hide our potential
but to be generous,
not to dismiss others but to celebrate their gifts.
Encourage us to follow the example of ____ and have a go at being heroes.
Amen.
Session material on Bible heroes:
Session material on Bible heroes:
Material on Bible 'villains'