Gathering activities
Activities to gather children and young people
For children
Come to me
Play this very simply with the youngest children. Call out abilities or items, as below, and anyone who has or does those things runs to you. Older children can be in teams, and only send one team member up each time. The first person to arrive gets a point for their team. Items could include things like:
- has a brother and a sister,
- is in a swimming club,
- has green socks on,
- ate toast for breakfast,
- can play the recorder,
- likes to read,
- has brown eyes.
In today’s story, Jesus calls someone to come to him.
Family moments
In groups, role-play the ways that families and friends care for each other. Give each group a scenario — happy or sad — to practise then perform. Ideas could include:
- One person has just passed a driving test or exam.
- One member is ill in hospital.
- There is a new baby in the family.
- One person is worried about going to a new school.
Today’s story is about a very small family who are very sad when one of them dies.
Place race
Label five different places in the room — as far apart as possible — as follows: ‘Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ house,’ ‘Judea,’ ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Bethany’ and ‘River Jordan’ . Explain that today’s story has all these places in. Call out the names, for the children to run to the right place. Add more challenging instructions such as, ‘hop to Judea’, ‘walk backwards to Jerusalem,’ and so on.
Trusting without seeing
Explore with older children the way that we trust many things we cannot see. Do the following actions and discuss how they demonstrate this.
For young people
Lazarus race
Lighten the atmosphere! Divide into teams of four — giving each team several cheap toilet rolls. The teams race against the clock to completely bandage one person so nothing can be seen of them except their nose. They should still just be able to walk!
Creepy places
Have the young people ever been potholing or caving? Have they ever visited a church crypt or graveyard at night? Were they frightened? How did it feel? Can they imagine such places before electric light and tourism? Today’s story is about sisters visiting their brother’s cave-like tomb, not pleasant at all.