Gathering activities

For children

Ready for a baby

Put together a collection of things that you might need for a baby, such as nappies, wipes, small clothes, a buggy, a car seat. Ask the children what each item is used for, and why it is important. Talk about getting ready for a baby’s arrival: which things do you need to have ready before he or she is born, and which can wait? Put nappies, wipes and toy baby equipment, if you have it, in a corner, along with dolls, for the children to use throughout the session.

(If you can persuade a parent or grandparent to come with their baby and talk to the children, that’s even better!)

Who is it?

Cut up some pictures of famous people or members of your church, and put each cut-up picture into a separate envelope. Invite the children to choose an envelope and put the picture together again. Do they recognise who it is?

Knock, knock…

Ask the children to tell you some of their favourite jokes or stories that have made them laugh. What kinds of thing make them laugh? With the youngest children, practise making silly faces and silly noises.

Can you recognise it?

Make up a tape of everyday sounds, or use a commercial sound-effects tape. Can the children identify them? Don’t make it too easy! Ask the children to think about what skills they use to recognise the sounds.

A grand day

Ask the children to think of the best welcome they could possibly be given. If they go somewhere new and meet new people, what kind of welcome would they like? Make a list of all the things that they would like to happen. Make sure they think about the attitudes and emotions as well as the material welcome.

For young people

Never!

Using a toy or mobile phone, invite members of the group to act out the most surprising and unexpected thing someone could tell them over the phone. What one phrase, if they heard it when they answered their mobile, would change their entire lives?

So important

Invite one person to pretend to be a VIP. Ask the others to come up and, one by one, mime how they would greet this VIP. Give out prizes for the most over-the-top and unexpected greeting they produce!

Imagine

Provide art materials and paper. Give the young people time and space to reflect on the first verses of this passage and produce some art in response to what they read and how they imagine the scene.

Get ready

Divide the young people into groups or pairs and give each some paper and a pen. Explain that you are going to say an event or activity (holding a birthday party or going on holiday), and each group or pair has 30 seconds to write down as many things as they can that they would do to prepare for that event. After 30 seconds, the group with the most things on its list gets a point. Play the game with several activities, finishing with ‘Meeting God’. The winning team is the one with the most points at the end of the game.