Gather

Adult & All Age

Prepare the space: Dead or alive

Ideas for a focal point with adults and all ages

Display the following items:

a pot plant (the larger the better) which is desperate for water and is shrivelling up
some withered carrots or potatoes
an egg cracked on a saucer some days ago and drying up
a meat bone

Beside these items, display a quotation from today’s reading from Ezekiel: ‘I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.’ (Ezekiel 37.14)

Prepare the space: Are we our bodies?

Ideas for a focal point with adult and all ages

Display four or five pictures of Jesus as portrayed through the ages, contrasting images of an ethereal ‘spiritual’ being with the earthy physical man. Beside these write the words: ‘Which is the real Jesus?’

A gathering prayer of praise and thanksgiving

We thank you, Lord Jesus

For loving the world so much that you came to live on earth,
thank you Lord.
We thank you, Lord Jesus.
For loving people so much that you wept when your dear friend died,
thank you Lord.
We thank you, Lord Jesus.
For loving me so much that you hold me in your hand and call my name,
thank you Lord.
We thank you, Lord Jesus.
Lead us on to love your world, to love each other and to love ourselves,
to your glory, and praise.
Amen.

Children & Young People

Prepare the space

Ideas for a focal point with children and young people

For children

Collect some natural objects like stones, seeds, twigs, leaves, buds, soil, flower heads, an egg, shells and so on. Leave these in a jumble, to be sorted later in Order in Gathering activities .

Wrap up some small gifts or objects with many layers of paper. Arrange these within a cave shape made from tables or chairs draped with cloth. These will be used in 'What's inside?' in Gathering activities

Arrange a collection of lengths of different coloured fabrics to depict the themes of the story. Include a dark fabric, brown, gold, white, green, red and blue. To use in 'Your colour' in Gathering activities .

Contact your local Cruse bereavement counselling centre or children’s library to display a selection of books about death.

If you have a churchyard with tombstones then arrange to go to the churchyard.

Prepare or buy some funeral wreaths. Also buy a selection of deepest sympathy cards. Copy out some prayers from the funeral service from your tradition. Arrange these on an appropriate piece of material.

If you are building up the Journey map through Lent, display it for all to see.

Display a range of pictures or icons depicting this story (see Further resources ).

For young people

Display headings for four lists: Makes me happy; makes me sad; I look forward to; I dread. Invite the young people to write or draw something appropriate on each of the lists.

Play quiet classical music to create a peaceful atmosphere and make sure the room is comfortable. Display copies of poems such as ‘Death is nothing at all’ by Henry Scott Holland and ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep’.

Set out some purple, black, yellow and white fabric or ribbon. Drape it over a table with the white and yellow over the purple and black.

Gathering activities

Activities to gather children and young people

For children

Order

Using the collection of natural objects decide together whether they are alive or dead. Begin to bring some order into the jumble. You could make an arrangement on a small table with different coloured cloths to show the difference.

What’s inside?

Unwrap the gifts from Prepare the space , talking together about what might be inside. What does it feel like eventually to remove the final wrapping?

Your colour

Invite the children to look at the collection of fabrics. Ask them to share their reactions to the colours and consider what emotion might be linked to each colour. Suggest that today these colours are a length of dark fabric for the cave, brown for the earth, gold for the divine resurrected life of Jesus, white for the wrapping around Lazarus, green for our humanity, red for the passion of the sisters and blue for the tears and weeping.

In the picture

Look at the collection of pictures of the ‘Raising of Lazarus’. What can you see? What catches the eye? What is the same in each picture? What is different? Two useful questions that seem to unlock a lot of discussion when using pictures like this are: I wonder who you think is in this picture? I wonder what you think is happening here?

Journey map

If you are using the Lent journey map review the previous weeks and then look ahead to where the path will end up. The path leads to Easter and the new life of Christ. Prepare signposts pointing to the end of the journey.

For young people

How can I help?

Suggest situations such as ‘someone has broken their arm’ and then ask the question ‘How can I help?’

Being human

Invite each person in turn to name a characteristic that is unique to humans — ‘I am human because…’. Others can challenge if they can think of any other creature that shares this characteristic.

The last time I saw someone cry

Invite each person in turn to describe the last time that they saw someone cry. It can be in real life or on tv or film.

Fear

Invite the young people to think about the things in their life that make them happy, sad, apprehensive or excited. Invite them to share these things with one other person in the group. Invite those who so wish to share with the whole group. They may well discover that others share their fears and concerns. One of the things that may come up is the fear of death — or of the death of someone they love. Allow time for them to discuss this and support each other.

Don’t leave the conversation here but take it further with the rest of the session.

Being human

Take the exercise from the magazine further. Ask the group to identify the things which mark humans out as distinct from the rest of creation.