Respond to the Word

Respond

Random acts (YP 15 mins)

An act of service

You will need: marker pens or paints; paper or card to create signs.

• If you can, watch together the YouTube clip(s) entitled Random Acts of Kindness Signs. These are short videos of people holding up signs in random places (on a bicycle wheel spoke, over a balcony, on a lamp post, etc). The signs encourage attitudes or actions, e.g. Share a smile, Ring your mum, Pay for a stranger’s meal, Show compassion.
• Ask, Do you think these signs change people’s behaviour? How might they help them to grow?
• Invite the young people to discuss and decide on one phrase they would like to pass on to other people, to encourage people to grow in faith.
• Allow time for everyone to prepare signs with their phrase, think about where they will be displayed, and make them an appropriate size.

Tweet

Ongoing activities (C+YP 10 mins)

Two activities that can be ongoing throughout Lent

• With children: Look back at The Faces of Lent activity from 26 February. Repeat this activity for this week’s passage.
• Focus on how Jesus must have been feeling and the emotions of his friends and followers as they listened.
• With young people: The Tweet could be about what Jesus said, but also about the underlying message.

Mime

Meaning (C+YP 20 mins)

Mime and movement to the lyrics of a song

You will need: the music and lyrics of ‘Unless a Grain of Wheat’ by Bernadette Farrell. It is available through a simple online search.

• Play the song to your group.
• Work out together a mime for the chorus of the song. Discuss symbolic and strong gestures to reflect the words (especially if you have older boys in the group – this is mime, not dance!).
• If you have a large group, divide into groups, and give each group a slip of paper with the verse lyrics on. If a smaller group, you may want to work on alternate verses.
• Use the process of working out appropriate movements to explore their meaning and tone.

Make

Popcorn (C 20 mins)

Activity to show how a lot can come from a little

You will need: a bag of microwaveable popcorn; a microwave; two bowls, one small, one large.

• Have a bag of popcorn kernels. Let the children feel the corn inside. Keep a small bowl aside for when the popcorn is ready.
• Let the group get involved in reading the instructions and following them, listening to it popping and the bag growing in the microwave.
• When the popcorn is ready, take the bag out slowly, so they can see how full it is. Open it carefully (mind the steam!) and pour it out. It will soon fill the small bowl, so bring out a larger bowl in which to transfer it all.
• Let the children eat as you talk about how something small can produce great things – a pot of bubble mix, rice, a drop of water and ripples, dough and, of course, seeds. From Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we are part of a massive global family of Christians over 2,000 years later.

Play

Seeds of growth (C 10 mins)

A matching game

You will need: some of the fruit and vegetables from the Gathering activity and their seeds.

• Set out a table with some of the fruit and vegetables down one side and a selection of their seeds down the other. You might place each piece of fruit or vegetable on a numbered sheet of paper, and each seed on a lettered sheet of paper.
• Invite the children to match the seeds with the fruit and vegetables. A larger group could work in teams. You might provide each person or team with a chart with the numbers down one side and they add the letter of the seed they think it matches.