Adult & All Age
Ideas to suit different interests, ages and learning preferences.
The Children’s Sheet offers activities to do in worship & at home.
A harvest of joy
Invite people to write or draw on slips of paper the things that make them joyful. Gather these in baskets like a ‘harvest of joy’ then share your own ‘shouts of joy’. If you have a variety of languages among the congregation, find out about joyful expressions from around the world. For example, ‘Jai Ho!’ is a joyful shout from India.
Restoration dreams
Play at being the ‘secret millionaire’. In small groups, discuss things that you would like to see restored if you had a lot of money: ‘If I were the Secret Millionaire, I would...’ Then think about the things that you might genuinely try to restore: ‘I would love to restore...’
Dance for joy
The focus on joy in this psalm might prompt us to find out about the way Jewish communities sometimes express their joy. Follow the hyperlinks in the Further Resources section to YouTube clips of Jewish dance.
Words of joy from around the world
Ask children to repeat after you some shouts of joy from around the world, shouting them as loudly as they can:
Hallelujah! (Israel)
Slava bogu! (Russia)
Buíochas le Dia! (Gaelic)
Puji Tuhan! (Indonesia)
Sifa Kwa Mungu (Swahili)
Pris Herren! (Denmark)
If you have members of your church who have lived in other countries, invite them to come and share with the group how God is praised in that language/culture.
Encourage the children to try to find out other shouts of joy this week.
A simple worship activity suitable for all ages
Sing the song ‘Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, halleluia, praise ye the Lord’ (see Hymns and songs for sources) This is often enlivened by standing up and sitting down. Divide the congregation into two groups (male/female, left/right, etc.). Group 1 stands and sing the ‘Hallelus’ then sits while groups 2 stands and sings ‘praise ye the Lord’. It becomes great fun if you get faster and faster once you have tried it out.
While some of the psalms we have seen over the past weeks have been very personal, today we have a song of a group of people who have been through hardship together, and have come through, hence their song of joy. What do the communities we belong to have to sing about? Some of the suggested settings are positively rumbustious – what do we receive from God that we want to raise the roof about?
Singing together
How to use the psalms in worship.
Response line: The Lord has done great things for us [and we are glad].
The Lord Two index fingers point upwards.
has done Left hand index and middle finger stick out, right hand index and middle finger make ‘sawing’ motion across them.
great things Both thumbs up.
for us Hands touching at index fingertips; move away in two horizontal circles and return to touching position.
[and we are glad]. Fingers trace shape of smile on mouth.
Versions of Psalm 126 include: a bluesy responsorial version by Alan Smith in PS1 that worship groups might like to discover; another by Graham Kendrick (GK, TS1); others in PRA, MCW1.
Children & Young People
A range of activities for Children (C) and Young People (YP) based on Psalm 126
Play
Wildest dreams (C+YP 10 mins)
A memory game to get thinking about dreams
- Sit the group in a circle and ask them to think for a moment of something exciting that they could only dream might happen. Encourage them to use their imagination and not to worry about how realistic it might be, but tell them they have to be able to describe it using just a few words.
- Choose a volunteer to start. They will say, ‘In my wildest dreams...’ and describe their dream in three or four words only. (For example, ‘In my wildest dreams I fly to the moon.’)
- Going clockwise, the next child says, ‘In my wildest dreams...’ then describes their own dream followed by the first dream. (For example, ‘In my wildest dreams I swim with dolphins and fly to the moon.’)
- Each child has to list their own dream followed by every previous dream, until the last child in the circle has to list everyone’s dreams.
- Explain that the psalm says that, when God brought his people back to Jerusalem, they were so happy it seemed as if their wildest dreams had come true.
Shout
Hallelujah! (C 5 mins)
Shouts of joy from around the world
Ask children to repeat after you some shouts of joy from around the world, shouting them as loudly as they can:
Hallelujah! (Israel)
Slava bogu! (Russia)
Buíochas le Dia! (Gaelic)
Puji Tuhan! (Indonesia)
Sifa Kwa Mungu (Swahili)
Pris Herren! (Denmark)
If you have members of your church who have lived in other countries, invite them to come and share with the group how God is praised in that language/culture.
Encourage the children to try to find out other shouts of joy this week.
Respond
What can you do? (YP)
A practical shout of joy
You will need: information about aid agencies, or those listed below; internet access.
- People still get caught up a long way from home, frightened in a strange land.
- Find out about the work of church and other agencies to support refugees and asylum seekers, the homeless or the runaway, in this country.
- Discover a practical thing you might do to celebrate their work and raise their prole in your community. While this is about becoming more aware, it is also celebrating God at work through the agencies and actions of God’s people.
Write
Rap for joy (C+YP 15 mins)
A chance to respond to the good things God has done
You will need: pencils and paper.
- Ask the group to share ideas about what God has done that make us want to shout for joy.
- Tell them that the psalm says the people were lled with ‘shouts of joy’ or ‘happy songs’, and that they are going to turn their ideas into a rap.
- Encourage them to think of a beat for their rap to go to – read out and tap along to ‘a-one and a-two and a-three and a-four’ as an example.
- People might work in twos or threes to write a ‘rap for joy’, including some of their ideas. A rap can rhyme but doesn’t have to.
- If they feel comfortable doing so, you could ask them to perform their rap to the rest of the group.
Make
Great things collage (C 10 mins)
Describing the great things God has done in the world
You will need: coloured paper; pencils; scissors; glue; glitter; sequins.
- Ask the children to think of things that God has done that makes them feel happy, and choose one of these things to make a collage of it using the materials provided.
- Encourage them to create as bright, colourful and joyful a collage as they can.
Make
Noise (C 10 mins)
Make shakers to create a joyful noise
You will need: yoghurt pots; dried beans or peas; strong tape; paper; colouring pens or paint.
You may have made shakers from the activity on 7 October. If so, use them again creating shouts of joy. If not, you could make them now.
- Ask the children to come up with their own ‘shout of joy’, something they want to praise God for, and write it on their shaker. Remind them about how people celebrate when someone scores a goal at a football match. Can they be just as exuberant?
- Play or sing a song of praise and invite the children to make as much joyful noise as you can bear!
Pray
Arrow prayers (C+YP 5 mins)
A quick prayer
- Explain to the group that, over the last four weeks, we have been looking at different prayers in the psalms, but that prayers don’t have to be formal, structured and planned.
- An arrow prayer is a very short prayer of only three or four words that we can fire up to God quickly, just like an arrow red from a bow. Arrow prayers can be said out loud or in our heads.
- Ask the youngsters to think of some arrow prayers to go with verses 1-3 of today’s psalm. These are arrow prayers that shout to God with joy.
- Finally, ask them to think of some arrow prayers to go with verse 4 of today’s psalm. These prayers ask for God’s help.