Mark 10:13-16- Jesus called the children to Himself.
Resources Needed:
- Counters- enough for every person in the congregation to play
- Snakes and ladders board- 1 per table
- Dice- 1 per table
- A copy of lyrics to an all age song, not just for children- 1 per table e.g. Everything by Tim Hughes
- Pictures of cute children on a slide/ handout
- Pictures of difficult/ crying children on a slide/ handout
God turns the systems that we have upside down. Get the congregation to play snakes and ladders but they must play backwards. The players must start at 100. The ladders are now bad and the snakes bring you closer to the target of 1. Don’t tell them why… yet?
Summary of the Talk
- Talk about the images of the children- children can be seen in different ways.
- Children did not used to be fully valued as human beings- many societies leaving unwanted/ poor/ disabled children to die.
- Jesus came as a child to a poor family- He saw all as created in God’s image.
- Explain that the game was to show that God’s ways are completely different to our ways. Jesus’s teaching about children, faith, God as father is so different to what His listeners had ever heard.
- We need to approach God like little children so He can welcome and bless us. We need to receive the kingdom of God like a little child.
After the talk get each table to come up with actions for the song lyrics on their tables. We used Everything by Tim Hughes. Sing the song and have each table do their different actions to the song. Make sure that your group realises that this is a small way of being the little children that the kingdom of heaven belongs to.