23/5/2010 Pentecost

Theme: Happy Birthday Church!

Bible Reading

Acts chapter2 verses 1-21

Preparation

Have available whatever you normally have for a pupil birthday (cake, sing a song?), if you don't usually have anything visual you could on this occasion have e.g. party balloons. Have several "party bags" ready to give out - these should contain: a candle; something which requires wind to work such as a toy windmill; several bags with different foreign language dictionaries; a globe or map of the world.

Introduction

Talk together about birthday parties and the kind of things children have received in party bags - guess what might be in your party bags. Invite children to open the party bags in the order listed above and tell them the gifts are a clue as to whose birthday is being celebrated - see if they can guess.

The Message

Here's the story of the first birthday party of........the Church. (Link the contents of the party bags with the story as you tell it.)

It was the festival day of Pentecost. Jesus had been crucified and risen from the dead. Ten days earlier he had gone back to his Father in Heaven. All Jesus' friends and followers were together in one big room. Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of the most enormous wind! The noise and the wind filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue of flame came and settled on each person there.The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever languages the Spirit let them speak.

Many religious Jews from every country in the world were visiting Jerusalem and a crowd of them gathered when they heard all the noise. They were excited and amazed because they could hear that these uneducated followers of Jesus were all talking different languages! "Aren't these people from Galilee?" they said "Then how come they are talking all our languages? Some of us are from Parthia, Medea and Elam, others are from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphilia, parts of Libya near Cyrene, Rome, Crete, and Arabia. Some of us were born Jews and others are visitors to Jerusalem. Yet we all hear them using our own language and telling us about the wonderful things God has done."

This must have been one of the strangest birthday parties ever, but we think of this as the birthday of the Church because this is when the new about Jesus began to spread around the world. Many of those visitors must have told this story when they got home, and many of the followers of Jesus who received the Holy Spirit travelled to tell other people the good news about Jesus. Now whichever country in the world you go to there will be Christians.

Sing Happy Birthday to the Church!

Prayer

Pray for your own local church community and your relationship with them, also for amy other countries/churches with which you have a particular link.