22/4/12  EASTER 3

Theme: Taking the Christian message to India

Bible Reading

Luke chapter 24 verses 36-48

Preparation

A map of the world which can be marked in some way (pins?)

Introduction

Which countries in the world have you been to? Invites several members of the assembly to come up and stick a pin in to show where they have been that is the farthest away from your school. Have people in your school been to every country in the world? Pick a very distant country at random from the map and see if anyone has heard of it or been there (keep going until you find a place where nobody has been).

The Message

The amazing thing is that whichever country you picked on the map of the world, if you went there you would find that there were Christians in that country. In some countries the number of Christians would be very small indeed, in other countries nearly everyone you asked would say they are a Christian - the Christian church is everywhere!

One of the last things Jesus said to his disciples when he was on earth was "go to every country in the world and preach to the people about repentance and the forgiveness of sins in my name". His followers started in the city of Jerusalem, just like Jesus had told them, but they soon started spreading through the world, to Rome, to Africa, and eventually to England, to India, to everywhere.

Remind the children of the story of Thomas they heard last week. There is a very ancient story that Thomas took the good news about Jesus to India, and there are still Christians in India called the Mar Thoma church who claim to go all the way back to his teaching. These Christians live mainly on the west coast of southern India in the area of Malabar. St Thomas then went eastwards across India to where the huge city of Chennai (Madras) is nowadays and here he was killed by being speared to death on the "Big Hill". He was buried on the hill, and you can still go and climb the hill and visit the church where he was said to have been killed and buried. (map)

It is amazing to think that people were Christians in India, even before there were Christians in England, and that the Indian churches go all the way back to someone who actually talked with Jesus! We are very fortunate in Cambridgeshire because we are linked with the Diocese of Vellore in South India (which is just to the south west of Chennai) and so this gives us a very special link with this story.   Last year we were raising money to rebuild some small schools there- did your school get involved?

There is a lot of information on the Vellore link on this site, including over 200 photographs and further acts of collective worship, if you wish to take this further.

Prayer

Please pray for the Diocese of Vellore in South India, for its bishop, Bishop William as he approaches retirement and a new bishop is chosen, and for the strengthening of links between South India and ourselves.