Download - Tearfund

RENEW
OUR
WORLD
SU
CHILDREN'S TALK
(Suitable for 7-12 year olds, but may be adapted for other age groups).
Each slide comes with accompanying text or related activities to share with the children. All text in
grey is there to provide guidance for the teacher or to suggest additional information.
PROPS NEEDED
GAME TO INTRODUCE ‘RE’ WORDS
• Cards with ‘re’ words on them for the game
Slide 1 Write some of the following words on to reasonably sized
cards (choose words that children will understand depending on
the ages in your group): rebuild, repair, rewrite, remove, retell,
repay, refresh, rewind, reheat, repeat, refill, relight, recharge,
reuse, revisit, renew, react, replay, reflect, return, remember,
recycle, reverse.
• Solar lights or wind up torches
• Ability to show the Renew Our World film and
the PowerPoint which you can download on our
resources page (www.tearfund.org/action)
• Letter to the government - there are a number
of different ways to do this - see letter activity
section.
Volunteers in the group are given one of these words on a card and
have to describe the word without using the word itself. They can
also use actions. The group has to guess the word. When they’ve
guessed, stick the word up in front of the children. Repeat this a
number of times, depending on how much time you have.
Ask: What is the similarity? Hopefully children will point out
that all the words start with ‘re’.
Does anyone know what the ‘re’ at the beginning of each
word means?
100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE
T 020 8977 9144 E [email protected] www.tearfund.org/action
Registered Charity No. 265464 (England & Wales) Registered Charity No. SC037624 (Scotland) 31737-(0217)
twitter @TearfundAct
CHILDREN'S TALK
Slide 2
Explain that ‘re’ is a prefix. Children might have learnt about this
in school The prefix ‘re’ means again and again, or back to.
Ask children to listen, during the next two slides, for any time they
hear a 're' word. When they do, they should put their hand up (if
you think this action will detract then you can leave this out, but
it might be a good way for you to stop at these points to explain
any words that the children might need help with).
God uses quite a few ‘re’ words in the Bible because he is very
patient with us and is willing to help us do things over and over
again, repeating the lessons lovingly until we understand.
The Bible is the story of God’s dealings with human beings. Right
at the start of the Bible is the story of how God created a beautiful
world, which he wanted to enjoy with us, where everyone could
have what they needed to live well.
Slide 3
People were meant to be in good relationships: with God, with
themselves, with other humans and with creation. However, very
quickly people rejected God’s ways and messed things up and
walked away from God. The beautiful world became broken.
God longs for us to return to him. The Bible tells the story of what
God is doing to restore and rebuild relationships with us. He wants
to renew the earth where we have damaged it with selfish actions.
Slide 4
There is a special word for mending relationships, it’s reconcile.
It’s a bit of an unusual word, not used in everyday English, but it’s
really important and precious - Jesus came to reconcile us to God,
to mend the broken relationship between each of us and God.
Then, as we are following Jesus and growing more like him, we
can also be reconcilers of other broken relationships. The church,
as God’s people, is also called to help restore, rebuild and renew
relationships that are damaged.
Slide 5
If you have time you could tell the children this example of a
church that is helping restore/reconcile relationships to reflect
God’s intended design.
Salem Baptist Church in South Wales is a great example of God’s
people acting to be reconcilers and menders of relationships.
The church congregation felt that God was asking them to bless
people in their community using food. At the same time, staff
at a local supermarket were looking for a charity to partner with
so they could pass on food that would otherwise be wasted.
Members of Salem Baptist Church contacted the supermarket
and are now given food each week to share with people in need
in the community. Church members have set up a lunch club for
people to come together and eat, as well as sharing food with
families through parent and baby groups, the youth group and the
local school. Meanwhile, a church cookbook is raising money for
community projects, whilst church members are looking at ways
to set up a cookery club for local people. Through their activities,
members of the church have built excellent relationships with
staff at the supermarket who helped paint the church kitchen and
raised money to give the church a freezer. So many relationships
strengthened, mended and grown through one church. (The story
is here, for background reading).
Ask: What does your church do that restores, rebuilds or renews
relationships? (Expand the sentence to explain, as necessary,
for the age of children you have. Suggest that this could include
anything your church is doing to reach out to the community, help
those living in poverty, or care for the environment. You can also
talk about how Sunday meetings are helping us to deepen our
relationship with God).
Watch the Renew Our World film with the children.
These verses put it more succinctly:
'This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a
new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of
this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through
Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to
him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no
longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this
wonderful message of reconciliation.'
(2 Corinthians 5:17-19, NLT)
RENEW OUR WORLD FILM
SUP
100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE
T 020 8977 9144 E [email protected] www.tearfund.org/action
Registered Charity No. 265464 (England & Wales) Registered Charity No. SC037624 (Scotland) 31737-(0217)
CHILDREN'S TALK
Slide 6
In this film the presenters describe some of the ways the world
is broken. They show us that some people don’t have enough to
live well, like Sylvia and her family. They also explain a bit about
climate change and the ways that the earth has been damaged by
our actions. You may have learnt about this in school. (If you have
time you can ask the children to give some input here).
But there are ways we can renew our world. And God wants us to
be part of renewing and rebuilding things that have been damaged
or that are not as God wants them to be. Using clean energy
that doesn’t pollute the earth, also known as renewable energy
(another ‘re’ word) is a way to renew our world and beat climate
change. (If you have any solar lights or wind up torches, you could
bring these in to show the children).
Ask: What things would you not be able to do or use?
Get children to shout out answers - hopefully they’ll come up
with no computer, TV, vacuum cleaner etc. Also prompt children
about not being able to do much after sundown in terms of
reading/studying, no fridge or freezer to keep things fresh –
this is especially important for medicines – not being able to
charge a phone.
It doesn’t seem fair that some people around the world have so
little when we have so much, which is why God calls his church to
act to make the world fairer.
Tearfund works around the world with the church to help
people living in poverty. It wants the world to be restored to
God’s original design, where everyone has enough. Your church
may already be part of this (refer back to previous conversation if
appropriate). Tearfund is campaigning to help people like Sylvia
get renewable energy in their community. One in six people do not
have access to electricity. (Illustrate how many people that would
be in your group or church family. You could get one in six of the
people in the room to stand up, or get the children into groups of
six and get one child in every group to stand up).
It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to never have electricity,
but try now...
SUP
100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE
T 020 8977 9144 E [email protected] www.tearfund.org/action
Registered Charity No. 265464 (England & Wales) Registered Charity No. SC037624 (Scotland) 31737-(0217)
CHILDREN'S TALK
ACTIVITY - WRITING A LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT
Slide 7
We’re going to join Tearfund’s Renew Our World campaign by
writing a letter to the government to ask them to help people
like Sylvia get renewable energy in their communities. Writing
this letter is a part of following Jesus and being reconcilers like he
was. We are going to speak up for people, to help reconcile broken
relationships.
Depending on the age of your children and the size of your group,
you may wish to have one big letter already written that the
children sign and decorate (maybe with items linked to renewable
energy like the sun, wind turbines etc, or with items that use
electricity). Alternatively, you could make a card with text inside
that the children decorate. If you have a big group you could
give each child a smaller piece of paper in a speech bubble shape
(roughly 10cm x 15cm) which they could decorate with pictures
and a message, plus their name. These speech bubbles could then
all be stuck to the card or letter. If your children are older they
could write their own cards/letters and you could enclose a typed
covering letter to go with them.
This is a suggested text for the letter, but please do alter it
accordingly.
Dear Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International
Development
We are xxx group from xxx Church in xx town. We’ve been finding
out from Tearfund how hard life is for a family in Malawi who
are affected by climate change. Sylvia and her four children are
struggling to grow enough food because the changing climate is
making the weather erratic.
We’ve been thinking about what we can do to beat climate change.
(Put in details if you are already doing things like recycling,
switched energy provider to renewable electricity etc).
We also found out that one in six people around the world don’t
have electricity. We are concerned for those people, especially
children who cannot do homework in the evenings or do not have
access to medicine that has been stored safely in fridges.
Now that solar panels and batteries are cheap enough to put up
in the remotest places, ours could be the first generation where
everyone has electricity. And that would be even better if it was
renewable energy that doesn’t increase climate change.
We’re glad our government is helping provide energy access
for people living in poverty, thank you for DFID’s work on this.
We’d like to see the UK prioritise support for renewable energy,
like solar, bringing clean power to people in poverty in rural
communities rather than polluting energy that is adding to the
problem of climate change. This would also help keep our great
promise in the Paris Agreement.
If we want to beat poverty we need to tackle climate change.
Yours sincerely,
The letter will need to be posted back to Tearfund (Advocacy
Team, 100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE) so that we can
add it to letters from other churches, and we’ll deliver them all in
person to the Department for International Development.
SUP
100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE
T 020 8977 9144 E [email protected] www.tearfund.org/action
Registered Charity No. 265464 (England & Wales) Registered Charity No. SC037624 (Scotland) 31737-(0217)
CHILDREN'S TALK
WRAP UP
SOME EXTRA GAMES FOR A LONGER SESSION
End with a discussion on the fact that there are plenty of other
ways we can renew our climate change affected world...recycle,
use less carbon by walking/cycling, eat less meat, get our
electricity from a 100 per cent renewable provider (some children
may know where there are solar panels or wind turbines nearby),
share our things, use the library rather than buying new books etc.
You might want to make a list, and let children put a dot or a tick
on the actions they already do or would like to do.
In the dark
If you have a long enough session you might want to include a
game that involves it being dark. For example if you have some
plastic skittles and a lightweight ball, you could set them up and
then switch the lights off, giving each child a chance to bowl.
Show them how much harder it is to hit the target without the
lights on. Alternatively, do a treasure hunt in the dark to make the
same point. Use counters/coins or some other item that you have
plenty of. Hide them around the room. Switch the light off and let
the children come in and find the treasure. Obviously you’ll need
some faint light for safety reasons, and will need to decide what
works for your children (make sure they don’t run, bump heads
etc). Stress that although they might have had fun trying to do
these tasks in the dark, it wouldn’t be much fun if they didn’t have
light at home when they wanted to play or get things done.
Every time we do something to make the world a fairer place we
are mending relationships and being part of renewing the world.
PRAY
Slide 8
Thank God that he is working through his Spirit and through the
church to renew the world. Please pray for Sylvia and families like
hers, that they would be able to flourish. Pray also for your church
and each other, and for the actions you are already taking to mend
our broken world. And pray for our government as they make
decisions which can help tackle problems like climate change.
The Renew Our World campaign is an international campaign and
this is a prayer from Australia:
Dear Lord,
Renew our spirits and cleanse our hearts
Renew our minds and transform our lives
Renew our cities and rebuild our ruins
Renew our world, in your name we pray,
Amen.
They could also do the treasure hunt with torches to show how
useful torches/lights are.
Word game
Get into teams of two or three people. How many words can each
team think of that begin with re? Give them a few minutes to
write down as many words as they can. Go around the teams with
each shouting out one word that hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Thank you so much for using our Renew Our World materials
with your young people. We’d love to hear how the session went
([email protected]) and to know if there are any other
ways we can support your church in the joyful calling of renewing
and reconciling.
SUP
100 Church Road, Teddington TW11 8QE
T 020 8977 9144 E [email protected] www.tearfund.org/action
Registered Charity No. 265464 (England & Wales) Registered Charity No. SC037624 (Scotland) 31737-(0217)