Aim: to celebrate God-given differences between people, and to make
racism look ridiculous
Materials: six small chocolate bars, OHP acetates: 1. Are Jesus one all you in.
2. You are all one in Jesus.
1. Ask the children: Can you tell me something about yourself that is different from everybody else in the world? Elicit: hair, nose, fingerprint, family, voice, history, shape. Say the amazing thing about the world is that God made everyone different - and he loves that. But sometimes we can do silly things to each other because we are different from each other.
2.
Pick six volunteers (three with one particular physical attribute that
they share with you, e.g. hair colour, colour of clothes, eye colour, and three
with another - but don't tell the children)
Say you are going to play a game.
You are going to ask each child three questions, and after the questions
some will receive chocolate and some won't.
The pupils will have to guess why you have chosen the winners.
Ask your volunteers three questions
they can all easily answer e.g. Who is your headteacher? What town are we in?
What day is it tomorrow? Give the
chocolate to the pupils who share the same physical characteristic as you after
they have answered without explanation.
N.B. Do not use sex or race to
decide your categories. If you have a
multi-ethnic audience, try to ensure that pupils of different races can be on
the winning side.
3.
Ask everyone why they think the pupils won. Reveal why you gave them the chocolate e.g. "Because they have green eyes, and I
have green eyes too." Ask if this
is fair.
Point out that it is ridiculous to
treat people unfairly because they look different or sound different, but
sometimes this happens. Give out
chocolate to the three pupils who lost.
Say that Christians believe Jesus wants us to treat everyone with love
and respect however they differ from us.
4.
Put up the OHP. (Are Jesus one
all you in). Ask them to work out what
it says. Put up correct OHP. God loves the fact that we are different,
but because he loves us all equally, he wants us to love each other - even the
people who are different from us.
5.
Pray:
Thank you that you made us
different from everyone else. Help us
to love the differences in other people.
Amen.
Song: the ink is black