Changes Assembly- Abraham

Last week we went into school to do a SEALS assembly about changes based on the story of Abraham being called by God to leave his homeland and journey to a distant land (Genesis 12).

We started with a game...


We got 10 yellow ball pool balls, 5 red and 5 blue  and shared them out as follows into 3 baskets spaced out across the front of the hall:


Left basket: 5 yellow balls, middle basket 5 red and 5 blue balls, right basket 5 yellow balls.


2 volunteers stood by the left hand and right hand baskets.  When I shouted 'go', they had to change their balls one by one until the left basket had 5 red balls and the right basket had 5 blue balls.  The first to change all of their balls was the winner.  All of the children in the hall were cheering on their favourites and from this game we introduced the idea of 'change'.


We then talked about God calling Abraham to leave everything behind to journey to an unknown place (mirroring what would happen after the summer when Y6 move to secondary school).  We invited a child up to the front and gave him a rucksack and a map as if he was going on a journey.  Then we took the map away and gave him a blindfold to wear and led him around following only the direction of my voice.  This was hard because he really had to trust!

We then talked about Abraham having to trust God when everything he knew was changing and how we have people we can trust to help us when things around us are changing.


Next we showed an object lesson which went amazingly well (but only after a bit of practise beforehand to check it worked!).

I found the idea on this blog of object lessons using natural laws.  


I stood about 10 feet away from 'Abraham' and aimed an inflated but untied balloon at him.  When I let go, the balloon went a little bit crazy in the air and then landed behind me.  This is like us when we get stressed about things and don't let others help us.  Next I blew up another balloon (still without tying the end) and sellotaped it to a piece of straw with a long string running through it (see above).  'Abraham' held on to one end of the string and I held the untied balloon/ straw at the other end.  When I let go, the balloon ended up right at its destination (Abraham)!   This shows us how, if we trust God or those around us to help when things are changing and we are worried then, like the string, they will help to keep us on track!


We finished by thinking of the people who help us when things are changing and thanking God for them.