Teaching Salt and Light

Today we are looking at salt and light in Beacon club and Powersource (Mattthew 5: 13-16). Here are some creative ideas to open up discussion and put the point across...


Being Salt: Salt and shake crisps

This idea came from an Urban Saints Energise lesson plan and it was an amazingly simple and effective illustration.  The only problem is finding salt and shake crisps nowadays (big supermarket needed!)


Open an bag of crisps and let the children taste them plain.  A lot of the children at this point said 'Yuk'!  Then open another packet and do the salt and shake routine.  Get the children to taste them now- much better!  This really put across the point of 'being salt' being about making things better for people somehow and putting some flavour into life.


Being Light: Glow in the dark stones

The object of choice to talk about light seems always to be candles, but it struck me that something glow in the dark was more to the point!  Candles will eventually burn themselves out but glow in the dark objects keep absorbing light and brightening the darkness day after day.  At Powersource tonight we will be painting stones with glow in the dark paint so that the children can have a reminder that if we keep 'absorbing' or getting close to God, we will be able to keep giving out the light that brightens the darkness around us. 


Meditation on the passage using a word cloud

After reading the passage from Matthew we're going to give the children each a copy of the word cloud made from the verses to  look at for a while by themselves.  Then we'll come back together and discuss anything that has struck them, especially which words have 'jumped out' at them as being important and why that might be.  


For a printable version of the word cloud click here.