Moses and the Burning Bush Assembly (New Beginnings)

Yesterday we were in school to do a SEALS assembly about new beginnings.  We decided to use the story of Moses and the burning bush to speak about God giving us new starts...

We began with a game.  Two children came out the the front and each had a minute to build a tower with plastic cups like so:

As expected, each tower fell down several times during the minute and the children had to start again.  This was great fun and led on to our story which was also about starting again.

With more volunteers we acted out the story of Moses and the burning bush, focussing on the fact that Moses had messed up in Egypt and run away but God still had a job for him to do.  He could start again with his people!  We used ribbons on a stick to show the fire, waved about by the child pretending to be the bush.  Very effective, but next time we'll use a shorter stick.  Moses was in danger of losing an eye at one point!

After the story we used an illusion to make the point of the story clear.  I crumbled a dry ryvita into a dove pan to symbolise the times when things go wrong and life seems to be falling apart and then (my favourite part!), using lighter fluid and a match we set fire to the ryvita (fire symbolising God's power), put the lid on the flames and opened the pan again to reveal that the ryvita had been turned into sweets- something new and exciting had happened!  Even the teachers were excited by this part!  The dove pan is well worth its price...

Next we talked about times in our lives when things had gone wrong but we had a chance to start again and shared the verse from Jeremiah 29:11 about God having a plan to give us hope and a good future.  This then led to a little reflection time about where we needed new beginnings in our lives.  We had a great time and can't wait for the next assembly, though I don't think we'll ever top the dove pan illusion!