Top Tree Praise
Aim: to praise God for the beauty of autumn
Autumn brings surprising beauty in the form of colourful trees. Their seasonal leaves are a way to remind us of the wonder of God’s creation.
Set your group the challenge of looking out for beautiful trees. When they find one that they like, encourage them to praise God for creating it. You could have a competition to find this autumn’s ‘top tree’ – the most beautiful tree (in their opinion, of course)!
Encourage the children to take photographs of trees they find and bring them in to compare. If your group are old enough, you could upload them to a group page on suitable site such as Flickr or Facebook. When you’ve collected enough photos, let everyone say which they think is the top tree and why. Take a vote on which is the most beautiful.
Notes for adaption
For an all-age service: Ask a few people to take photographs of beautiful autumn trees in the local area. This works particularly well if you can take photos of trees that people might recognise, such as outside the church, station or local schools. Use them to create a Powerpoint presentation and ask people to chat in small groups about which one they think God made most beautiful. Then vote on this. Challenge people to look out for and praise God for the beauty in the world around them.
Sorry Bread
Aim: to let go of things that hold us back
At Jewish New Year, it is traditional to throw bread into a stream to represent repentance, or letting go of the things which hold us back. This comes from Micah 7: ‘You will be merciful to us once again. You will trample our sins underfoot and send them to the bottom of the sea!’ Invite everyone to tear off chunks of bread and to drop them into a bucket of water. With each one they should think of something they want to say sorry to God for, or something hard or difficult they want to let go of.
Notes for adaption
For families: You could do this in a stream or the sea to make it more fun and authentic.
For an all-age service: Have multiple piles of bread and buckets of water. Encourage people to work in circles around them rather than queue up!
Harvest Food Thanks
Aim: to thank God for food
Make a diagram to track the process of creating your favourite food, eg growing, shipping, processing, packaging etc. Thank God for each element of the process that brings you the food you love. You could choose one food and make one diagram between you, or make one each of your individual favourite food.
You could create some symbols in advance for people to use to represent various processes, e.g. a factory symbol or a tractor symbol. Use a symbols font or Google images for this.
Notes for adaption
For young children: Pre-select a food yourself, such as a biscuit. Before your session, create a simple diagram to track the process of creating biscuits. Bring along a packet of biscuits to the session, and talk through the production process with children, using your diagram. At the end, as the children eat their biscuits, pray prayers of thanks for foods that you love, and for people who help to produce them, such as farmers or chefs.
