All-age service: Noah

Prayer and worship activity

Option 1

10 mins

During the week before the service, find some news stories. Use the internet or newspapers, both national and local, to find stories that as a community you can pray for. You are looking for stories that deal with bad things: robberies, lost animals, harm to the environment etc. You need to be sensitive to your congregation. Don’t choose anything that might upset or be a little too close to home for some members. Make sure that the stories are age-appropriate.

Get the congregation to walk around and read the stories you have placed around your space. Parents, carers and older members could read the news stories to those who can’t yet read well. Encourage everyone to write prayers in response to the stories on the paper provided and stick them to the stories. It might be worth keeping the stories so you can return to them in the following weeks and continue praying for the situations.

Option 2

10 mins

Say: In the Western world, we have a lot. We might go through difficult times and we may struggle, but we are still comparatively rich. We are going to thank God for our favourite things.

Hand out pens and paper to everyone and ask them to draw pictures of their favourite things. It could be their house, their parents, friends, children, toys, iPhone - it doesn’t matter. In fact, the more trivial the better as it shows how much we actually have!

Ask the congregation to stick their pictures to the boards placed around the church. Then encourage people to stand around them and to thank God for these favourite things, and all we have. Ask the congregation to shout their prayers of praise to God. This isn’t a quiet time, this is a time thanking God from the bottom of our lungs as well as the bottom of our hearts!

Story

10 mins

Say: The story of Noah is one many of us know quite well. Let’s see how well we know it by having a little quiz. I’ll ask some questions and if you know the answer, put your hands up and we’ll see how much we know. (You can have some simple prizes for the correct answers, or a good guess. Try to choose the younger members of the congregation first.)

Questions:

What did Noah build?

An ark

What was God going to do to the world?

Flood it

How old was Noah when the flood came?

600

How many animals went into the ark?

Two of every kind plus seven pairs of every clean animal and seven pairs of every bird (Genesis 7:2)

How long did it rain for?

40 days and 40 nights

Does anyone know what else happens in the Bible for 40 days and 40 nights?

Jesus in the wilderness

What type of birds did Noah send out to search for dry land?

A raven and then a dove

What mountain(s) did the ark come to rest on?

The mountains of Ararat

What sign did God send to Noah to say he wouldn’t flood the world again?

A rainbow

The story of Noah can be quite worrying for us. It is like a Hollywood disaster movie with so much rain that the world is flooded. That’s horrible. We don’t want our nice world destroyed. We don’t want to lose our friends and family like the people in the story. And that’s true and it won’t happen like that to us. The people in the story were bad, very bad. Think of the worst people in the world and then multiply that by ten and then ten again. Then realise that at that time everyone and I mean everyone was like that, evil and wicked. They didn’t care for their friends and family… they didn’t really have friends.

Only Noah was found to be good and to love God. It was because Noah was good that God chose him to be saved and to help make the earth lovely again. If God had done nothing, Noah and his family might have been the last good people ever to live. After Noah there might have been no one who was good anymore… now that would be a disaster. That is why God saved Noah. God saved Noah so the ‘good’ could continue. The ‘good’ could grow through his descendants. It could grow through Abraham, through Moses and eventually through Jesus.

There is a lovely verse in the middle of this story, Genesis 8:1: “God did not forget about Noah”. God remembered Noah, Noah was part of God’s plan. Throughout the Bible we can see God at work. Throughout the history of the Church we can see God at work. And now, through each of our lives, if we love God, God will remember us and we can see God at work in our lives.

Reflective response to the story

Option 1

5 mins

Explain that God is all about sorting things out and making things right. The focus of our story today is about God saving Noah and his family, because they loved God. God saved Noah, just like God saved the Israelites from Pharaoh in Egypt and Jesus loves and saves each one of us.

How is your love for God? We’re going to write a simple to do list to keep with us this week. On a piece of paper write Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and so on, with a space beneath each day of the week to write, “Say: ‘I love you God’” with a small square tickbox next to it.

Encourage everyone that for each day of the week this is something they should do. Once they have said it they can tick it off. Suggest that doing this as soon after they wake up might be best. As today is Sunday (or whatever day you are meeting) have a time of quiet prayer where they can tell God of their love. Once it is done they can check off today.

Option 2

10 mins

Hang a large piece of paper (plain wallpaper would work) and gather some basic paints. Ask members of the congregation to come up and paint a rainbow on the paper. Depending on your time, you might need to paint the rainbow before the service starts.

While they are doing this, ask everyone else to write their name on a piece of card / paper. Once they have done this ask them to stick their names on the rainbow. As they do this, ask them to say thank you that God remembers them, just like God remembered Noah. And that Jesus came to show us how to live and to sort out all the badness that is part of our world.