Prayer and worship activity
Option 1
5 minutes
Before the session, create a slide show of some incredible images of the natural world. It’s easy to find copyright-free pictures by searching the internet - desktop wallpapers often work really well. Set up your presentation to transition from slide to slide on a timer and loop it. Either add music to the presentation itself or play something as it shows. Something instrumental would work well or ‘Praise to the Lord, the almighty’ from Passion: hymns ancient and modern. You can either have the music and slides rolling as people arrive or roll them for people to engage with after the welcome. Pray, thanking God for the amazing world he’s created.
Option 2
5 minutes
As people arrive, have art materials set up for them to draw their favourite part of the creation story. Have Bibles available too, opened at Genesis chapter 1. Have someone collating all the pictures onto your display board – if you can get them put up chronologically (according to which day of creation they were part of), so much the better! The size of space you have to put the pictures up will inform the size of paper to give to each person! As you open the service, draw attention to your wall of creation and thank God for all he’s made.
Story
15 minutes
For this activity, everyone will need access to Genesis 1:1-2:4, either in a Bible, on a print out or displayed on screen. Ask everyone to gather into smaller groups (ensure all the groups have a mixture of ages) and come up with an action to signify what happened on each day of creation. They can be as creative as they’d like! If you feel it would be simpler, you could put up a slide with the bullet points of what was created on which day.
After five minutes, ask someone to read through the whole passage. As they do, encourage everyone to do their actions for each day. Draw attention to the fact that God looks at what he’s made and declares it to be good.
Now give everyone (or each group) a piece of air-drying clay. Ask everyone to make a person. After five minutes, say that you’re all going to breathe life into your people. Have everyone try… Why isn’t it working? Because only God can give life! Explain that Genesis 2 describes God creating a man out of the earth and then breathing life into him. Read out Genesis 2:7. Say: back in Genesis 1, when he looked at human beings, he didn’t just say it was good, he said it was very good! We look at the splendour of creation and are amazed but God sees us as the pinnacle or high point of his creation, with a special part to play. We are designed to look after all that has been created and to have a special friendship with God as we do that.
Reflective response to the story
Option 1
10 minutes
Use the clay figures that have been made to talk about all the things that God designed people to do and be. Go back into your groups again and chat about those things. Together come up with a pose for their figure to show one of those different actions. They may find it helpful to look at the rest of chapter two to see what God’s instructions were. Ask the groups to bring the figures to the front and explain the pose they have chosen, and why. Comment about the vast range of things we were made to do.
Option 2
10 minutes
Introduce the congregation to the ancient idea of breath prayer. As you breathe in, you think about a name of God, as you breathe out you consider what that means for your relationship with him. A good prayer for this service would be: Creator God (on the in breath), thank you for making me ‘me’ (on the out breath). Spend a few minutes in quiet as people breathe in and out on this prayer. You can guide them through it the first few times and then leave some silence for them to continue. Encourage people to use this prayer practice during the week.
Group discussion questions
10 minutes
Split into mixed-age groups and discuss these questions, making sure people of all ages have the chance to respond:
- What do you find most incredible about creation?
- What’s the most amazing natural phenomenon that you have seen?
- Are you challenged to think about your own role in looking after the world?
- What do you think about the fact that the thing God was most pleased about in creation was people (that includes you)?
- How can we enjoy all that God has made - including ourselves?
- On the seventh day, God rested, not because he was tired but because he was satisfied with his work. What does that tell us about rest?
