‘God Colours’ series - Week 5

The Golden Rule

For Leaders:

The Golden Rule - ‘ In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you…’ Matthew 7 verse 12 [NRSV]

The Golden Rule is a great way to finish this series. On this final week we use two of Jesus’ parables to demonstrate to the kids how we should always treat other people in the same way as we ourselves would want to be treated. In the lead-in drama we’ll look at a modern and funny take, on the parable of ‘The Unforgiving Servant’ who was treated amazingly by his boss but treated his fellow worker in the completely opposite manner. Later in the Bible chat time ‘The ‘Good Samaritan’ parable rounds up in demonstrating how we can use our imagination to put ourselves in the position of someone in trouble, considering how we would want people to help us in a time of need. The parable of the unforgiving servant, as found in Matthew 18 verses 23 - 35

There is a set of PowerPoint slides for week 5 to accompany the series intro, lead-in session drama and this week’s teaching material.
PowerPoint, Leaders’ notes and other items downloadable from the bottom of this webpage.

SLIDE 1 – ‘God Colours’ series theme slide
This slide includes our previous four ‘God Colours’ You might like to ask the children what they can remember about last week’s ‘Good Words’ theme.

PART 1 - LEAD-IN SESSION Drama

So kids we’re in our series ‘God Colours’. God has filled the world with colour, the sky, the land, the plants, people, the rivers and sea. But not just with colours like green, red, yellow, blue but with special colours, colours that make a huge difference in the world, colours of goodness, kindness, love and many other things. God is totally artistic and creative and He wants us to help Him shine out His special colours in the world.
SLIDE 2 - This week in God Colours we are looking at ‘The Golden Rule’ - which is “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Let’s take a look at this drama and see if the Golden Rule is in action

Parts and props:

Parts:
* The unfair worker - Freddie / Fred
* The boss - Mr / Mrs Squires
* The unfairly treated worker - Billie / Bill
* Third worker Jane / Jim - who reports Freddie to the boss
* Fourth worker - Tom / Tommy - who is PA to Mr/Mrs Squires
* Fifth worker Peter / Petra (puppet) Puppet to somehow be able to pass over the roll of company accounts
Props:
* Table and chair for the boss to sit at facing the audience on RHS stage, plus an extra chair for visitors to S’s office
* Table and chair for Tommy the PA to sit at facing audience and on the LHS of stage
* Some papers and stationary, maybe a folder or two on both tables to create an office scene
* Desk bell for Mrs Squires
* Desk signs for ‘BOSS’ and ‘PERSONAL ASSISTANT’
* Accounts sign over the puppet window

The Unforgiving Worker

Mrs squires walks in to the office. Tommy is already at her desk working away.

Mrs Squires: Good morning Tommy how are you?

Tommy: Very well thank you Mrs Squires and yourself?

Mrs Squires: Yes, I’m fine thank you. (Mrs Squires sits down at her desk)

(Mrs Squires dings the desk bell and Tommy makes her way over to Mrs Squires desk)

Tommy: Yes, Mrs Squires you called?

Mrs Squires: Yes, yes Tommy, would you be kind enough to get me the company accounts please I’d like to run through some details with you.

Tommy: Yes I’ll get them right away. (Tommy knocks on the puppet window and asks for the company accounts, which for fun are on a long long roll of paper. The puppet gives Tommy the accounts and Tommy walks across to Mrs Squires and opens the roll, which rolls off the table and onto the floor and has both Mrs Squires & Tommy practically kneeling to read them. Make this funny as the two scramble around trying to look at the accounts roll)

Mrs Squires: I see that Freddie had a company loan last year, which is overdue for payment. (puppet appears in the window again nods and disappears) Tommy Can you write out a bill for £1000 and fetch Freddie for me please, so that I can talk to him about it.

Tommy: Yes, right away Mrs Squires

(Tommy returns with Freddie)

Mrs Squires: Good morning, Freddie please take a seat.

Freddie: (Taking a seat) Good morning Mrs Squires

Mrs Squires: Now the thing is Freddie, we’ve been looking at the accounts and see that you had a loan of £1000 from the company last year. The loan repayment is now well over due, so I wondered if you could repay it now please?

(Freddie is silent and straight faced for a few embarrassing moments before commenting)

Freddie: Ah, well, hum, you see…

Mrs Squires: Well, come on, spit it out what have you to say?

Freddie: Goes on to tell Mrs Squires, that they’d bought a boat, but things hadn’t quite worked out to plan and the boat had needed a new motor and some repairs done to it, which meant that the money Freddie had saved to pay back the company had instead been spent on repairing the boat. And worse still, the boat had now sprung a leak and was in for repair again and Freddie was ever so sorry but with the work that was needed on the boat, the trailer and well... Freddie goes on to say they’ve got into a bit of a mess with the whole thing and would the company accept the loan being paid back in 10 years’ time.

Mrs Squires: (Looking astonished) 10 years’ time! You mean you’ve no way of paying it back until then? Well, I never.

Mrs Squires: (Thinks for a moment) Right, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You’ve been a good worker and I’m going to let you off this loan. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll not be buying anymore old boats or the like, that seem to be wasting your money and getting you into trouble.

Freddie: (Looking amazed, relieved, shocked gets up) Oh, yes Mrs Squires, yes, thank you, thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.

Mrs Squires: Yes, yes now be off with you and no more wasting your money or our money on old boats.

Freddie: Leaves the platform where she bumps into Bill.

Bill: Oh, hi there Freddie how you doing?

Freddie: Very well thank you but I realised this morning that you owe me £10 and I want it now.

Bill: You mean right now, as in this minute?

Freddie: Yes, right now.

Bill: Well thing is Freddie, I don’t have it right now, I’m a bit short at the moment can I give it to you next month please?

Freddie: No, I want it right now. If you don’t have it, you’ll have to give me something of yours that is worth £10.

All of this conversation is overheard by Jim who quickly goes and reports the incident to Mrs Squires, who quickly asks Tommy to go fetch Freddie back to the office (Petra appears in the puppet window shaking her head).

Narrator: Freddie appears in front of Mrs Squires. Mrs Squires tells Freddie how disappointed she is that Freddie can be let off a huge loan but wouldn’t let his fellow worker have a little more time to pay back a much smaller loan. She tells Freddie that she is going to have to review the the repayment of the loan and that Freddie must report back to Mrs Squires in the office first thing in the morning.

So, kids, who in the drama was kind? (Mrs Squires)
Who in the drama wasn’t kind? (Freddie)
What was wrong with Freddie’s attitude? (They didn’t treat others as they wanted to be treated.)

part 2

bible chat (listen up time - slide 3)

PowerPoint for Good Samaritan downloadable from bottom of this page

THE GOOD SAMARITAN (Luke 10 verses 30 - 37)

Kids, did you know that Jesus was an amazing story teller. Many of the things we tell you about Jesus were actually things that happened to people who Jesus met in real life. But Jesus also made stories up to help us understand the things He wanted to tell us. Here’s our version of a story Jesus told.

Narrative to accompany slides

SLIDE 1 - ‘The Good Samaritan’ Title Slide

SLIDE 2 - A Jewish man set off on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho about 18 miles.

SLIDE 3 - The Jerusalem to Jericho Road was quite remote and sometimes very lonely. Unfortunately, this meant that bandits sometimes hid themselves along the road waiting for someone rob.

SLIDE 4 - Sadly some bandits spotted the Jewish man that day, they attacked him and stole his money leaving him wounded at the side of the road.

SLIDE 5 - By chance a religious leader, also a Jew, was taking the same journey. The man could now get some help.

SLIDE 6 - But oh no! The religious leader saw the man, crossed to the other side of the road and quickly passed by.

SLIDE 7 - Not long afterwards another Jewish religious man came by. Now surely he would help the injured man. Wouldn’t he?

SLIDE 8 - What was the matter with these guys, this second man also passed by the poor man on the road.

SLIDE 9 - Things were not looking good for this man who had now been lying there for a while.

SLIDE 10 - Well, despite this road being a bit of a quiet one, another traveller came by. But oh dear! This man was a Samaritan and the injured man was a Jew., they couldn’t stand one another. If the other two Jewish men who had already passed by didn’t help the man, then this third traveller, a Samaritan certainly wouldn’t stop.

SLIDE 11 - But he did! The Samaritan stopped, gave the man some water, attended to his wounds and put him on his own cart.

SLIDE 12 - They travelled on along the Jericho Road together.

SLIDE 13 - After a while they came to an inn. The Samaritan asked the innkeeper to look after the injured man until he returned. He paid the inn keeper money to care for the poor man’s needs and told the inn keeper he would settle the final bill on his return.

That’s a great story isn’t it.
* Who in the story didn’t follow the Golden Rule of treating others in the same way they would like to be treated? (The robbers and the first two people to come across the man who had been robbed.)
* Why do you think the first men didn’t stop? (Probably because they were afraid.)
* Who did follow the Golden Rule. (Yes the Samaritan.)

SLIDE 5

So that’s the end of our God colours series kids. There are many more good things that God would like us to spread around to the people around us but these five are a terrific start.
1. Always be yourself
2. Always work to put things right
3. Never pick on people - always be kind
4. Always use good words
5. And follow the golden rule of treating other people how you would like them to treat you

PART 3

RESPONSE TIME (SMALL GROUPS IF POSSIBLE)

  1. Why was it surprising that the Samaritan stopped to help the injured man. (Samaritans didn’t get on with Jews.)

  2. Had you heard this story before today? What did you think of it?

  3. How might we be ‘Good Samaritans’ today?

  4. The Golden Rule says that we should treat others like we would want to be treated. Is this always easy? Why not? Discuss.

Week 5 DOWNLOADS

Lead-in Drama script, Bible Chat and Response Time Leaders’ Notes
Week 5 PowerPoint slides
The Good Samaritan PowerPoint