Secondary: Current Assemblies

STEWARDSHIP

By Dan Rogers

Suitable for Key Stage 3


Aim

To consider our responsibility towards the Earth.

Preparation and materials

• You could prepare a reader to read Psalm 24.1.
• Download the song ‘Fragile’ by Sting.
• It is helpful to download pictures of the items mentioned, and project them at the right point.

Assembly

1. Today’s assembly is about stewardship. Does anyone know what ‘stewardship’ means?
   
   Stewardship is an old word. So old, my computer thesaurus didn’t have a meaning for it! This is the meaning in today’s assembly:
   
   If people own large estates and they aren’t there to manage it themselves, they will employ someone they call a steward, who runs the estate as if it were their own. Stewardship is about how we care for the things that actually belong to other people.
   
2. For example: would you lend someone your X-BOX 360? How would you feel if they did not take care of it?
   
   If you owned a VW Polo, would you lend it to someone? How would you feel if they did not take care of it?
   
   How would you feel if you lent your course notes to someone and they wrote all over them? How about if you lent someone some clothes and they gave them back dirty? Or if you asked them to feed your cat while you were on holiday and they forgot?
   
3. If the Earth belonged to you, would you have given human beings responsibility of taking care of it? How would you feel about the state it is in as a result?

Time for reflection

Reflection

Read Psalm 24.1: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’

Christians believe that this is true. We show respect for our friends by taking care of their belongings, and Christians believe that we show respect for God by taking care of the earth he has given us to live in.

Do we care? About others, about God? We don’t like it when people treat us and our belongings carelessly, because they are failing to show us any respect. Let us determine to give others the respect we would like them to give us, and give God the respect he deserves.

Prayer

(You might like to play the music before the prayer.)

‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’

Help us to live with respect for the earth:

To care for it and for each other.

To use only what we need, not what we want.

To consider the needs of people living far away and nearby.

Help us to remember that the earth is ours, on loan.

Amen.