Everyone's a winner
To encourage children to go for their personal best in everything (SEAL theme 4: Going for goals).
by The Revd Sophie Jelley
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To encourage children to go for their personal best in everything (SEAL theme 4: Going for goals).
Preparation and materials
- The Bible verse is Philippians 3.14: ‘I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.’
- A small step for a child to stand on.
- Three ‘gold medals’ (available cheap in party shops or you could make your own).
Assembly
- Talk about the experience of picking people for teams at school. You could ask questions of the staff or children about whether they usually get picked straight away or have been left till the end. Share any appropriate stories of your own, for instance: I was always the last one to be picked for the teams in rounders because I could never hit the ball very well.
- Say: If you have watched sportsmen and women on the TV you might have seen them being given their medals (pick 3 volunteers and arrange them in a podium structure – one on the step and one on each side). You could talk about spraying champagne and presenting medals and flowers.
- Most of us know that we are good at something (give examples carefully, with a mixture of skills/abilities and character traits).
Whatever we’re good at, it’s always possible to become even better. That’s why we practise (football training, choir practice, spellings). Sometimes practice is easy and sometimes it’s very hard – like the training programmes of Olympians. - Christians believe that with God’s help everyone can be a winner – give out the three gold medals and take the step away so they are all on the same level. There isn’t just one gold medal winner, or prizes for only three people and no one else.
In the Christian life, everyone who stays the course is awarded a prize. One of the writers in the Bible (Paul) writes, ‘I press on towards the goal for the prize.’ He believed that God had given him a job to do and even when it was hard for him, he kept on going.
We can all keep on going to be the best we can be at the things we do in our lives. That way everybody is a winner!
Time for reflection
Spend a moment thinking about something that you would like to be better at in your life. Maybe it’s listening, behaving well, being more kind or finding it easier to share.
If you think you’re not good at anything, ask God to show you what ability he has given you: you may be surprised.
Prayer
Dear God,
thank you that you have given us different things to be good at in our lives.
Please help each one of us to find something we are good at
and to get even better at it this week.
Please help us to keep going even when it’s hard.
Amen.
Song/music
‘Lord of all hopefulness’ (Come and Praise, 52)