Pentecost Power

To look at the Christian teaching regarding the Holy Spirit and the meaning of the festival of Pentecost.

by Manon Ceridwen Parry

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To look at the Christian teaching regarding the Holy Spirit and the meaning of the festival of Pentecost.

Preparation and materials

• You will need as many chargers, plugs and leads and as many pieces of technology as you can find and carry – a laptop, mobile phone, tablet, MP3 player, e-book reader, handheld games console and so on.
• Acts 2:1–4, written out on a whiteboard or flipchart or displayed on a screen, plus a copy of it for you to read out:
  
  The coming of the Holy Spirit
  When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Assembly

1. Talk about the different pieces of equipment you have brought with you. Explain how much you enjoy (say) reading books on them, listening to music … Talk about your phone and how you like to keep in touch with friends and family, as well as any special features it may have (I have an app that makes mine into a torch!)
2. Ask the children what they have at home. It’s important to be sensitive at this point, depending on their backgrounds, though most young people now can relate to the idea of smartphones and older ones may well have them themselves.
   
   Ask if they have a phone or if their families own one. Do they have an MP3 player? Do they have any handheld or other games consoles?
3. Talk about how much fun it is being able to listen to music on the go, take a library of books with you everywhere and talk to your friends on the phone.
   
   Explore with the children all the different chargers you have brought. It is frustrating having to carry them with you ... it’s easier to make sure that everything is charged up.
   
   How does it feel when your phone – they probably can relate to a phone best – loses its charge? Talk with them about the frustrations of not being able to contact people when your phone has run out of ’juice’. Do they have any stories of when this has happened to them or their families? Maybe they needed to text someone to make arrangements to meet while they were out, but couldn’t because there was no charge.
4. Move on to explore how, as human beings, we also need to be ‘charged up’. We need food, drink and sleep to help us keep going.
   
   Then say that the story of Pentecost is all about how humans need spiritual charging, too.
5. Jesus had promised that he would send a special kind of power, called the Holy Spirit, to help the disciples – his friends and followers – live as Christians, start the Church and tell people all over the world about Jesus.
6. Read the story of Pentecost in Acts 2:1–4. Talk about how the Holy Spirit helped the disciples speak in different languages and how Christians believe that this even was the start of the new Christian Church. It was a very exciting time and the disciples believed that they could go all over the world to tell people about Jesus because his special power, the Holy Spirit, was with them.)

Time for reflection

Show the chargers again and ask the children to think about how they get ‘charged up’.

Prayer
Dear God,
we thank you for the different kinds of power in this world. For batteries and electricity that help us enjoy some of our favourite things. We thank you that you can give us power, too.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Spirit of peace, come to our waiting world’ (Come and Praise, 85)

‘Spirit of God, as strong as the wind’ (Come and Praise, 63)