Christian Unity

Suitable for Key Stage 1/2 - Church Schools

Aims

To look at the Week of Christian Unity as a timely reminder to remember others in our prayers.

Preparation and materials

• Background: The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is celebrated from January 18th until January 25th. The theme for the week this year [2001] is Together on the Way and the focus is on Romania. Christians are encouraged to remember the Romanian people and their problems in their prayers. 

• You will need:
  •           A large piece of card (or an OHT) showing an outline picture of a mountain. On the mountain several tracks are drawn in different colours, with bridges connecting them at various points.
  •           Six children (in three pairs) to make the statements. An older child could also act as narrator.
• Further materials, including a poster, pamphlet and resources to use during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, can be obtained from:
  CTBI Publications
  31 Great Smith Street
  London SW1P 3BN
  Tel: 020 7898 1300
  Fax: 020 7898 1305

Assembly

NARRATOR: Christians throughout the world worship God in many different ways. Some have long and elaborate services. Others like to sing and praise God joyfully with dancing and music. There are so many ways in which people express their love of God. 

Sadly, it is very easy to think that all Christians should pray to God in the same way. How dull that would be! 

Christians can learn such a lot from each other. Here's what some would say: 

TWO CHILDREN: We like reading the Bible together and talking about it to discover what it means to each of us. 

TWO CHILDREN: We like to say a prayer together, so we understand we are praying to the same God. 

TWO CHILDREN: We like to sing songs together to help us worship God. 

NARRATOR: In our picture, we can see a large mountain with several different tracks on it. It's as if some Christians are travelling on the red route, others on the blue route and others on the green route. They are all on their own Christian journey. 

Although they all do things very differently on their different paths, they are all moving to the top of the mountain. It is very good for them to meet their friends from the other paths to talk and to pray and to worship. That's what these bridges represent. 

There are many different paths to being a good Christian. And it's good to meet Christians from all the traditions to discover how they talk to God throughout their Christian lives.

Time for reflection

Encourage the children to reflect on how important it is that when friends have arguments they should not let the situation get worse, but get together to resolve their difficulties. 

Christians know that they should always try to get on well with other people and so they pray to God to help them to do this: 

Almighty God,
We know you want all Christians to live together in unity.
Help us all in our daily lives to take away all hatred and suspicion of each other
So we can all live together in peace.
Amen. 

Song/music

The 'Ode to Joy' from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This piece has come to represent unity between the nation states of Europe.

John Lennon's 'Imagine' invites us to think about the time when we can all live together in peace.