King at Last

An assembly in the ‘Hello, Scruff!’ series

by Revd Sylvia Burgoyne

Suitable for Reception / Key Stage 1 - Church Schools

Aims

To remind us that God keeps his promises.

Preparation and materials

• You will need a glove puppet or sock puppet of a donkey, called Scruff.

• As the assembly begins, ensure that you already have Scruff the puppet on your hand.

• Refresh your memory of the story of Samuel and David that was used in three earlier assemblies in the ‘Hello Scruff!’ series (‘Don’t Judge on Appearance’, ‘Making Music’ and ‘Being Jealous’) so that you can recall it for the children in the ‘Assembly’, Step 3.

• If possible, have a shepherd’s crook or a picture of a crook to show the children. A picture of a crook is available at: http://tinyurl.com/ho5ujpb

Assembly

1. Scruff waves to the children. Encourage them to say, ‘Hello, Scruff!’
   
   If this is the first time the children have met Scruff, you will need to use the following introduction.

   Scruff lives on a farm with Lucy Jane, her mum, Mrs B, her dad, Farmer Brown, and her baby brother, Tom. Lucy Jane loves Scruff. She looks after him. She plays with him and she talks to him – when she’s happy and when she’s sad. Scruff is her best friend!

2. One day, Lucy Jane came into the stable carrying a shepherd’s crook.

   Show the children the crook or the picture of a crook. Ask them if they know why the crook is shaped in this way.

   Lucy Jane waved the crook at Scruff.

   ‘Look what Dad has given me today, Scruff!’ she said in an excited voice. ‘He’s also given me six lambs of my own to look after. He promised ages ago that one day, I could be a shepherd if I worked hard. And I have worked hard, haven’t I, Scruff?’

   Scruff nodded his head and said, ‘Hee-haw, hee-haw!’ very loudly. Ever since Lucy Jane was a little girl, Scruff had seen her watching her dad round up the sheep with the help of Bob, their sheep dog. Now, she could give the commands herself and whistle so that Bob knew which way to go.

   Lucy Jane had always loved lambing-time, watching the lambs being born. Sometimes, when the mummy sheep had more than one lamb, she would only have enough milk to feed one lamb. Farmer Brown had shown Lucy Jane how to feed the lambs with a bottle, until they were big enough to go out into the field. Lucy Jane loved doing this!

   Now, Lucy Jane’s dad thought that she was old enough to have some animals of her own to look after. She’d already shown that she could look after Scruff. Farmer Brown was very proud of his daughter.

   Lucy Jane felt very important as she led her lambs to join the rest of the flock in the meadow. Scruff stood at the gate, watching her striding through the grass with her shepherd’s crook, Bob at her side and six young lambs following behind.

   He was proud of Lucy Jane, too.

   ‘Hee-haw, hee-haw!’ he said extra loudly to make sure that Lucy Jane heard just how proud he was!

   Take off Scruff.

3. Let’s listen to a story from the Bible about a boy called David. You may remember that David had been told that one day, he would be the king instead of King Saul.
   Many years ago, Samuel had come to Bethlehem to tell David, the young shepherd boy, that God had chosen him to be the next King of Israel. A lot had happened since then. Can you think of four things that we’ve heard about in the story so far?
   
   - David often played the harp to soothe a moody King Saul.
   - David defeated the Philistines in battle.
   - David became an outlaw because jealous King Saul wanted to kill him.
   - David refused to kill the king when he had the chance.
   
   After all the trouble that David had had with King Saul, you may think that he would be glad when King Saul died. But do you know what? David was very sad. At first, he didn’t know what to do, so he prayed and asked God. God told him that it was safe to return home, and the people welcomed him back and crowned him as their king. It had been many years since Samuel had told David that one day, he would be the king. Now that promise had come true! Now David knew that God always keeps his promises.

Time for reflection

We all make promises.

Ask the children if they can think of a promise that they have made. It may be that they have promised to tidy their room, be kind to a friend, stop doing something wrong, take the dog for a walk and so on.

Do we keep our promises? Sometimes, it is hard to keep promises. We need to think carefully before we make promises to other people.

Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you that you always keep your promises.
Thank you that you have promised to be with us always.
Amen.

Song/music

‘The Lord’s my shepherd’ (Come and Praise, 56)