All Winners!
Going for goals
by the Revd Sophie Jelley (revised, originally published in 2012)
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To encourage us to go for our personal best in everything that we do.
Preparation and materials
- You will need three gold medals. (These are available cheap in party shops, or you could make your own.)
- You will also need a small step stool for the children to stand on as a medal podium.
- Optional: you may wish to use the Bible verse found in Philippians 3.14: ‘I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.’
Assembly
- Ask the children, ‘Who here enjoys sport?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Ask the children what they enjoy most about playing sport.
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain that some people are talented at sport, whereas others simply enjoy taking part. Some people don’t really enjoy sport.
Sometimes, people are asked to pick teams for sport. Point out that this can be an unpleasant experience for some people. (You may wish to share a personal experience here about how you felt when you weren’t picked first for a team. For example, ‘I was always the last one to be picked for the teams in rounders because I could never hit the ball very well.’) - Ask the children whether they have seen people receiving medals at sports events on the television or live.
Bring out the step stool.
Choose three volunteers to come forward, and arrange them in a podium structure: one on the step stool and one on either side. - Explain that all of us are good at something (give examples carefully, with a mixture of skills, abilities and character traits).
Present the three volunteers with the medals. Be careful to give reasons such as being a good friend, being kind, always trying hard and so on. - Explain that however good we are at something, it’s always possible to become better. That’s why we practise, whether it’s football training, choir practice, spellings or something else. Sometimes, practice is easy and sometimes, it’s really hard - like when athletes train for the Olympics.
- Christians believe that everyone can be a winner.
Ask the volunteer to step down, and then remove the step stool so that all three volunteers are on the same level.
There isn’t just one gold-medal winner, or prizes for only three people and no-one else. Christians believe that everyone can be awarded a prize. - Optional: Paul, who helped to spread Jesus’ teachings after Jesus’ death, wrote a letter that appears in the Bible in which he said, ‘I press on towards the goal for the prize.’ Paul 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 that we can be at the things that we do in our lives. That way, everybody is a winner!
Time for reflection
Ask the children to spend a moment thinking about something that they would like to be better at doing. It could be listening, behaving well, being kinder, finding it easier to share or something else.
Encourage the children to take positive steps towards their goals. If they think that they’re not good at anything, encourage them to talk to an adult and ask God to show them what special ability they have – they 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 that 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
‘You’re welcome’ from the film Moana, available at: https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM (2.48 minutes long)
