22/11/09   Sunday before Advent

Theme: Stir up Sunday

Bible Reading

Instead of a Bible reading, the theme is taken from the prayer used after communion on this Sunday:

Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

This prayer has given the Sunday next before Advent the nickname of "Stir up Sunday" and in popular tradition is the date housewives are supposed to stir up the puddings and cakes they are making for Christmas.

Preparation

You need a mixing bowl and spoon, and a number of "ingredients" which stirred together will definitely not make a good cake e.g. powder paint, pebbles, plastic toys, scraps of paper - whatever you have to hand, and the more outrageous the better!

You also need a "good" cake - for this you may choose to bring in a ready made cake or, even better, get one of your colleagues to make a second cake with proper ingredients during the assembly. (If you use a bought cake or cake mix, retain the packaging so that you have a list of ingredients for the assembly.)

Introduction

Find out what kind of things your pupils are looking forward to at Christmas time - move the discussion round to special Christmas foods, in particular the traditional Christmas cakes and puddings. Explain why the last Sunday was "stir-up Sunday", you may find that some of the children (or adults) have been helping with cake making.

The Message

Remind the children that a cake is only as good as the ingredients and care that go into making it. Invite a volunteer to help you make a cake using the unusual set of ingredients. (Use the opportunity for a light hearted commentary about how delicious this is going to be etc!) However hard they work at they not going to make anything edible, and it's not going to help if you go on and put everything in the oven to bake it either. If you ask for volunteers to taste the cake mix, you will probably get some daredevils offering to do so, whether it will be a sensible idea to follow this up depends on what you have put into the mix!

Once you have your cake disaster either show the prepared cake or the proper cake making process underway. Why is this likely to be a lot tastier than the first cake? The main answer is in the ingredients! This time you could allow some tasting.

How are people like cakes? Again the answer is in the ingredients! The kind of person you are will be the result of what you think and do (and what is done to you). Ask for suggestions as to what the best and worst ingredients for making a person might be. You may even like to start a "recipe" on an OHT.
Pause to reflect individually on whether you think you are like a good cake or a not so good cake …

Prayer

Use the stir -up prayer.

(Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen)