Joshua and the stones for remembering - KS 1& 2 - SEAL theme Changes

Joshua Chapter 4
Need: A long piece of blue material. 12 “stones” (crumpled up newspaper wrapped in crepe paper), a paper “stone” – cut out shapes – for each child.


Once the people of Israel had to go on a long journey. Can anyone remember anything about the story of Moses? (Gather responses)
The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt, having to do what the Egyptians told them. But then God sent Moses to rescue them. He led them out of Egypt, and told them that they were going to travel to live in a new land, a land where they could be free, where there would be good land to grow things on. But it was a long journey to get there, through a desert. All along the journey, though, God gave them food to eat and water to drink. It was hard and sometimes they were very fed up, but after many, many years, they finally made it to their new land. Moses had grown old and died by this time, but a new leader called Joshua was leading them.

They came to a river, the river Jordan. Produce blue material and lay it on the floor. On the other side of the river, they could see their new land. It looked wonderful. How were they going to cross it, though? They didn’t have a boat and there wasn’t a bridge. But Joshua asked God for help, and God told him what to do. Just walk into the water, and it will part, just like the sea did when Moses led the people out of Egypt. Pick up the end of the “water” as if it has parted. So that is what Joshua and the people did, and as soon as they stepped into the water, a path opened up through the middle of it – dry land for them to walk in.
They were there! They had arrived! Finally! At last! They were very happy. Now everything would change. No more travelling. No more worrying about where the next meal would come from or if they would be able to find water. They had come home!

They made their first camp in their new land, and they were very excited. Everyone was thinking about the future.

But no sooner had they made their camp than Joshua summoned them all together. He chose 12 people -one from each of the 12 families or tribes of Israel - and gave them a very strange instruction. Choose 12 children to help.

"I want you to go back into the river!" "Back into the river? Why ? We’ve just come out of the river! "
"Ah, but when you get to the middle of the river, I want you each to choose a big stone from the river bed and bring it back to the camp." Put “stones” in the “water”.

The 12 people did what they were told. They waded into the water – it didn’t part this time, so the water rushed all around them. But they each managed to find a big stone from the river bed, and they lugged it back to the bank. "Now build the twelve stones into a big pile," said Joshua. Get the children to retrieve a stone each and build into a cairn at the front of the hall.

So they did just that…

“But why are we doing this, Joshua?”

“You are doing this because this is the place where our long journey ended and we came to our new home. It would easy for us to be so excited about the future that we forget where we came from and who helped us get here. We might forget that we were once slaves, and that God set us free. We might forget that when we were hungry and thirst and frightened God fed us and made us feel better. We might forget what it feels like to be treated cruelly, as we were then, and we might treat other people unfairly too.
That’s why we have put these stones here, because our children will see them and ask – “what are those stones for?” – and then we will be able to tell them the story of our long journey and remember all that we have learnt as we made it.”

And, so the Bible says, the pile of stones stayed there for many years, and whenever the children asked their parents “what are those stones for?,” the parents told the story of how God had rescued them.

I am giving each of you a paper “stone” to take away. I expect some of you are excited about the future too – going to a new school or into a new class, or maybe you are looking forward to the holidays. It is easy for us to get so excited that we forget the good things that we have done, and the things we’ve learnt. So we need to remember them.
I wonder what you have done this year, or learnt this year that you want to remember?

Gather some suggestions.

You could write or draw that thing that you want to remember on your stone. If you give them to your teacher we will stick them all up somewhere to help us all remember what we have enjoyed this year – the things we don’t want to forget.

· Time of silence to think about what we would put on our stone.

· Prayer of thanks for all that we want to remember from this year.