A Tale of three Ws
Tried this one out a few years ago, and then reinvented it for yesterday. At yesterday’s all-age family service, people were invited to pull at ‘W’ card out of an offering bag as it was passed around. The number on their card denote their part in the interactive retelling of the Easter story:
W1 (biggest number) – welcomers, called upon to cheer and should whenever they were mentioned
W2 (12 only) – winners, called upon to clap whenever they were mentioned
W3 (6 only) – whingers, called upon to ‘boo’ whenever they were mentioned
The short sermon then explored each role a little more.
Welcomers are people who enthusiastically welcome Jesus and all he stands for, but without any depth of understanding or engagement. Some of these people are to be found in every church, especially around the great Christian festivals.
Winners are people who have made a a conscious, informed decision to be on the side of Jesus. In the short term they may lose out by doing so, but in the long term they have bought shares in the kingdom of heaven.
Whingers are those who will always refuse to join in with what God is doing. They were to be found when God’s peopled returned from exile – and they refused to go. They were to be found when Nehemiah was rebuilding Jerusalem and they refused to join in. They were to be found in John’s Gospel when some received Jesus, and others rejected him.
People drawing their Ws out of the bag yesterday had no choice about which role they played, but in reality we all do…
Photo: farm1. static. flickr
The “interactive retelling of the Easter story”? Please would you share the text for that, or tell us what you did? Hard to imagine without. Thanks, Richard!
Ian
Story follows below – any time the words WIN, WON, WINNING, WELCOME, WHINGE etc were used, the relevant people made the relevant noise:
_______________
The town was busy, busy, busy
In fact, it was busier than busy.
It was like a busy day of busyness in busy town.
There were crowds & crowd & crowds of people.
All of a sudden, there was a stir at the city gate.
A man was riding in on a donkey, and there were lots of people to welcome him
The crowd of welcomers seemed to grow & grow. In fact, the more the crowd of welcomers grew, the bigger the welcome became. There were welcomes to the left, welcomes to the right, one great big HUGE welcome.
And in the middle of the welcome was a man on a donkey, and his friends walking beside him. They had big grins on their faces. In fact, they looked liked real winners. They looked like the kind of winners who have won a winning prize that everybody else wants.
The welcomers were welcoming and the winners were winning and everybody was having a winning welcoming time.
EXCEPT a small few – the whingers. The whingers weren’t welcoming and they weren’t winning – they were just whingeing, like whingers do
And all the while, with winners around him, and welcomers around them, and whingers off in the distance – the man on the donkey just kept going.
Wow! Noisy, but riotous fun. Thanks, Richard!
If you think THAT’s noisy – maybe I should post on here some time about my interactive genealogy?