T
TypesAndShadows
Guest
Hey! I’d just wanted to share a little activity I did with some mostly-8-year-old children preparing for their first Reconciliation, because it worked pretty well and threw up some interesting misconceptions among the children.
Anyway, everyone had a little cake (fairy cakes/cupcakes) with a “magic relighting” candle in it (this is not initially mentioned to the children). Cakes on a table, to avoid problems, and bowl of water in the middle of each table for safety. You also need enough adults to closely supervise this, as children will attempt to play with fire if allowed!
Candles are lit, and you explain that this represents God’s love for you. See how bright and hot it shines. Then, while looking at it, think of the worst thing you can imagine doing, something so bad that God would stop loving you. Then, when everyone has thought of something, have everyone blow out their candle. Be warned: there will likely to noise and a lot of movement when the candles relight! You’ll have to keep on top of the kids, although it’s okay to try blowing it out a few more times. Listen out for them saying things like “It doesn’t go out!”, “It can’t be blown out!” etc.
Then ask them what that means, if the flame is God’s love for them. What is the meaning I want you to get from this? They will probably be able to get “Because God’s love cannot be blown out” or “God never stops loving you”, but the most interesting responses I got revealed why we needed to talk about it. Several children thought that it never went out “Because it wasn’t wrong in the first place”, “it wasn’t really wrong”, “Because we hadn’t really thought about doing it, so we hadn’t known how bad it was”, and so on.
In other words, many (most?) of the children had thought that God kept loving you only as long as you didn’t actually do anything really bad, and that the candle kept relighting because they hadn’t done anything properly bad, or because sin wasn’t really wrong in the first place!
It was so helpful as an intro, and after we’d dropped the candles in the water everyone got to eat their cake while listening to a Bible story
I’d highly recommend it. Who knew such misunderstandings were so common?
Anyway, everyone had a little cake (fairy cakes/cupcakes) with a “magic relighting” candle in it (this is not initially mentioned to the children). Cakes on a table, to avoid problems, and bowl of water in the middle of each table for safety. You also need enough adults to closely supervise this, as children will attempt to play with fire if allowed!
Candles are lit, and you explain that this represents God’s love for you. See how bright and hot it shines. Then, while looking at it, think of the worst thing you can imagine doing, something so bad that God would stop loving you. Then, when everyone has thought of something, have everyone blow out their candle. Be warned: there will likely to noise and a lot of movement when the candles relight! You’ll have to keep on top of the kids, although it’s okay to try blowing it out a few more times. Listen out for them saying things like “It doesn’t go out!”, “It can’t be blown out!” etc.
Then ask them what that means, if the flame is God’s love for them. What is the meaning I want you to get from this? They will probably be able to get “Because God’s love cannot be blown out” or “God never stops loving you”, but the most interesting responses I got revealed why we needed to talk about it. Several children thought that it never went out “Because it wasn’t wrong in the first place”, “it wasn’t really wrong”, “Because we hadn’t really thought about doing it, so we hadn’t known how bad it was”, and so on.
In other words, many (most?) of the children had thought that God kept loving you only as long as you didn’t actually do anything really bad, and that the candle kept relighting because they hadn’t done anything properly bad, or because sin wasn’t really wrong in the first place!
It was so helpful as an intro, and after we’d dropped the candles in the water everyone got to eat their cake while listening to a Bible story
I’d highly recommend it. Who knew such misunderstandings were so common?