Telling Joshua as a story of the oppressed - or at least intending to

Songs

Be bold, be strong - sung previous week for Joshua 1 so worth reusing

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho - including chorus & (simpler) verse 1 only

When the storm rolls - a current favourite - after all, the threats for God's people were something like a storm

Also displayed the picture at the top of this page, explaining it's the kind of view of the Promised Land Joshua would have seen.

Sparks

Introduction: This is a story about promises. What is a promise? Everything kept going wrong: but God was with them. But the theme was really about God keeping people safe when they're afraid.

We essentially followed my plan of getting the children to act out a more concrete version of the story from my previous post. That is, a shortened version of the long contextual story leading up to the beginning of the story of Joshua, using suitable props (a blue cloth, an orange blanket, and a red cord, large leaves, and a couple of tables).

God chose a man and called him Abraham and sent him to a Promised Land and promised him a big family. Everything went wrong - he had no son; but God was with him. Abraham had a son and a grandson and the grandson had 12 sons, one of them called Joseph. Joseph's brothers didn't like him and sent him to Egypt. Everything went wrong for Joseph but God was with him and he ended up in charge in Egypt. Everything went wrong for his brothers and there was no food, but God was with them, and they went to Egypt where Joseph gave them food. They lived in Egypt and had children and grandchildren there until there were loads of them. Then the king made them work hard like slaves - everything had gone wrong. But God was with them, and God got them out of Egypt, until they came to a great big sea they couldn't cross, and the army was chasing after them. Everything went wrong, but God was with them, and he dried up the sea so they could cross, and closed it over the army so they stayed there.

Then they were in the desert. They walked all the way through the desert till they got to the edge of the Promised Land. Then they sent spies to have a look at what the Promised Land was like. But the spies saw people there who were bigger and stronger than them. They were scared and ran away, and they said we can't go there, everyone's bigger and stronger than us, it's all gone wrong. But they had forgot that God was with them. So God said they would have to walk through the desert for 40 more years till they learned that God was with them. And after 40 years they came to the edge of the Promised Land again, at a different place that was near a river. And across the river there were lots of cities, and especially one called Jericho. So they sent spies again to see what it was like. This time they chose the spies carefully.

At this point we stopped the story, in which everyone had been taking part, to choose some spies, Joshua, kings' men, and Rahab, to tell the story of Joshua 2.

The spies crossed the River Jordan. They went into Jericho. They found a lady called Rahab and went in her house. The King's men came knocking at the door. They said have you seen the spies, we saw them come in? Rahab said No, I think they've gone out of the city and back over the river. So the King's men went off down to the river Jordan. But Rahab went and hid the spies on the roof under big leaves. She said to them, we're all really scared of you because we know God's with you and he dried up the sea for you. We know you're going to take over Jericho. But when you do, please be kind to me and my family and look after me. The spies said they would look after her if she hung a red cord out of her window, because her house was at the edge of the city. Then Rahab said you'll have to escape out of the window by the red cord so no-one will catch you, then run up into the hills. So they escaped and ran to the hills, and stayed there a few days until the King's men had come back from the River. Then they went back quietly past the city and over the River Jordan and back to their friends.

After this we had a time of wondering, an idea picked up from a method of storytelling called Godly Play. I wonder what the best part of the story was...what the most important part was...where you are in this story [in this instance too easy to answer literally in that they all had parts in the story]...which part of the story we could leave out and still have all the story we need...whether you're ever afraid of anything and God has kept you safe?

We could have gone on to wondering about whether any of God's people have to be spies or keep secrets today. We could have talked about bible smuggling and secret churches in countries where you can get in trouble for being a Christian. We could have pretended to smuggle bibles or be a secret church. I could have told stories of people doing these things. I would have liked to do that.

But one child had been asking for several minutes when we were going to do some drawing. Inspired by this book I thought I would try free craft activity by providing materials with instructions to make something either about the story or about God keeping you safe from something you're afraid of. Result = pictures of spiders, Darth Vader, and a dragon to frighten a dad who keeps creeping up and surprising his son. And a few coloured copies of the pictures of Rahab and spies that I had for backup. No time for Protective Behaviours Helping Hands either.

I think this went reasonably well. There was at least some engagement in something emotionally real about fear and keeping safe, and lots of fun joining in the story, and enjoying the songs.

I would have liked to have done the secret church or smuggling stuff. It opens up the possibility that this is something real for now. It runs the risk of scaring children if done badly. I would have liked to have turn activities on God keeping you safe into prayers.

The story was something like this. With illustrations, songs, and audience participation. Similarities to last week's Sparks story are obvious, but there were different emphases and a different ending.

Props included a blue sea, an orange desert, a green land, a golden ark on poles, and screwed up newspaper for stones.

Long ago God chose a man and called him Abraham. God took Abraham to a Promised Land. Abraham had a grandson, and he had 12 sons. They went to live in Egypt. There they became slaves. But God helped them get out of Egypt and took them to a big sea full of water they couldn't cross. They were stuck with an army chasing them.

But God dried up the sea so they could cross safely on the land and keep safe from the water. When they'd cross God made the sea cover the land again to trap the chasing army there. And God's people were safe on the land of the desert.

In the desert land God's people met God. God asked them to make a box to be God's house. It was a special box and we called it an ark, like the ark God used to keep people safe from the water. We called them arks because ark was an old word for a box. This ark was so special that God's people weren't allowed to touch it. They had to carry it around on poles. They carried it around the desert for 40 years, and God kept them safe.

At last they came to the edge of the Promised Land. But there was a great big river to cross, the River Jordan. It had been raining a lot and the River Jordan very deep. I wonder if you've seen the River Trent after it's been raining a lot. The river was too deep to walk across and too fast to swim across. God's people wondered how they were going to get across safely.

At this point we needed roles for God's people, Joshua, and priests.

They took their tents down the hills and camped by the river. They stayed for three days. Then some officials went round and told them what was going to happen the next morning. God was going to do something amazing. The priests were going to pick up the ark. When they saw the priests pick up the ark, the people must get up and follow the ark at a distance - just far enough away so they could still see it.

The next morning, off went the priests with the ark. As soon as they dipped their toes in the river Jordan, the river rolled up and stopped running down to the sea. And the land was dry. The priests went to stand in the middle of the dry river. The people followed with their animals across the dry river. They went all the way across to the other side of the river and God kept them safe from the water. When they got to the other side, Joshua said he'd take 12 men from the 12 tribes of Israel. They went to get 12 stones from the middle of the river. They put the stones on their side of the river to make a memorial help them remember how God had kept them safe from the water. They put 12 big stones from the side into the middle of the river too. Then the priests took the ark out of the river, and the water started to flow again. The big stones in the middle of the River Jordan were big enough to stay there after the water flowed.

God's people went off to the land with Joshua to Jericho.

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho

Later when they had children, the children asked what the stones were doing by the river. God's people told their children how God had dried up the River Jordan so they could cross, and keep them safe from the water.

Many years later Jesus came to the River Jordan. He went under the water and when he came out he went into the land where Joshua had gone, and he went to keep people safe.

Many years later again, people sang songs about the River Jordan. They sang songs especially when they needed to cross deep, dark and difficult places, and they needed God to keep them safe. They remembered how God had kept people safe.

There is no shortage of songs about crossing the Jordan, a metaphor both for death and liberation from slavery. The occasions for singing these songs are so rare that the words are not familiar so there's not much point trying to teach them, but it seems worth taking the opportunity to sing. I didn't try and teach but I sang. Interspersed in the story we had snatches of Michael Row the Boat Ashore, We are crossing the River Jordan, Roll Jordan Roll, What I did try and teach was something reminding us of Jesus, the new Joshua: "With Jesus on the boat we can smile at the storm". One of those songs in which you miss out words and replace them with actions, like "Heads, shoulders, knees and toes". Well I could never get my son to join in Heads & Shoulders, and today he and most of the others thought the whole idea was so hilarious they spent most of the time neither singing nor doing actions. Whatever.

We had some wondering again. We got some reasonably reflective answers to I wonder if you can remember a time when God looked after you or kept you safe.

Songs

Today was obviously a day for all three verses of Joshua fit the battle. We added My God is so big. The theme was supposed to be about motivating children to want to be on the side of a victorious God. That doesn't fit well with retelling the narrative of a story of the oppressed, but singing about a strong and mighty God is a small concession to the victor's narrative. We had Our Father to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious, the boys previously having objected to carrying on singing it to the tune of "Do you want to build a snowman?" The plan was to introuduce a song about Jesus too (I've spent too much time with people who complain if Jesus doesn't get a mention at church), but we ran out of time.

Flames

We had fun in Flames, I think. There were 9 of us - more than we've ever had in that group as far as I recall.

First I had volunteers to read the story verse by verse from the bible (Joshua 6), skipping repetitive verses and the ones which talked about massacre and prostitutes. Classic avoidance.

We enacted the whole story - walking round a cardboard-box Jericho in procession (soldiers, priests blowing rams' horns, priests carrying ark, soldiers) once every day for 6 days, 7 times on the last day, giving a big shout, walls tumble down, rescue Rahab with her red cord. We went back to the camp every night to pretend we didn't know what would happen and ask how many people thought it was going to work. I hoped for some reflections of the difficulty of trusting what you're told as we repetitively went through the process. Most of the time people voted for it working, though their actions sometimes suggested less adherence to the strict instructions of faith - lets kick the walls down; I think they're crumbling already (cardboard boxes tend to); you're going too slow; let me through. I'd forgotten to provide a Rahab, much to the distress of children who couldn't find her, till one furnished a Lego Rahab. The best parts were generally voted to be the parts in which everyone kicked the walls down.

Then we did a comprehension quiz in two teams to learn the details of the story. The results were very close (9:10). What I hadn't factored in was the nasty taste of a sense of unfairness this left the losing team with, which was lessened a bit when they learned there had been no prize - perhaps fudging a draw would have been better. Basic lesson of children's work, no doubt. Because by then we'd run out of time.

So there was no time for the other things I'd planned, and which I hoped would have got deeper. Reflections: have you ever had to keep trying something till it worked, and felt like giving up? Have you ever managed to do it after lots of trying? I wonder when God has helped you do something that seemed impossible....or asked you to do something crazy that worked out right because you did what God said? Turning reflections into prayers. Testimony - to show that this is not just about old stories, but to do with new stories happening to real people more recently - telling the story of Brother Andrew that I didn't tell Sparks earlier, or of how Debbie and I arranged our wedding to do things that didn't seem possible, or of how slaves in America long ago sang about Joshua and the battle of Jericho and wanting to achieve the freedom that seemed impossible, but which they eventually achieved. Prayer for suffering church and slaves who're facing similar problems now. A challenge activity for children to do something that seems very difficult but which they might achieve if they keep on trying (taking a sock off without using hands, for instance). Free craft on something difficult that God can help with.

I would have liked to have done some of those. We would have done them if I'd shortened the quiz, or acting out the story. We might have ended with better feelings.