Clean Water for All God’s Children
Focus: God created everything, and called everything (including water!)
good!
Props: backdrop: sky and sea and land; a variety of stuffed animals
Context:
The main point of this story is that God created all that is, seen and unseen, and God
deems all creation good. Then, God made human beings caretakers of the Creation. We
haven’t done a great job of that, and many things have gone bad. But the creator’s
intention
is for goodness in all things, and it is our responsibility to work to restore that
goodness, in this case, to water, which has become contaminated by our own actions.
Here is a paraphrase of the creation story as told by James Weldon Johnson in his book
“The Creation” (ISBN # 0823412075) You will want to make it suit your style, but be
sure to include all the major points. And be dramatic! This is a
very
dramatic story!!
Also, whenever you say the words “And God said, ‘That’s good!’”, ask the children to
repeat them with you. You may even want the children to do the body motions that you
do, to make this an action story.
If you have prepared a sky, sea, and land backdrop, have it in place at the front of the
room. Before you begin, let each child select an animal to be his/her ‘story buddy’.
Story:
Before there was anything, there was God. And God looked out on space and everything
was darkness – darker than a hundred midnights in a cypress swamp! And God said, “I’m
lonely! I think I’ll make me a world!”
So God smiled, and the light broke forth (arms wide), and the darkness rolled over to side
(roll arms over and over to the side). And God took the light in His hands, and He rolled
it around (roll hands in a ball) and He formed the sun. And he set that sun blazin’ in the
sky (place ‘ball’ high in the air). Then he scooped up the leftover light (scoop), and he
flung
it against the darkness (fling arm out wide), and formed the moon and the stars.
And God said, “Hmmm! That’s good!”
And then God formed the earth (roll hands in a ball), and He set the earth out in space
(gently set earth out) beneath the sun and the moon and the stars. And then....God
stepped out onto His earth (dramatic step forward), and where He trod, the valleys
formed, and the mountains bulged up around His ankles. And God said, “That’s
good!
”
But then God noticed that his earth was dry and barren and hot! And so God blinked his
eyes (blink) and the lightning flashed, and He clapped His hands (clap once, loudly) and
the thunder roared, and the coolin’ waters came down (rain down slowly with hands).
And when the waters came, the green grass sprouted (reach down to grass), and the little
red flowers bloomed, and the giant oak spread its arms wide (spread arms wide) and the
pine pointed its finger to the sky (point to sky). And God looked at all that He had made,
and said, (let the children chime in here!) “That’s
good!
”
Day 1: Bible Story
Creation (Genesis 1)