Tapestry of Faith: Sing to the Power: A Social Justice Program for Children Grades 4-5

Activity 1: Story - Harvesting Hope

Activity time: 10 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Story, "Harvesting Hope"
  • Optional: Information about your congregation's partner church relationship

Preparation for Activity

  • Read the story and prepare to share it with the group.
  • Find out if your congregation has a partner church. If so, gather information about the partnership to share with the children. If you have time, consider using Alternate Activity 3, Learning about Our Congregation's Partner Church, to explore the partner relationship further.
  • Read the discussion questions. Choose those that will best help the children share their interpretations of the story and relate it to their own lives.

Description of Activity

Read or tell the story to the group.

After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.

Then, ask participants to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.

You might say:

The people of Oakland, California and Ok’land, Transylvania live in very, very different places. But the people in the big city in the U.S. have managed to connect and share with the folks in small farming towns in ways that have changed lives on both sides of the ocean. Their shared Unitarian heritage linked them together, and learning both to listen and to speak meant that everyone was able to contribute in ways that changed lives for the better.

Lead a discussion using these questions:

  • How do you think the situations of the Oakland and Ok’land Unitarians were different? How were they similar?
  • What gifts did the UUs in the U.S. have to contribute to the relationship? What gifts did the Unitarians in Transylvania have to contribute?
  • What would you need to know about your own place and community in order to be in a helping relationship with another community?

If your congregation has a partnership with another church, tell the group about it now.