Set-up: Paper strips, pencils, a single letter on each table spelling out a special word to the community eg. ehills, blutac
To begin our evening of poetry we are going to write our own psalm to God, who is the whole reason we come together.
The psalms are a book of poems to God from every season of life. Here is a lady talking about psalms. Her name is Milli. She is an elder from the Beswick community near Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia. She is a teacher of the bible and she has spent 30 years translating the bible for her community. In this clip, Millie talks about the impact of the Psalms while she was translating them and recites John 3:16 in her language.
http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/bible-translator
Let’s Look up Psalm 119. Can someone read me a favourite verse from this psalm?
Some of you may not know that this psalm is a special kind of poem. Called an Acrostic poem. Where the first letter of each line makes up a word. Psalm 119 is an alphabet acrostic. The poet of this psalm wrote the first 8 lines of the poem all beginning with the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet aleph. The next 8 lines all begin with the second letter of the alphabet beth and so on for 176 verses until the end of the alphabet. What a beautiful project this was!
We are going to write our own Acrostic poem of blessing to God.
On your table there is a letter. Please write a sentence to or about God beginning with that letter. When you are finished please bring it up here and we will put them altogether. Adults can help kids. Kids are welcome to draw a picture if they would prefer.
Play music while people write.
Stick pieces of paper in order up the front with blu-tac.
Play itunes track ‘A new life’ by Klaus Badelt as poem is read aloud to everyone.
