A lesson for the movers and shakers

Say what you want about Palm Sunday - this year I've read a lot of complaints about putting all of Holy Week within the liturgy of this Sunday morning - I still love it. The chance to do something different. From a teaching point of view I see this as a day when the liturgy speaks most to the kinesthetic learners in our congregations. We get to do more than just stand up and sit down. We walk, we sing, we poke each other with palms. At my church, we have a donkey lead the way. All the senses are employed to tell the story of the Triumphant Entry.

In Sunday School this morning we lead the children through Holy Week in under 45 minutes. From Palm Sunday to the Empty Tomb we tell them the whole story by asking them to come with us on the imaginary trip. Children have such active imaginations that engaging them in class means we're more likely to engage the child, too.

They are welcomed in, given palms to wave and a cloak to walk over as they hear the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. We move to a small corner of the church where at a low table they are invited to share in the bread and wine (grape juice) of the Last Supper. Once we are in a small garden (a different corner with a few fake trees) they sit and listen and pretend to fall asleep as Jesus prays. They hide in the back pews as they are told the disciples hide. They wonder where Jesus has been taken. The trial is held at the raised pulpit, covered with purple velvet, the children sitting on the floor looking up at the storyteller. They hear the crowd (their parents) yell for Barabbas. We walk through the stations of the cross displayed around the church. One sentence said at each station with silence in between for them to think their own thoughts. We slowly wander, downstairs, down into darkness as the storyteller speaks about the days when the disciples thought Jesus was dead. They are told of the women going to the tomb days later wondering who would move the stone. We arrive at the columbarium and are told by an angel "Why do you look for the living amongst the dead? Jesus is not here."

The whole time they are moving. The whole time they are using their whole bodies to learn. They walk. They sit. They eat. They drink. They sleep. They hide. They look up. They walk the stations. They go down. They are told the Good News.

All through the lesson the children were attentive and alert; quiet but not bored. The teachers and parents were as well. We knew something was moving within and amongst the children.

They took home with them not a craft or a piece of paper, but the story and the experience. They took home something they knew not something they had been taught.

The afterglow of having a great lesson was beginning to wear off a little while later when a parent came up to me saying "I just have to share this with you. Julia (his 7 year old) was talking to me about the story. She told me: I know why the crowd picked Barabbas, daddy. Because they knew Jesus could handle it. They knew Jesus would be able to handle what was coming."

I told him, "That'll preach."