Games and Activities
We Are The Church: Lesson 4
Kingdom Mad-lib
Supplies: Click the button to download the Mad-lib Documents
Invite the campers to wonder what a kingdom is like! For younger groups who might need more help and prompting with parts of speech, this is suggested as a large group activity, or even split into two groups with a family group leader helping each team. For older students, it is suggested to split into small groups of 3-5 students to complete the stories.
When the stories are completed, share them aloud. After hopefully a good amount of laughter at your stories, ask the following questions
What was the favorite part of the kingdoms you heard about?
What was the most interesting or strangest parts of the kingdoms?
What if anything was missing from the kingdom?
What would you wish for in a real kingdom?
Imagine the Perfect Kingdom
Supplies: Art Supplies and Paper
Invite the campers to imagine the kingdom that Jesus was trying to teach us about. What does the kingdom of heaven look like here on earth? If the kingdom of heaven was right here in our world as Jesus described it, what would it look like?
Have your camper use their art supplies to draw, color a picture, or they may do a creative writing reflecting on what they imagine Jesus kingdom here on earth would be like.
When you are finished feel free to post your creation to our forums and look over the creations of our other campers. Click here to go to the forums!
Being the Church:
Read and discuss these paragraphs on Dorthy Day
Dorothy Day was a newspaper writer and editor, social protestor, community founder, and practical theologian whose life and work sparked huge changes in American society. A radical for social change with an early admiration of Communist organizations she covered (though she never joined the Communist movement), Dorothy worked for the oppressed long before she came to the Christian faith. In the Catholic Church, Dorothy found a resonance with her work and sustaining hope that could fuel steps for making a better world. Her work became rooted in the life and love of Jesus Christ, and prayer nourished the demands of her social work. She lived simply so that all in the community would have enough, and stepped up to serve where needed: from the soup serving line to the editor’s desk.
Dorothy Day did not grow up in a faith community, but when she was a little girl, she saw how important God’s work of justice and love are. When a huge earthquake hit her hometown, San Francisco, Dorothy’s parents worked long and hard to help the people around them. When Dorothy grew up, she worked to help people too. She worked as a journalist and protested injustices she saw in society. When she had a baby, her daughter Tamar, she was in wonder and experienced the Holy Spirit. Dorothy and her daughter joined the Catholic Church. With her friend Peter, Dorothy started the Catholic Worker movement, a group of people who lived and served together. Dorothy, Peter, and their friends ran hospitality houses where hungry people with no shelter could come to have a good meal and a place to sleep. They didn’t just visit the poor or give money, but they chose to live alongside people in need, becoming friends and working together with them for the good of the whole community. Dorothy also started the Catholic Worker, a newspaper about what was going on with the needs of the community. Dorothy did this work for almost fifty years
* For an extra activity find a picture of Dorthy Day and do your best to recreate that picture. When you are done post a picture of your recreation on our forums by Clicking Here!