In February 2017 we had an enjoyable All-Age service with a simple illustration of the vastness of the Solar system - and
some further brief thought about the scale of the Universe. Then, we explored
the opportunity we have as Christians to celebrate both of those and the wisdom of Genesis 1 together.
A very simplified model of the Sun (a cheap
lightweight football, part painted over with acrylic paint) was placed on the
pulpit. Then very basic models of the larger planets were handed to each of the
children brave enough to volunteer ‘to show the rest of the congregation
something of special interest’.
The planets were made up, to illustrate
their size compared to that of the football
sun, and made from
·
Painted marble-size cotton
balls for Earth and Venus
·
Painted ping-pong ball size
cotton balls for Jupiter and Saturn (with a cardboard ring system glued on to
the latter)
·
and garden seeds Sellotaped on
to small pieces of card labelled (1)Mercury, (2)Mars and (3)Pluto (The seed
representing the planets’ sizes although should be even smaller i.e. a grain of sand) .
The children with Earth, Venus, Jupiter and
Saturn each walked round the church to show the congregation their comparative
sizes, whilst Mercury, Mars and Pluto were given to another child to hand to three
members of the congregation to pass around among themselves.
The children returned from their walks and it
was then explained where they would have to go to represent the circuit of
their planet on the scale of ‘our’ football/sun.
Mercury – 42ft – to the back of our pews
(to my delight when I asked ‘Who’s holding Mercury?’ (one of the seeds on a card) it
had conveniently reached the back row and was being held by a new visitor to the
church))
Venus – 76 ft – to the back of the church. Venus
was duly carried there.
Then an explanation
only that
·
Earth -106 ft – would be 30
feet further in the churchyard
·
Mars - 163 ft – would be ‘by
the war memorial’
·
Jupiter – 552 ft – would be 3
football pitches away
·
Saturn -1012 ft – down by the
river (at which point, the personable young girl holding Saturn protested ‘I’m
not going there!’ to the amusement and delight of the congregation)
·
Pluto – 4200ft – up to the
bridge over our main arterial road
It was then explained that this vast system
is only one of billions of billions of similar systems throughout the whole
Universe. At this point, I referred to the song ‘The Bible Starts with Parable’,
and used the words as the basis for the rest of the short talk. The first verse
celebrates the wisdom of the Genesis Stories: then the second half of the three
verses celebrates the miracle of the creation of the whole Universe as God’s work. (Click Here to view the song)
This needed a bit of preparatory work,
which it was emphasized was all very
approximate. But from remarks afterwards, it was felt to be thought-provoking,
much enjoyed by both children and adults and gave at least some people, a fresh
perspective. Just how great is your God?