STORYTELLING: Enhance your telling of the story with simple props such as twelve small stones for the altar, flames of fire (red, orange, and yellow paper), a small toy animal to put on the altar, sticks to put on the fire, water to pour over the altar, etc.
PRIESTHOOD POWER ACTIVITY: Elijah’s altar was built on twelve stones, which symbolizes the twelve tribes or, in a larger sense, the priesthood. Pass the stones out to your students. Have them place the stones on a table to form an altar and, as they each do this, to share with the class one way in which the priesthood can be a source of strength in their own lives.
‘NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS’ ACTIVITY: Have the students stand up in a line. Tell them they have to go in whatever direction you tell them. Call out left, right, right, left, right, etc going faster and faster until they can’t keep up. Have them sit and discuss: Can you walk in two directions at the same time? Elijah compared worshipping idols as trying to go two directions at the same time. He told the people they would have to decide what direction (or path) they would take. Going toward God meant going away from Baal. They couldn’t have it both ways. Jesus said something similar: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
PLACES OF WORSHIP: In this story, Elijah worships on Mt. Carmel. You may want to discuss the different places where we can worship God. “Places in Which We Worship,� Friend, Jan. 2003, page 18, could be used as well.
NATURE OF GOD ACTIVITY: If you choose to use the fourth enrichment activity, you could make copies of the word strips for each child and have them do the activity individually for a change.
THE FALSE GODS WE WORSHIP: (This is a variation on enrichment activity number five.) Give each child a paper and a pencil and ask them to write the alphabet down the left side of the paper. Then ask them to write a word for each letter of the alphabet so that each word represents a false god that some people might worship. For example, they could write “appearances� for A or “beauty� for B or “cars� for C. If you want to turn this into a game (a variant of pictionary) tell them that at the end, they’ll get one point for each word they have that no one else in the class wrote down.
TRUE WORSHIP ACTIVITY: Give each child two index cards and a pencil. Have them write a good example of true worship on one card and a poor example of worship on the other. For example, a good example might be “Listen to the words of the sacrament hymn� and a poor example might be “tie your shoelaces in knots during the sacrament.� Collect the cards, read them aloud one at a time, and have the class give you a thumbs up if the example is good and a thumbs down if it is poor.
I think that using this cartoon as a visual aid would really add a lot to all of the activities you mention. It really hits at the heart of the matter.
I think DKL\’s point is a valid one. Perhaps it should be suggested there be a \”two bags of chips\” exercise, illustrating the physical bag of chips of our material being that we all carry throughout existence, and the spiritual bag of chips carried by God, who occasionally snacks upon them.
/rolls eyes
LOL. That was a very good response, Julie.
Why are you laughing? If you have reservations about the religious and teleological implications of the potato chip bag ideal, I’d love to hear it. Frankly, I find this to be the most thorough debunking of monism since Carnap introduced his famous ‘chunky soup’ paradox in the theory of lobster bisque.
This discussion sounds like my Primary class whistling while I\’m trying to give a lesson on Old Testament prophets.
Another variation on enrichment #5, would be to give each student a slip of paper. Have THEM write down one wordly thing that we sometimes worship. And then attach it to the rock or other object.