We’re four weeks in to our six week experiment with an intergenerational small group on Zoom.
(Read how it started here.)
Last week, as I read part of the psalm, it had nice repeats in it which I thought lent itself to singing it (obviously, as it’s a psalm!), so we agreed that each family would have a go at writing our own DIY psalm using some words from Psalm 115.
We did this an shared them on Whatsapp, which was great! Neither is a work of art, but each focuses on the part of the psalm we found most interesting, and is easy to sing a long to. I’m hoping this will make that part of the psalm really memorable to us in the future.
This week, my children were very reluctant, but because we’d booked it, I gently pressed ahead.
By gently, I mean I told my children they didn’t have to join in, but I was going to do it anyway. I prepared the room, moving the chairs and table so we could all see, set up the laptop, and invited my 8yo who was hanging around to bring some creative materials she’d like to use.
She chose paint and proceeded to start painting!
The Mum in the other family led it this week, and we moved slowly through the reading (with fun actions which my 8yo did) and then chatted over the questions. By this time, my 9yo joined us, and even offered her thoughts on which part of the psalm she liked best.
We had an interesting conversation about authorship of psalms, and on when it might be useful to read this psalm.
One 10 year said it would be helpful if you were in a hard family situation (she mentioned one they’d recently experienced), and I wondered aloud what we might do to make these psalms available to us when we need them. We chatted about various ideas of what we might do, then broke into creative time.
This week I had an image in my head which I wanted to create, based on my daughter’s favourite line: “Our God is full of tender love”.
I measured out an A2 page and drew outlines of the word ‘our God’ then filled them with the words ‘tender love’ written over and over again.
Finally I rubbed out the outlines and the words ‘Our God’ were full of ‘tender love’! Love doing things like that!
Others painted, built with stickle bricks, wrote drew and one child made a cube with different psalm words on different faces!
Find out how we get on next week!
Click here for more details about Exploring Psalms, including a free sample
