Creation – what makes something ‘good’?

Key Bible passage: Genesis 1 Creation

Aim: to be inspired by God’s perfection in creation to do things as well as we can

1 I’m going to paint a picture now. It’s going to be of a tree. (Paint a very bad rushed tree). There. What do you think? Hmm, yes it probably isn’t very good. Why isn’t it?
(didn’t put much effort in, did it too quickly, didn’t observe a real tree, didn’t care about it.)

If I wanted to paint a picture that had real quality about it, what might I do? (get some answers)

2 Show a picture of a tree such as Ruisdael’s A Pool surrounded by trees’ which can be found in zoomable form on the National Gallery website and ask the children what the difference is between his trees and your tree. Try to bring out the way the artist has aimed for excellence.

3 Say we all have a choice when we make things, or write or do maths or sport. We can do them as if we didn’t care, or we can aim to be excellent. If we aim to be excellent, we’re actually being like God! Because God makes things excellently. Listen to what God thought of each bit of his creation when he made the world.

4 Read Genesis 1:1-31, with beautiful pictures for each ‘day’ if possible. Encourage the children to join in with the end of the refrain ‘God saw that it was …. good.’

5 So God made everything as well as he could, which is perfect! We can’t be perfect, because we’re not God, but we can choose to be like God and do everything as well as we possibly can.

Think for a moment about what work you’ll be doing today in school. Picture your books, your computer, your PE kit. Now silently ask God to help you do all those lessons today as well as you possibly can.

And after each piece of work, take a moment to sit back and say to yourself, ‘That’s good!’