A Pre-school Pentecost

Fire, Wind, Chaos -- and Words

Another pre-school chapel (Not Pentecost)

At my last call, I had a Wednesday chapel service every week. Mostly what I did was tell Bible stories, sing songs and pray. Usually the school year started with the creation story in Genesis, and we worked our way through the Bible through Noah and Abraham and Joseph, to Moses, David and Solomon, and some random prophets, to finally the story of Jesus, from baby-hood to crucifixion and resurrection. Some stories were simple to tell; others were a bit more challenging for pre-schoolers. I always tried to focus on the drama of the story, without trying to explain.

Eventually, every year, we got to the story of Pentecost. It wasn’t always exactly the same time as Pentecost in the church calendar (sometimes the school year ended before Pentecost).

One year, I remember, I made a few paper “tongues of fire” to prepare and a brought along a children’s Bible to help tell the story. (I also hid the tongues of fire in the Bible.)

First, we practiced making sounds like a mighty wind. We practiced starting to make the sound when I said the words “mighty wind” and we practiced stopping when I raised my hands.

After practicing, I asked for twelve students to be the disciples, standing around in a circle, praying, and waiting for the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t hard to find twelve disciples, although it was a little hard to get the youngest of them to understand the concept of standing in a circle and holding hands and praying.

But when we finally got into a circle, and began to pray, then there was sound of the mighty wind that filled the room (cue: mighty wind) and then the tongues of flame appeared from the pages of the children’s Bible and were given to a few children to hold up in the air. Then the disciples began to speak and everyone could hear them speaking in their own language.

“Does anyone here know another language?” I asked the twelve who were standing in a circle. I said it without thinking about it. After all, the oldest of them was about five years old. It just came out of my mouth. Before I even had time to think about the absurdity of my question, I heard an answer.

One little girl said, “Hola.”

She got my attention.

A little later, I gave some children the microphone and told them that the Holy Spirit gave them the power to tell people something very important. They got to speak into the microphone and say it. Jesus loves you.

Then, we sang “Jesus Loves Me” too.

We sang it with hand motions. We sang it in a whisper. We shouted it at the top of our lungs. I was sure that they could hear it across the highway.

And a little girl said “Hola.” Because she knew another language.

And somehow, the Holy Spirit came down, like a mighty wind, like a gentle breeze, like a paper tongue of flame.

O Holy Spirit -- you had me at “Hola.”

The church on Pentecost one year