Activity – Outsiders In – The Reflectionary

This activity demonstrates the expanse of God’s kingdom, how it spreads beyond the boundaries we place on it.

You need a sheet of paper and some pens, coloured if you like.

Draw crowns all over the paper. This represents God’s kingdom. Now crumple the paper up into a tight ball. This is how the people of Jesus’ time thought of God’s kingdom. It was small, limited only to the Jewish people, and not even all of them (think of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet). We can think like that too, sometimes. We only want ‘nice’ people in church, people who are like us and easy to talk to.

Now look at your hand. The palm is all the people in the church. Look around at them now, see who is there. Now think of all the different types of people who are not there. People who live nearby but are never in church, people who feel they don’t fit. These outsiders are the fingers of your hand.

Hold your hand out flat with your fingers spread. Put the ball of paper in your palm and see how much it does not cover, not even all your palm. God’s kingdom is not supposed to be like this. We are not supposed to keep it to ourselves, tightly gathered in, in case the edges get messy.

Now flatten out the paper out on your hand, and see it spreading to cover all of your palm, and all of your fingers, and beyond – from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria and the ends of the earth.