The Queen’s 90th Birthday—A Week of Collective Worship The Queen celebrates two birthdays each year: her actual birthday on 21 April and her official birthday on a Saturday in June when Trooping the Colour takes place. In 2016 Her Majesty celebrates her 90th Birthday and the official celebrations for this special anniversary will spread over a month, from a special pageant on 12‐15 May to a service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, Trooping the Colour and a Patron’s Lunch for 10,000 people in the Mall on 10‐12 June. These acts of collective worship are offered to be used at any time in this period, but would seem especially appropriate for the week after the Summer Half Term Holiday 2016, leading up to the official birthday weekend. The themes of these acts of worship have been linked to Christian concepts or values. These are: 1. Promises 2. Service 3. Leadership 4. Respect 5. Celebration You may like to create a display image such as the crown below as the acts of worship progress, adding a word for each day. PHOTOGRAPH OF QUEEN L
EAD
ERSH
RESPECT I P PROMISES SERVICE Promises Resources A copy of the hymn “O Jesus I have promised” http://www.worshipworkshop.org.uk/songs‐and‐
hymns/hymns/o‐jesus‐i‐have‐promised/ or http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/j/i/
ojihprom.htm On a slide—the words from the Queen’s 21st birthday radio address: “ I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong….God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share it.” The speech and words can be found on You Tube at http://www.royal.gov.uk/
imagesandbroadcasts/historic%20speeches%20and%
20broadcasts/21stbirthdayspeech21april1947.aspx —the paragraph we are looking at comes right at the end. Official Church of England prayers agreed by the Queen for the celebrations appear at: https://
www.churchofengland.org/media‐centre/news/2016/02/prayers‐for‐hm‐the‐queen%E2%80%99s‐
90th‐birthday‐published.aspx Introduction Talk with the children about times you have made promises. How easy or hard is it to keep a promise? How long should you keep a promise for (e.g. if you promised not to tell a secret)? The Message In 1868, almost 150 years ago, John Bode, the Vicar of Castle Camps in the Diocese of Ely was writing a hymn about “promises” for his daughter and two sons. The hymn is still sung today and many people say it is one of their favourites, it’s called “O Jesus I have promised”. Take time to listen to and look at the first verse of the hymn. Pick out the line of the hymn “serve thee to the end”. Talk about what “the end” might mean ( i.e. for my whole life). What does the hymn singer need if they are going to serve Jesus all their lives? (They ask Jesus to be with them for all time.) This week we are celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday and we know that on her 21st birthday (21st April 1947) she also made a special promise which sounds something like the hymn. If you can play just the last part of the Queen's Message to the assembly let them hear her own voice, otherwise read the words out. The Queen has promised to serve our country for her whole life, with God’s help and she ask us to pray for her while she does that—so let us do just that. Prayer This is a special prayer that the Queen has asked us to use when we pray for her : Heavenly Father, as we celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, receive our heartfelt thanks for all that you have given her in these ninety years and for all that she has given to her people. Continue, we pray, your loving purposes in her, and as you gather us together in celebration, unite us also in love and service to one another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Service Resources The worship requires some mathematical calculations—you can carry these out on the screen, assisted by some of your pupils with calculators. Ask for estimations and “higher or lower” as you go. Photograph of Queen with her red boxes—there are several official ones e.g. at http://
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk‐34177107 Other photographs of her “at work” can readily be acquired through Google Images. Introduction Yesterday we found out about the Queen’s promise to serve all of her life. Most people retire from their jobs when they are 60 or a bit older. Can you think of anyone you know who has retired? What kind of things do they do all day? Do you know anyone who is as old as the Queen? What do they do? The Message The Queen hasn’t stopped working all her life—how many hours do you think she does in a week or in a year? Let’s compare this with how much you do. Do you think she does more or less than you? Here’s the calculations: KS2 pupil: 23.5 hours per week x 38 weeks = 893 hours per year Queen: 50 hours per week x 52 weeks (she only takes Christmas and Easter Day off) = 2600 hours per year This means the Queen does almost three times as much work as you do every year—and she is 90 years old! Discuss what kind of work the Queen does—show the red box picture, this is her daily homework as these boxes come filled with hundreds of government documents and letters every week. Also there are all the other kinds of work she does (ask for ideas and share photographs). Do you remember what or who the Queen said helped her to live a life of service? She said it was her faith in God, but also because she sees her whole life as serving others, just like Jesus spent his whole life serving others. She said this in her special Christmas message to us in 2012, part of which we are going to use as today’s prayer. Use the prayer to help you think what you might be able to do to serve others now and in the future. Prayer “.. we remember that God sent his only son “to serve, not be served. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ. It is my prayer...that his example and teaching will continue to bring people together to give the best of themselves in the service of others.” Amen You may like to follow the prayer with a sharing of ideas of different kinds of service children could perform, now or in their future lives. Leadership Resources Your church school badge or logo showing you are a Church of England School Assorted coins (with different portraits of the Queen if possible), and images of the five different portraits of the queen which have been used on our coinage see http://www.royalmint.com/
discover/royalty/the‐royal‐portraits You may also like to put up the message of the coins as per below Video or photograph of the crowning of the Queen in the Coronation Ceremony e.g. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=inKSvLk7kiI If you want to check the text of the coronation service you can find it at http://www.oremus.org/
liturgy/coronation/cor1953b.html Introduction We see portraits of the Queen all the time because we don’t only see her on the television, she is on our money as well. How many different portraits of the queen can we find on our coins? Get some pupils to help you sort your coinage in to types—you may have as many as four portraits (the first one was on pre‐decimal coinage so is no longer in use). Compare the coins—you can see the Queen is getting older, but the words on the coins which surround her head are always the same—what are they? (“Elizabeth II Dei Gratia Regina F. D.” ‐ some coins will have a more abbreviated form, but they are all the same). What language is this—it’s not English! (Latin) The Message The message the coins are spelling out is: “Elizabeth the Second By the Grace of God—Dei Gratia Queen—Regina Defender of the Faith— Fidei Defensor” These messages show that the Queen knows her power and authority are given to her by God and part of her role is to be a leader for the Christian faith. Let’s look at the moment when she was crowned Queen and see how many things we can spot which tell us the coronation is a special Christian ceremony show the video or look at he photograph together (obvious ones are that it’s in a church and the ceremony is carried out by senior clergy—but also look at what the Queen is holding—there is a cross on the top of both the orb and the sceptre—showing that she is the servant of the greater King—Christ). Something which we don't see in these photographs is that much earlier in the service the Queen was given a Bible and told : “ Our gracious Queen: to keep your Majesty ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, we present you with this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords.” This showed the Queen that the Bible is much much more important than all the jewels and wonderful things that she was to be given next. She has always lived her life following the teachings of the Bible. When Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth she also became Head (“Supreme Governor”) of the Church of England, which is one of the reasons we have F.D on our coins. If we look at our school badge we can see that we have Church of England (or C.E. or variant) on our badges, so the Queen is head of our Church and our church school in a special way. We need to live up to our C. E. just like the Queen lives up to her F.D.—how can we do that? Prayer In one of her Christmas messages the Queen said to us: “Jesus’ life began..in a stable, but he was to have a profound influence on the course of history, and on the lives of generations of his followers. You don’t have to be rich or powerful in order to change things for the better and each of us in our own way can make a contribution.” We pray that God will help us to go the best we can in for each other in a generous and positive way. Amen Respect Resources Part of this act of worship is the retelling of the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke chp 10 vss 25‐
37)—this can be done in a variety of ways, including drama led by the pupils. Select the method which is most appropriate for your school but don’t let this dominate the worship as the theme is the Queen as a role model. Use Google Images to make a slide of the Queen meeting many different kinds of people, including ones from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth website is at http://thecommonwealth.org/ and you may like to look particularly at the messages on inclusiveness http://
thecommonwealth.org/media/news/commonwealth‐leaders‐speak‐inclusiveness The Commonwealth map is at http://thecommonwealth.org/member‐countries Introduction Do you have a favourite Bible story or one you know really well? Discuss! One story the Queen often talks about is a parable story that Jesus told—the Good Samaritan. Tell, or recap the story of the Good Samaritan as seems appropriate. The Message One important thing to remember about this story is that the Samaritan and the man who was beaten up should have been enemies; they came from two neighbouring countries which had hated each other for hundreds of years. However the Samaritan did not show hatred for the person who was different from him—he showed love, care and respect and helped him. The Queen meets thousands of people every year and she always treats every one of them with respect and dignity. She always makes sure she is never late for anything or for meeting anyone as this would be disrespectful. Show photographs and talk about them together. An especially important role the Queen has is as Head of the Commonwealth. You may like to get pupils to guesstimate how many nations there are in the Commonwealth and where they might be etc. The Queen often talks about the people she meets who work hard to help their neighbours through charity work or other means and she appreciates how many people do good works without expecting to be famous and whenever she can she thanks them for all they do (e.g. garden parties, awards, letters, conversations). She puts Jesus’ instruction to “love your neighbour” into action and wants us to do the same. Prayer Here are some words of the Queen from her 2000 Christmas broadcast which we can use as our prayer today: “Many will have been inspired by Jesus’ simple but powerful teaching: love God and love thy neighbour as thyself—in other words treat others as you would like them to treat you.” May we always follow Jesus’ teaching in our own way and in our own lives. Amen Celebration! Resources If you are timing this week’s worth of collective worship to lead into the June weekend of birthday celebrations you can use this worship to talk about what is happening locally and in your school to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday and also to note that today will be the special national thanksgiving service in St Paul’s Cathedral (11.00 a.m.) It would be good to end your worship today in the same way as you traditionally celebrate birthdays in your school—or maybe even be a little more colourful—party poppers etc! The collective worship today is going to focus on something which has already taken place this year on the last day of the Spring Term (24th March) and probably got missed in your Easter celebrations—the Maundy Thursday Service which this year was at Windsor. The service particularly relates to the Queen’s 90th birthday because every year the coins given out, and the number of men and women who receive purses, equal the monarch’s age, The recipients receive a red and a white purse. The white purse contains tiny silver penny coins which add up to the number of years of age of the monarch (so it was 90p this year although the Queen’s birthday had not have taken place at this point). The red purse contains commemorative coins which could be spent ( not that anyone would!) and this year the red purse will have a special 90th birthday coin and one commemorating the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Details about Maundy Money can be found at http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk‐coins/maundy‐money Details about Maundy Services, including a very short video can be found at http://
www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/RoyalMaundyService/Maundyservice.aspx The last time the service was held at Ely Cathedral was in 1987 and Anglia Archive has a short online film of this at http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2012‐05‐29/anglia‐archive‐draft/ if you want something more local. Introduction Talk together about the different things that are happening locally and nationally to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. The Message There are many ways of celebrating special occasions and one which the Queen took part in on the last day of last term was the Maundy Thursday service at Windsor. The Maundy Thursday service takes place every year and it is not a service just for the Queen, although she plays a very special part in it; it is to remember what Jesus did on the night before he died. Briefly recap, remind or ask people about the story of the Last Supper, including the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus, as appropriate. You may like to include how Christians remember this story every time they go to a Holy Communion / Eucharist service. Explain about the giving of Maundy Money at the Maundy Thursday Service the Queen attends, using photographs or a video as appropriate. How do you think the elderly people are chosen to receive the Maundy Money each year? (Ordinary people who have given service to the Church or to the community—nominated thorough the bishop—they are always people who are very surprised to have been noticed and chosen) As you listen to these words the Queen said which I am going to read out, think about what you want to do in the future. You cannot chose to be a King or a Queen because that is something you have to be born into, but you can be the best kind of person you can be.. Here’s what the Queen says: “As I go about the country and abroad I meet many people who are making a real contribution to their community…. “Some people choose their occupation so that they can spend their lives in the service of their fellow citizens. We see doctors, nurses and hospital staff caring for the sick; those in churches and religious communities; in central and local government; in the armed services; in the police and in the courts and prisons; in industry and commerce. “It is the same urge to make a contribution which drives those seeking the highest standards in education or art, in music or architecture. “Others find ways to give service in their spare time, through voluntary organisations or simply on their own, contributing in a thousand ways to all that is best in society. “It may be providing company for the old and housebound; help for the disabled; care for the deprived and those in trouble; concern for neighbours or encouragement for the young. “To all of you...whatever your conditions of work and life, easy or difficult; whether you feel you are achieving something or whether you feel frustrated; I want to say a word of thanks.” I wonder if anything you are thinking of doing in the future was on that list of special people from the Queen? Perhaps something someone in your family does was on the list. (Discuss?) We have spent time this week thinking about all the Queen has done all her life to serve us all and to thank her for it ,and pray for her. It is good to know that she prays for us too and wants to support us in our service. Let’s finish our worship with the special prayer we prayed at the beginning of the week, and then we can celebrate the Queen’s birthday properly! Prayer Heavenly Father, as we celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, receive our heartfelt thanks for all that you have given her in these ninety years and for all that she has given to her people. Continue, we pray, your loving purposes in her, and as you gather us together in celebration, unite us also in love and service to one another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen “ Happy birthday to you……” etc