• Before the session, prepare some slips of paper with ordinary things we could do for others to show God’s love, for example, help with the shopping, look after a younger sibling, wash the car.
• Ask a volunteer to go first, and mime doing something that could show our love and God’s love to someone, for the rest of the group to guess. If someone has trouble thinking of something, they can use one of your prepared ideas.

Do

Good works (C+YP 15 mins)

Think about what we can do out of love

You will need: pens and white A5 card, one sheet per person.

• Dorcas was known for doing good works, for showing her love, and God’s love, through the ordinary things she did for others. Talk with the group about the ordinary things they can do to show God’s love.
• As a group, make promise cards. On one side of their A5 card, invite the youngsters (or help them) to write ‘I will show my love by...’ and write or draw the ordinary things they will do. On the other side, write ’Help me, God, to show your love’.

Make

Made with love (C+15 mins)

Create new outfits

You will need: arts and craft materials, a figure outline and a tabbed clothes template (see here for both), printed out on thin card, one per person.

• Dorcas made clothes for the widows, and the love she invested into making them meant they were precious. Give each child a figure outline and set of tabbed clothes.
• Invite the children to decorate the clothes before dressing their cardboard figure.

Act

Stay where you are (C+YP 20 mins)

Find a way of doing God’s work where you are

You will need: information about local projects or organisations serving the needy in your community.

• When we talk about doing God’s work, it is easy to think that it has to mean doing something big, or going to the other side of the world to find people, to serve in God’s name. Dorcas worked for God in her own community and, after his encounter with her, Peter stayed there a while, too, interrupting his journey to stay in one place for some time.
• As a group, find out about a local project or organisation that is serving the needy in your community (a food bank, or a Street Pastors team, a youth project or a charity working with the elderly, homeless or lonely). Maybe you could invite someone to come and talk to your group about their work.
• Try to find a way that your group could help the work of your chosen project. Perhaps you could help to raise funds or awareness, collect food for a food bank, or help to host a tea party for the elderly.

Wonder

Precious (C+YP 10 mins)

Explore what makes ordinary things precious

You will need: The precious items the group has brought (see Prepare the space), or some precious items of your own.

• Look together at the collection of precious things. Invite the group members to share their items, or share your own. Talk about what the items are, and why they are precious.
• Often the things that are precious to us seem ordinary to others. But the story behind an object can turn something ordinary into something extraordinary.
• The clothes that Dorcas had made for the widows were ordinary, but the love with which she made and gave them made them precious to the widows. Ordinary things, done in love, can become extraordinary.

Pray

Prayer quilt (C+YP 20 mins)

Thank God that we can work for him in our community

You will need: squares of fabric, either remnants or cut out from a pillowcase that can be bought very cheaply from many stores; fabric pens, or felt pens; needles and thread.

• Give each youngster a piece of fabric, and ask them to decorate it to represent themselves. Ask them to think especially about the ordinary things they can do to show others they love them.
• When the squares are finished, get the group members to stitch them together to form a quilt. You might fix them to a sheet if you have a large group, or to a pillowcase with smaller groups.
• You could get a leader to do this, or ask the youngsters to do their own. If you are pushed for time, just lay out the squares together, and attach them later, or use squares of paper and staples instead of sewing.
• When the group’s quilt is finished, all gather around it, and give thanks to God that we can serve God by doing ordinary things out of love in our community.