Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to our lesson on Christian beliefs.

Today we are going to look at the Church and Pentecost.

My name is Miss Day.

Now, I would like you to get ready for the lesson.

So if you could get a pen or a pencil, some paper and a different coloured pen, that would be great.

The different coloured pen is just so we can mark answers together.

Feel free to pause the video now and you can go to get what you need.

So, what are we learning about today? So, we're learning about the start of the Church and this day of Pentecost.

So this is our lesson agenda.

The first thing which we will be talking about is the giving of the Holy Spirit.

So we will think about what the Holy Spirit is and how it was given.

Then we will think about the nature of the Church.

You know this word nature, now, so what is the Church like? And then, finally, the spread of the Church into all nations.

So, what has happened so far? I wonder if you could pause this for two minutes and bullet point all of the events in Christian beliefs that we have seen so far.

So, what has happened to Jesus? What were the key events in His life? So, what have we seen so far in our lessons? Really well done in that! We are now going to go through some of these key events together, just to make sure you have the order in your head before we move on.

Great, so I'm sure you got lots of really good answers, but I wanted to just remind you of the key events that we saw in Jesus' life before we look at today's lesson.

So, if you look at the images, you will see, firstly, the image of the crucifixion, where Jesus died on the cross, and Christians believe this was to pay the price for their sin.

Then you have the image of the grave without the tombstone.

So, with the stone rolled away on the front of the grave.

This is to symbolise the resurrection.

So we know that on the Sunday, Jesus rose again.

And Christians believe this gives them hope for life after death and it shows how powerful God is.

And finally, we have the image of the cloud.

And you might remember in the last lesson we looked at the ascension of Jesus.

So here we see this idea that Jesus was taken up to Heaven and hid by a cloud, and this is where he returned to God, the Father.

So this is where we've got to in our story so far.

Jesus has came to Earth, He's lived, He's died, He's rose again and He has returned to Heaven.

So our key question now is what happens next? Jesus has came to Earth, He's lived, He's died, He's rose again, but what happens now? Because I want you to image you're one of the disciples.

You had all of these years with Jesus, you saw Him do these great miracles, you saw Him teach thousands of people, you even saw Him die and rise again, but now He's gone.

So what happens now? What are the disciples going to do next? And that is what we are going to think about in today's lesson.

So the first part of our lesson is going to be focused on Pentecost, and this was the next big event that happened to the Church.

So Jesus has gone back to Heaven, so it is just the disciples now who are being His witnesses.

Remember, we talked about the Great Commission.

They were told to go and be His witnesses across the Earth, so that is what they started to do.

And we are going to look at a passage where we see the start of their ministry, and the name given to this is Pentecost.

So we're going to read through the story together and then talk about why it is so significant for the Church.

So you can follow along on the screen as we read this.

"When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place.

Suddenly, there was a noise from the sky, which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

There were Jews living in Jerusalem, religious people who had come from every country in the world.

When they heard this noise, a large crowd gathered.

They were all excited, because all of them heard the believers talking in their own languages." And this is found in Acts 2:1-6.

So, what has just happened? Here we see the believers meeting together on this day of Pentecost and then, out of nowhere, there's this large noise and a wind appears, and then there are these tongues of fire which rest on each person, and then what happens? They all start to understand each other.

So I want you to imagine that these were believers who had came from many different countries, and they all spoke different languages, so they couldn't understand each other, but when Pentecost happened they all started to understand what each other were saying.

So this is another example of a miracle.

They all started to understand what each other are saying.

And this, these tongues of fire, represent the Holy Spirit coming upon Christians.

And what is the Holy Spirit? We know that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, but what is the role of the Holy Spirit? So, the Holy Spirit's the third part of the Trinity, the third person in the Trinity.

And the Holy Spirit's role is to guide and strengthen humans on Earth.

So the Holy Spirit is God's presence on Earth.

The Holy Spirit is what helps Christians to speak out about Jesus, and it's through the Holy Spirit that Christians can understand what the Bible is saying.

So, some Christians might even say that the Holy Spirit is the most important part of the Trinity on Earth right now, because the Holy Spirit is the part of the Trinity that helps Christians to have a relationship with the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit helps Christians to understand and to connect with God, the Father and God, the Son.

So this is a massive event in Christian history.

This is when the Holy Spirit arrives on Earth.

When the Holy Spirit enters believers for the first time.

So this event is so significant in the history of the Church, which is why we are looking at this event now.

So what I would like you to do now is to complete the task, which you can download as a worksheet.

And your task is to insert cartoon pictures above the statements that I have added to the worksheet.

So the worksheet looks like this.

You can print it out or you can do it on the computer.

But what I want you to do is to read through each of the lines and to draw a picture to represent what you have read.

You can spend about five or 10 minutes on this, and you can make is as artistic and beautiful as you like.

So you can pause the video here to complete your task, and when you've finished your task, you can press resume and we will carry on with the lesson.

Really well done on that task.

We are now going to move on to look at why this event was so significant for the Church.

So, why is this event considered the start of the Christian Church? This story is at the start of Acts, which is the book that is written after the four Gospels.

So the four Gospels are all about Jesus' life, then Acts is all about the start of Christian Church, and this story is right at the beginning of it.

And some Christians would say this is the moment that the Church starts.

So why, why is this the key moment in which we see the beginning of the Christian Church as we know it today? The first reason is because the Holy Spirit comes upon Christians.

So this is the moment where the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, enters Christians.

This is the moment where they have the power of God living inside them, where they're being guided by the Holy Spirit.

Before this point, the Holy Spirit didn't enter Christians.

But as Jesus left He said, "There's going to be someone greater who's coming to help you, and this is the Holy Spirit." So the Holy Spirit is the guide and the strength to Christians today.

Secondly, this is the point where we see Christians from different nations gather together.

So this is the first point where we see Christians from different parts of the country, and different areas, gather together.

They all speak different languages, but at this point they can all understand each other.

So at this moment, the Christian story gets taught to lots of people, thousands of people, and they can all understand it, so they then can go back to their own areas and bring what they have learnt.

But this is where we see not just a little group of Christians meet, but Christians from lots of different nations gathering together.

So what I would like you to do now is to have a go at this task.

So this is a linking task.

So you're going to link the point to the part of the Pentecost story that you think it links to.

So, for example, you have two different reasons why this is so important.

So, number one, the Holy Spirit comes down and number two, Christians from different nations gather together.

So number one, the Holy Spirit comes down.

What I would like you to do is to link it back to the part of the Pentecost story when that happens, and then give a quote that talks about that.

If you need to look back in the video, that is totally fine, you can do that.

This should probably only take you about five or 10 minutes, but try to write your answers in full sentences.

So you're saying which part of the story it links to and a quote that you could use if you were writing a paragraph on this.

So you can pause the video now and restart it when you are finished.

So let's go through some of these answers together.

So, the Holy Spirit comes down.

If I was linking this to the Pentecost story, I would say, "This links to the section of the story when tongues of fire spread out and touch every person." So the tongues of fire are meant to represent this idea of the Holy Spirit.

The quote that you could use, really easy, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit." And then, secondly, our second reason why this is so important for the Church is because Christians from different nations gather together.

I would say, "This links to the section of the Pentecost story where all the Christians started to understand what each other said, even though they all spoke different languages." And the quote I would use would be, "All of them heard the believers talking in their own languages." So we see they're all talking in their own language, they're not speaking in some made up language, they're all talking in their own language, but they can understand each other, okay? So feel free to add any of my notes down in your other coloured pen around what you have written, and then we will move on.

So now we have done the hard work of thinking why was it important, how could we explain it, and what quote could we use? We're going to put that in a little answer.

So, explain two reasons why the Christian Church started at Pentecost.

So you have your two reasons, you have the quotes you can use and then you can add your explanation.

So remember, with your explanation, you want to say, okay, how does my quote link to my point? How does this explain what I'm trying to say? Try not to fall into the trap of repeating your point.

So you can press pause.

If I was you, I'd take about six or seven minutes to do this and then you can press resume once you have finished.

Really well done on that.

Now we're going to go through part of this answer together.

So, if you look at my model answer here, you can see what you could have done.

So you will see the point is in purple, and it says, "One reason is because this is when the Holy Spirit descended on Christians." What that means is literally the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to Earth and descended on Christians.

Descended literally means going down.

So, descended, it is important, this is the start of the Church because it's when the Holy Spirit descended on Christians.

Then evidence, "For example, in the Bible it says 'They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

'" And finally, my explanation.

"Christians would say that this was the point when the Church began, as the Holy Spirit filled Christians with power.

This helped them to teach others about Jesus." So I'm not just repeating my point with the explanation, I'm going slightly further.

I'm saying, okay, why is this significant? Why does it matter that the Holy Spirit has arrived? Why does it matter that the Holy Spirit has descended on Christians? So you can mark your second paragraph as well using a similar structure.

So how, then, did Pentecost help the Church to spread into all nations? So we know what happened at Pentecost.

We know that, for a lot of Christians, this is seen as the start of the Christian Church, but how does it help the Church spread into all nations? So, as you read in the story all the believers spoke different languages, and they all came together.

So we have lots of people from lots of different nations.

And what happens after the Holy Spirit comes down is that Peter preaches a sermon, and he preaches a really powerful sermon to thousands of people.

So we have people from all different languages there who understand this sermon.

So, as you can imagine, what happens is that they go home and they tell everyone else what they have heard.

They're all filled with the Holy Spirit, which gives them power to speak about Jesus, and they all go home and, with excitement, share what they have heard and tell everyone else.

I don't know about you but when I hear some exciting news, if I hear, let's say, the team you support wins something.

Let's say you support a football team and they win the Premiership, what do you do? You go and tell people.

You don't think, that was nice, I'm just going to sit in and think about it, you go and tell people, you talk about it, and this is what happened after Pentecost.

The first believers were so excited about what had happened that they returned to where they had came from and they talked about it.

And that is how the Church started to spread, because then it wasn't just in Jerusalem, but the Great Commission started to happen.

People went out to different areas and they started to talk about it.

With the Holy Spirit inside them, they started to tell other people, and that is how we see the Church start to spread.

So what I would like you to do as your final task is a little bit of a creative task.

I would like you imagine that you are a journalist and you're there on the day of Pentecost, okay? You have your camera, you have your notebook, and you are watching what happens, and I want you to create a newspaper article to cover the story of Pentecost.

So this is your chance to be creative.

You can include a catchy headline, you can have an image, you can make it read in the style of a normal newspaper article.

You want it to be engaging, you want readers to want to pick it up and read it.

And you should include what happened on that day, how it started the Church and how it helped the Church to spread into all the nations.

So that is your task.

When you have finished, you can press resume.

Really well done on your task.

I would love to see lots of your newspaper articles, so please do talk to a parent or carer and get them to put them on a form of social media, which we will look at in two seconds.

So, as I just said, please do ask a parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, especially your newspaper articles.

I would love to see all the exciting newspaper articles that you've come up with.

And please do tag @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope that you have learnt what Pentecost is and why it is so significant for Christians.

Please do have a go at the summary quiz to see how much you have learnt in today's lesson.

I look forward to seeing you soon for our next lesson in Christian beliefs.

Have a lovely day!.