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Bible Parachute Games

A Center Church Rotation Workshop Activities Resource

The Holy Spirit
It says in Genesis 1 that the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters prior to creation. Ask the children to lift the chute high over their heads and slowly down again. Talk about the soft sounds and breezes that are created.

In the Beginning
To imitate the dark and windy sea that existed before creation have the children start the game with the chute flat on the ground. Teacher begins the game by lifting her section of the chute and letting it down again. The child next to her raises and lowers his and so on, creating a wave like in a baseball game. Slowly increase the size and tempo of the wave until the effort collapses (the chaos that precedes creation).

The Creation of Animals
God created animals the way humans were created - out of clay. Have a student lie flat under the center of the chute while the rest observe the student slowly rise up under the chute and take on the characteristics of an animal God created. Sound effects OK. The children have to guess the animal. After each student guesses correctly students can lift the chute quickly and high! Behold! And it was good!
Take turns.

Baptism
All students raise the parachute high, take two steps in to create a mushroom shape. The teacher calls a student’s name (like in baptism) and that student stands under the chute and lets the chute descend upon her like the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus.

Cathedral
Everyone lowers the chute and then on a count of three raise their arms high. Once the chute is quite high everyone takes three or four giant steps toward the center and pulls the chute behind them and sits down with their bottoms on the edge of the chute. Everybody looks up like they’re staring at the ceiling of a cathedral.

Peter Walking on Water
With the parachute on the ground children make ripples while a student walks around on the chute. The ripples grow larger and disorienting and eventually the student has more difficulty standing. Finally the student realizes that she is sinking and might even sit down.

Ezekiel’s Wheels
Ezekiel the prophet had a vision of wheels that had eyes along the rim of the wheels. In this game the colored panels of the chute are the spokes of a wheel and the children are the eyes. Have each child hold the chute with one hand, extending the opposite arm outward for balance. Run in one direction then, on a signal, run in the other direction. Do this until everyone gets dizzy and has visions of their own!

Last edited by Luanne Payne
Original Post

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Here's another one:

Pentecost

Hoist the parachute as high as possible, let go, then everyone tries to gather in a group underneath in the middle. After the chute drapes over the group they make noises like different "tongues". I imagine this would look and sound amusing to witnesses - as if the group under the chute were "filled with new wine."
Last edited by Luanne Payne

Other Thoughts about Parachutes


Jill Floyd
We're thinking of buying a parachute for movement. Has another church done this? Any great ideas we can share?


Leslee Kirkconnell

Where to buy / other uses
Parachutes are great for movement, recreation and more (try hanging one from the ceiling for decoration/lighting effect). They aren't cheap, but they are quite durable so they will last you a long time. Most of the sports equipment companies sell different sizes - some with handles, some without. Try Wolverine Sports or Bill Fritz (both online) U.S. Games is another company.

There are also good activity books for parachutes and some recreation books also include sections on using parachutes. We use ours (a 'real' parachute - quite huge) for playtime during LOGOS. The kids love bouncing balls, doing waves, running underneath and being lifted on it.

For books try:

Parachute Play: Indoor/Outdoor fun by Liz and Dick Wilmes, Building Blocks Publications. Although primarily aimed at young children, most of the activities are easily adaptable.

The Playbook by Roger Maness, Kenny Shackelford and Don Washburn has a good section about parachutes.

Much of this is recreation oriented, rather than rotation. It might not lend itself in rotation, but then it might be a lot of fun, depending upon the story and how it's presented and planned. The kids do tend to get pretty wound up when using, so planning and control would be the key to keep it 'in bounds.'

Just some thoughts, good luck!


JCarey
Parachutes are excellent. Many of the activities can be adapted to use with various bible stories and concepts. Use your imagination and parachute away. I used it at a different church that I was at for our Friday night VBS fun fair and never had a problem tying it in to the theme and a bible lesson from the week. They are extremely fun and now that I have recalled how much fun... I think I will be buying one for the church I am currently at!


Jan FPC Napa
Decorate a Parachute / Where to buy
We have a 6 ft. parachute that we purchased from S&S Worldwide. It's plain white and you decorate it yourself with permanent markers. It's only $19.99 plus shipping. We bought it one year for VBS and had all the kids sign their name and write/draw something. Here's the link:
https://www.ssww.com/item/6-color-me-parachute-W8253/
2022 Update: they are showing as unavailable at SSWW website, and the site is not showing any parachutes now when I did a search.


Memory Verse / Body of Christ / Handel's Messiah
We've used it for the kids to bounce things on to a beat while saying a memory verse. Also for the Body Of Christ unit (working together). And our Pre/K kids used it to do movement to Handel's Messiah, moving to what the music "feels" like.


Jaymie Derden
Lazarus Story / Miracle Locations / Heavenly Prayers
We've just recently used a parachute in our Music and Movement workshop for Jeuss raises Lazarus and as a review of the miracle stories we've been studying this winter/spring. Kids were assigned locations of the various miracles: Bethany, East of Galilee, Cana, Jericho and given signs that indicated their location. As the group lifted the parachute, the teacher called out a miracle and the kids who had that location had to run across to the other side. It was such a success, we decided to use it again for our Wednesday night group. We are studying prayer. After learning about the Legend of the Phoenix and how biblical people used incense and the smoke of sacrifices to send their prayers toward heaven, we will parachute our prayers to heaven... Haven't done it yet, but think it will work well.

Isn't rotation FUN????


Luanne Payne
Baby Moses / Crossing the Red Sea
In the Moses forum I have posted two parachute games:
Floating Baby Moses Down the River Parachute Game (ages 4-7)
and
Crossing the Red Sea Parachute Game


KArmstrong
Canopy of God's Love
We used a parachute in our first introduction of Rotation Workshops to the parish. It was an idea we had seen at a local informational workshop put on by a church in our area. The two leaders of our Children's Church school carried out a dialogue of trying to get the parachute (referred to as the Canopy of God's Love) up so all the children could experience how great it felt to be under it. The dialogue went on as we realized we couldn't do it on our own to include our minister, some parents and others from the parish. It was a good demonstration, meant to show that many, many people were needed to lift the Canopy of God's love, just as many, many people were needed to lead our workshops and teach our kids!! We then handed out a simple survey asking what skills or interests people had that they could share. Unfortunately it didn't result in a lot of volunteers, but we're still working on it!

Last edited by Luanne Payne

CANOPY OF GOD’S LOVE (Luanne’s Version)

Materials : several roles of coloured streamers – yellow, orange, red (for around 70 people we used one extra large roll and one regular size roll – but next time I did this I would have more than one roll going to speed things up).

Say:

  • 1. Does this church building on it’s own represent the body of Christ? (No)
  • 2. What makes up the body of Christ? (the people)
  • 3. Let’s see how many people it takes to make our church do God’s work properly.
  • 4. When I say something that makes you part of our church family raise your hand.
  • 5. You will be tossed the streamer, keep holding it in one hand, with the other hand toss it to another person whose hand is in the air, and so on, until everyone will eventual be holding onto a continuous chain of crepe paper.
  • 6. “Tosser Says – “Share the Good News”
  • 7. Catcher Says – “The Holy Spirit Is In Me”
  • 8. Let’s see we need: (each church would make up a list suitable to their congregation)
    a. a minister
    b. Parish Nurse
    c. Steward
    d. Mission Committee
    e. Ministry & Personnel Committee
    f. Bible Study
    g. VBS
    h. Treasurer
    i. Sunday School Teacher
    j. Sunday School Children
    k. Nursery
    l. Health Cabinet
    m. Member from Eldad (sister church)
    n. Choir
    o. Organist
    p. Helping Hands
    q. Men’ Breakfast
    r. Trustee
    s. Parent
    t. Grandparent
    u. Visitor
  • 9. It’s takes all of us to make up the Church. When we are all taking part, participating, spreading God’s message of forgiveness and love it covers the church with the Canopy of God’s love.
  • 10. Let’s see how great it feels to be under the Canopy of God’s love.
  • 11. On the count of 3 let’s all raise ours hands that are holding the streaming in praise to God.

Upstairs 2005 Pentecost We are the Church 3

Notes:
Have a camera on hand to record the moment.

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  • Upstairs 2005 Pentecost We are the Church 3
Last edited by Luanne Payne

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