1. THIS IS A HOLDING SLIDE ONLY, YOUR ASSEMBLY BEGINS ON SLIDE TWO
TEACHER’S NOTES
This presentation lasts up to 20 minutes. We recommend you deliver the whole assembly but please feel free to use the material as time and circumstances allow.
This PowerPoint uses animations. It is advisable to run through the assembly before you present to your pupils.
This presentation has been prepared by Mission Together. Mission Together is the children’s branch of Missio, the Pope’s official charity for overseas mission. Under its original name of Holy Childhood, Mission Together has been active in Catholic schools for one hundred and seventy years.
Mission Together relies entirely on public donations; it receives no funding from the UK Government. 98% of money donated to Mission Together goes directly towards children's projects overseas.
For further information please visit our websites: missio.org.uk, missiontogether.org.uk

2. Our Mission: To be merciful
OUR MISSION:TO BE MERCIFUL − An assembly to close the Year of Mercy
Ask the children if they can identify the man on the screen.
It is Pope Francis.
Ask the children who he is and what he does.
He is the head of the Catholic Church and helps us understand and follow Jesus, who is God, more closely.
Tell the children that one way he has done this over the last year is by encouraging people to be more merciful.
Pope Francis told the whole world that from December 2015 until November 2016 we should all take time to think about how and why Jesus taught so often about the importance of mercy and how it can make our lives and the world better.

3. Pope Francis is making a special effort to tell children and young people about the importance of mercy, too. Like Jesus, the Pope wants all children to know that God is merciful and loving and, in turn, we should aim to be merciful and loving to one another. The Pope even has his own children’s charity to encourage children to do this. It is called Mission Together and this is its special logo.
Ask the children what they can see on the logo?
Draw their attention to the words and images. Ask the children what they think these words and images mean.
In our Mission Together logo you can see that the children are holding hands and smiling. They are ‘children helping children’ and they look as if they are giving the whole world a great big HUG! This is beautiful and it is what God asks of us, to reach out and support all his children wherever they are across the world.
Ask the children if they’d like to recreate this scene right now, in your school.
Activity – Better Together
You will need:
Five children – it may be a good idea to select the children before the assembly begins and explain to them what they’ll be doing and why. You could include a little drama by asking the children to look sad when they find themselves no longer holding hands.
An area at the front of the assembly space that all can see clearly and that will comfortably accommodate five children holding hands in a circle, as in the Mission Together logo
Five A4 sheets of paper or card on each of which is written one of the following words: Forgiving, Helpful, Kind, Generous, Welcoming
NB Keep these sheets out of sight of the children.
Invite your volunteers to come forward, ask them to hold hands and stand in a circle. If you have one available, place a globe in the centre. Point out how lovely this scene is; a symbol of the support and love God asks us to share with all people around the world.
Keep the children in this pose and click onto the next slide.

4. But sometimes we don’t want to hold hands; not if the person alongside us has hurt us or hurt people we care about. Rather than feeling loving thoughts, we might feel sad, angry, or let down.
Ask two children who are facing one another across the circle, to stop holding the hand of the person alongside them. Have the children put their free hand flat on their hip or in a pocket to prevent them rejoining hands.
Click to reveal further images of upset children on screen.
Sometimes, someone might not want to hold hands with us if through a bad decision we've made we have hurt them or the people they care about. This also makes us feel sad, angry, or let down.
Ask the remaining children to stop holding the hand of the person alongside them. This should mean most of the children are no longer holding hands with anyone; have those children step slightly further apart from the circle. 
Then what are we left with? People who are standing apart, alone, and still feeling sad, angry and let down.
Keep the children standing still where they are, looking sad.
That is never a good place for anyone and it is not where God wants us to be.
God made us all in such a way that in order to be happy and bring happiness to our world, we need to stand together.
But because we can all make bad choices at times, this requires us to be merciful.

5. Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Jesus with great joy.
Zacchaeus stood there and said, ‘Lord! I will give half my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
Jesus said, ‘Today happiness has come to this place, because Zacchaeus also belongs to the family of God. See, I have come to look for the lost and to save them.’
When Jesus came to that place he looked up and said, ‘Hurry down Zacchaeus, because I want to visit your house today.’
Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Jesus with great joy. 
All the people who saw it started grumbling, ‘Look at the kind of man Jesus stays with. Zacchaeus is a sinner. He cheats people!’
One day Jesus was passing through the city of Jericho where there lived a man named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a very wealthy man and the chief tax collector.
He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and couldn’t see over the crowd. 
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch sight of Jesus, who was passing that way. 
One of the lessons Jesus taught about mercy is found in the story of a man named Zacchaeus.
Before we hear this story let me explain that Zacchaeus was not well liked and had no real friends. This is because he treated people unfairly and cheated them out of money. Nobody would have wanted to hold his hand; in fact, people often avoided his company and said bad things about him. Not surprisingly this made Zacchaeus sad and angry, which meant he wouldn’t have wanted to hold their hands either.
But then Jesus comes into Zacchaeus’ town and something extraordinary happens. Listen carefully to hear how Jesus taught Zacchaeus and the townspeople to act with mercy.
Click to reveal Scripture on screen.
To make it easier to read, the Scripture is divided into three parts which means you’ll need to click three times to reveal all the text. The scripture is taken from the Gospel of Luke, 19:1-10.
One day Jesus was passing through the city of Jericho where there lived a man named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a very wealthy man and the chief tax collector. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and couldn’t see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch sight of Jesus, who was passing that way. 
When Jesus came to that place he looked up and said, ‘Hurry down Zacchaeus, because I want to visit your house today.’ Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Jesus with great joy. 
All the people who saw it started grumbling, ‘Look at the kind of man Jesus stays with. Zacchaeus is a sinner. He cheats people!’
Zacchaeus stood there and said, ‘Lord! I will give half my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
Jesus said, ‘Today happiness has come to this place, because Zacchaeus also belongs to the family of God. See I have come to look for the lost and to save them.’

6. Forgiving Helpful Kind Generous Welcoming
Through his words and example Jesus taught us to be:
Forgiving
Helpful
Kind
Generous
Welcoming
That is why when Jesus came to live alongside us he taught us and showed us how to act with mercy. For Jesus, this was one of the most important lessons he wanted us to learn.
Ask the children why they think this is so.
Answers could include: When we do not forgive or ask for forgiveness we can keep hold of bad feelings. This makes us and those around us unhappy. People stop coming together and supporting each other. Refer to the children who are no longer holding hands and are left isolated and upset.
Jesus taught us how to be merciful through his words and through his example.
Ask the children what they know about how Jesus treated others.
Answers could include: He healed the sick, forgave people who had made mistakes, fed the hungry, was friendly and welcoming to all.
If that is how Jesus showed mercy, let’s think about how we can too.
Tell the gathered class/classes that you have five words written on five pieces of paper. These words explain how we can be merciful. If they can identify all five words they will help the five children to rejoin their hands and stand together happily again.
When one word is correctly identified, ask one child to rejoin their left hand with the hand of the person standing on their left. It may be the case that a child is still holding the hand of someone on their left, don’t worry about this. You could mention that even when groups of friends / people fall out, thankfully there are always one or two individuals who do their best to act with mercy and share God’s love by restoring peace.
When all the children are reunited, give them a round of applause and invite the children to return to their seats.
Click to reveal all five words on screen

7. Ask the children what they think made Zacchaeus change and become less mean, more loving.
Elicit the responses:
Because Jesus treated Zacchaeus with kindness.
Because Zacchaeus felt welcomed and less lonely.
Because Zacchaeus learnt through the help Jesus provided that he had been forgiven.
By acting mercifully, Jesus helped Zacchaeus, and all the people watching, understand that everyone is better than the bad choices they sometimes make.
What is more, Jesus helped Zacchaeus, and all those watching, to see that we can all be better people and make the world more loving by choosing to forgive others of the bad choices they make, and by showing mercy to everyone.

8. As we end our time together, let us spend a few moments in prayer thinking quietly about the choices we have made this morning.
Pause briefly after each question to allow time for reflection.
Have we chosen to forgive someone who may have upset us?
Have we said sorry to someone we may have upset?
Have we chosen to be helpful to people at home, on the way to school, in school?
Have we chosen to be kind in what we say and do?
Have we been generous with our possessions? Maybe sharing a snack, or a book, or something from our pencil case?
Have we been friendly? Maybe standing in the playground with someone who is feeling sad or lonely?

9. At the start of the assembly I explained how Pope Francis began the special Year of Mercy last December to remind the world of the importance of forgiveness, togetherness, and kindness. This special year will end on November 20th, but what definitely doesn’t end is the mission God sets us, our special task, to be merciful to all.
Apart from the many ways that we've explored being merciful in this assembly, another way we can do this is by supporting the Pope’s charity for children, Mission Together.
Click to reveal images of real children Mission Together has supported through various projects. They are some of the children depicted in the cartoon on slide 8.
We can do this by raising money and remembering in our prayers children who live in poverty, are sick, are hungry, who cannot afford to go to school, or who have no parents to care for them.
Some of the children depicted here struggled with some of these issues, until other children across the world, just like you, helped to make their situation better by supporting Mission Together.
Let’s finish our assembly today by saying the Mission Together Prayer for these and all God’s children around the world.
The prayer is on the next slide.

10. Share Friendship and live In the peace Of God’s love Now and forever.
We pray
May all children
In the world
Share Love
Share Friendship and live
In the peace
Of God’s love
Now and forever.
Amen

11. FURTHER NOTES FOR TEACHERS
This assembly was brought to you by Missio and Mission Together. If you would like to know more about our work and view other educational resources, please visit: missio.org.uk (for secondary materials), missiontogether.org.uk (primary materials).
Missio / Mission Together builds Church infrastructure and supports those in need, regardless of background or belief, in 157 countries
Our work is mainly focused on areas of the greatest need. Currently these include Africa, the Indian sub-continent and Asia
Missio and Mission Together works ‘Local Church to Local Church’, ensuring that money goes where the need is greatest
Local parish communities request global assistance for their project through their bishop and must make a local contribution, be that through practical help or financial support
Missio education welcomes feedback and suggestions on this assembly and other resources. Please contact us via: