When we explored the story of Jonah, our worship space was contained within a small side-chapel area of the church. We created a small corridor of display boards, ‘roofed’ with muslin drapes, which led into the worship area, and on the walls of this corridor we put text telling a simplified version of the story.

This corridor opened up into the ‘belly’ of the worship space proper.

In there we put a playset that we had made especially for the event [mainly from papier mache - see photos] with buildings, a boat Jonah/Ninevite/sailor figures and a whale], with an invitation to play.

There was a tv/video set up with headphones playing a tape that we made out in the town. We asked passers-by two simple questions - “What’s wrong with the world today?” and “have you ever run away?” and edited the answers together. Beside this station was a modified map of the local area, with ‘Nineveh’ cunningly added [using ‘Photoshop’] by a friendly graphic designer...

We had a ‘Running Away’ station set up, complete with a red knotted hankie on a long pole, and some questions pinned up, with a bucket of water and some pebbles provided for the related ritual.

There was a large area of netting hung up with some paper fish in a basket. Pens were provided for folk to write down the ways in which God has spoken to them.

We researched the practice of casting lots and printed up some of the more useful information that we found. We also made a couple of ‘prayer dice’ - rough wooden cubes, with prayer suggestions written onto their faces [eg ‘lament’, ‘rejoice’, ‘praise’, ‘confess’ etc] which were put out for folk to use.

There was a display of info about whales and large fish.

We set up a table with balls of plasticene and a large ceramic fish [with a conveniently gaping mouth] On the table was an invitation to think of a specific person, and to play with the modelling material as you thought of them, forming it into their likeness. Then the idea was to commit them into God’s care by placing them into the fishes mouth... [that worked fantastically well]

A tray of green paper cut-out leaves, paper clips and pens were provided for the ‘green vine’ station, where a string was also hung up for folk to attach their thoughts to [see link]. Next to this was a simple display of dead leaves collected from the church yard with text.

A group set up a small tent, which was draped with fabrics and dressed with shells, driftwood etc as the whale’s belly. Inside was a short meditation and a tape of whalesong playing. [This was fantastic]

There was a table with some kids’ picture-book versions of the story, plus some info from ship-of-fools.com about the validity of claims of modern-day Jonahs, and the ‘Questions’ text linked below.

At the exit to the chapel we taped down some plastic sheeting and created a beach with some kids play-sand. there was an invitation there to focus on anything that God might have spoken to you, or touched you through during the evening, and to take a shell or pebble from the ‘beach’ as a reminder.

We set up a large projection using a loop of beach scenes from a ‘Visions’ video as a backdrop to the exit area. There was also a paddling pool set up, with some of those magnetic fishing rods things... in the pool were loads of paper fish, each with a biblical promise written onto it. The idea being that you fished one out at random to take away with you.

Throughout the evening, we had Gavin Bryars’ ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ playing in the worship area.

iThe journey through the church was constructed to somewhat invoke the whole of Jonah's journey into and out of the whale. You entered via the narrow and roofed corridor [like the whale's gullet] the worship space was the belly, and you exited via the beach [spit out towards the cafe area].

Only two pics from this one, and they are integrated with the ceramic fish and casting lots pages

Resources

God spoke

Casting lots

Running away

Ceramic fish

Green Vine | Dead Vine

Questions