Remember, Remember!

REMEMBER, REMEMBER!

CONNECT - for mid-week/Home League groups

Education Session - Special Days

05 November: Bonfire night

Summary

Write and share poems
Share a bonfire feast and fireworks
Remember to live in the incredible freedom Jesus offers us

Provide paper and pens for poetry writing. You might want to provide sheets with the first stanza of ‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November’ printed on them
Plan for a 5 November feast. Arrange to cook baked potatoes with fillings and share the recipes noted below for others to contribute. Consider making this a fundraising opportunity for the Helping-Hand Appeal
Select a craft activity and provide resources as required
Check whether you can use sparklers or indoor fireworks and complete the appropriate Safe Mission Risk Assessment. Ask your corps/church/centre leader to use the appropriate Salvation Army template
Collect a number of household objects, a tray and a tea cloth to play Kim’s Game

It’s November, which means it’s time for people across the UK and Ireland to pull on their wellies, meet up with family and friends and huddle together on a communal patch of grass to watch an often-underwhelming firework display.

For many, Bonfire Night is synonymous with the childhood doggerel: ‘Remember, remember the Fifth of November’ that we learned at primary school. There are several versions of the rhyme, but it is not true that the original has anything to do with the great poet John Milton!

Bonfire Night commemorates the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when a small group of Catholic plotters threatened to change the course of history. In early 1606, an Act of Parliament was passed designating 5 November as a date of thanksgiving, with bonfires and fireworks settled upon as a suitably fitting commemoration.

DISCUSS

Remember, remember! Invite members to share recollections of memorable bonfire nights.

POEMS

Invite members to write a poem about remembering, to the same rhythm as the famous ‘Remember, remember’ lines. Encourage them to read and share their poems with each other.

EAT

Share bonfire recipes with the group ahead of your session and invite members to cook/bake and join together for a 5 November Feast.

You could use this as an opportunity to fundraise for the Helping-Hand Appeal by charging a set amount for the meal or asking for donations.

Recipes

Baked potatoes with various fillings or hot dogs could be the main course, with marshmallow chocolate brownies, gooey ‘bbq s’mores’ or treacle toffee tart for dessert! And don’t forget the cups of steaming hot chocolate!

CRAFT

Check out the Family Ministries Pinterest page for lots of bonfire night craft ideas.

INDOOR FIREWORKS

If conditions – and a risk assessment! – permits, enjoy some indoor firework fun or go outdoors with sparklers.

GAME

Play ‘Kim’s Game’. Place a number of household objects on a tray and show the group. Cover the tray with a cloth and remove one object. Invite members to say which object has been removed.

Remember, remember

The Fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I know of no reason

Why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli’ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below,

To prove old England’s overthrow;

By God’s providence he was catch’d,

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys! Holloa boys! Make the bells ring.

Holloa boys! holloa boys! God save the King!

In 1605 a group of Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London with King James I inside and take control of the country. They were angry at the king’s treatment of Catholics. The leader of the plot was a man called Robert Catesby, but it is Guy Fawkes, the man charged with blowing up the Houses of Parliament, that we are all familiar with.

The plotters put 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar underneath the Houses of Parliament. But before the gunpowder was detonated, one of the plotters wrote to a friend in Parliament to warn him about the plot. The letter reached the king. The king’s men searched the cellars, where they found Guy Fawkes with the barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes was arrested and tortured until he confessed the names of the other plotters.

Robert Catesby and several others were captured, found guilty and sentenced to death. Their heads were put on spikes for all to see that the plot had failed and as a warning to any other potential dissenters. Soon afterwards, bonfires and fireworks became a tradition on 5 November and this still happens today.

Throughout history individuals have been persecuted and killed because of their faith: Catholics such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and Protestants such as Thomas Cranmer and William Tyndale. These killings were often great public spectacles. People flocked to see them. Some watched for entertainment, others out of religious zeal.

The origins of Bonfire Night might feel far away from the society we now live in, where democracy and religious freedom seems the norm. However, in some areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland religious tensions still exist, including between Protestant and Catholic groups.

The Bible story from beginning to end is also one of religious tension – Jews versus Gentiles. Jesus spent his ministry wanting to bring freedom from the shackles of organised religion based on following rules alone.

In John 8:36 Jesus said: ‘

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’

The freedom Jesus brings is not a freedom to do just what we want, but rather a liberation to walk in relationship with God and be the kind of person he created us to be. Maybe as we ‘remember, remember, the fifth of November’ we must also remember to live in the incredible freedom Jesus offers us.