What is taught must be in accordance with the locally agreed syllabus; (If your school is outside of Cambridgeshire: the S.C.A.A Model 2 syllabus has been included to help in matching this lesson plan with your local Agreed Syllabus).
Cambs Agreed Syllabus:
PE People
Enable pupils to:
find out about Christians, women and men, now and in the past, whose actions affect or have affected others e.g. people who have helped others, saints and martyrs, people of faith, courage and commitment (including some with a local connection).
Pupils should consider this:
Is there a special person / special people who you look up to, or whose example you follow?
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S.C.A.A. Model syllabuses:
KEY TEACHINGS / FOCUS:
CHRISTIAN WAYS OF LIFE
AT1 Look at the work of one Christian individual...
AT2 Consider the importance of values to themselves & others.
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RESOURCES:
Optional: An Atlas to look up Beirut is.
Optional: Visit http://www.kbnet.co.uk/bedford/town/bunyan.htm to see a bronze statue of him.
Then follow: the link"More about John Bunyan" for a portrait of him.
STARTER:
Q. Do you know of anybody whose life has had a big influence on others - where they have helped or changed people?
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We are going to look at the life of a Christian who wrote many books. One, called 'The Pilgrim's Progress', has been translated into more than 200 languages, which is more than any other book, except the Bible. His life affected many people around him & continued to affect people even after his death.
His name was John Bunyan & he was born in 1628 at Elstow, 1 mile south of Bedford in England. His father was a tinker who wandered around mending pots & pans for people.
MAIN TEACHING:
England was in civil war, & John at the age of 16, joined the Parliamentary army which was fighting against King Charles l, & his army. About a year later his friend asked him to swap places with him, while they were laying siege to the Kings army. As his friend stood on sentry duty he was shot and died. John was not a Christian at that time.
Q. What do you think John would have thought of that at the time?
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Two years later he left the army & took up the trade of his father.
When John Bunyan was 20 he married an orphan girl whose father had died, & the few things that he had left to her was some Christian books. John was challenged by what was written in them, & he became a Christian. They were very poor & they had virtually no possessions.
They went on to have four children, the first born was a daughter who was blind.
For several years he was not satisfied with his own faith. He had changed from a rough character to a man who held good Christian values, but he felt that there should be something more, & he wanted to feel changed within himself. Then suddenly he received such a feeling of peace from God & of heavenly joy, that it marked the end of his doubts, fears & despair.
When John was 27 his wife died leaving him with the four children.
In the next 2 years John started to write Christian books & he was also proving that he was a preacher.
Q. What is a preacher?
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A preacher is someone who explains the things in the Bible, & who introduces Jesus to the ones he is talking to.
At that time the Church consisted of two groups.
1) One group was the long established Church of England which was under the authority of the king of England. Many of the ministers of these churches had accepted the job because it offered a position of authority over the people of the parish. Therefore many of them were not gifted at explaining the things in the Bible, & a lot were probably not even Christian's! This was very frustrating for the Christians who wanted to hear a lively sermon based on the Bible. So a number of people started going to the 'other' group:
2) This second group were the Independent Churches, & they wanted to be separate - 'independent' from the king of England , & independent from the authority of the Church of England. They wanted to be free to worship in the way that suited them. Unfortunately the Church of England & King Charles ll reacted very badly to this. They wanted to stop the independent preachers from preaching & they wanted to close down all the independent churches. So a law was passed making it illegal to preach & illegal to worship outside of the established churches.
One year after John had married again, when he was 32 years old, he was arrested because he had gone to preach at a nearby village!
He was charged with not attending his local Church and for holding unlawful Christian meetings which disturbed the good local people, & which was against the law of the king of England.
John answered the judges verdict with:
"If I were out of prison today,
I would preach the gospel again tomorrow, by the help of God."
He was put in Bedford prison until he learnt how to obey the king.
John's wife who was pregnant at the time, was so shocked by the news that she went into early labour & the baby died.
Q. What do you think of the king being able to force you to go to a certain church? And what do you think of John Bunyan's answer?
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It was thought that they would hold him in prison for just a few weeks & then they would release him. But one year later she appealed to the judge to get him released, but she was denied.
Another year went by & John applied for his case to be brought before the judge, but the Court Clerk altered John's papers so that his case wouldn't be seen for about 4 years.
The Prisons then were cold, dark & unhealthy places to be. His small cell had some straw for a bed, a table, a chair & a bucket for his toilet! The prisoners received very little food & so they relied on family members taking food into the prison. John's daughter took him a bowl of soup & some other food everyday. But his family barely afford to live themselves, so John used to make shoe laces in his cell so his family could sell them to make a little money.
In addition to making shoe laces , he wrote about 6 books.
Then in 1666 he was released, but very quickly arrested again!
He remained in prison for a few months & then he was released again. So he went to one of the independent Church meetings, where he was arrested & put back into Bedford prison for 6 more years!
At the age of 43 he was released from prison along with all the other Christians who had chosen to be a part of the Independent Churches, & John Bunyan was given a license to preach from the king!
So he & some friends bought a barn in Bedford & used it for their Independent Church meetings, & John became an independent minister there.
But this freedom didn't last very long, because the king withdrew the Independent's licence to preach, so John was again arrested & put in prison for 6 months where he wrote the book "The Pilgrim's Progress" which has become known throughout the world.
After he was released he wrote about 40 more Christian books & then in 1688, at the age of 60, he died.
Q. What do you think of John Bunyan?
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Q. How important to him was his faith in Jesus Christ?
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But that is not the end of his Christian ministry, because it lives on in his books.
One modern example of how his ministry stills speaks to people was when a Christian called Terry Waite, was held as a hostage in Beirut for 5 years.
At times Terry found his imprisonment very difficult to cope with. But a Christian lady in Britain decided to write an encouraging note to Terry on a post card that had a picture of John Bunyan in his prison cell. She didn't know where he was being held - because it was a secret location. So she just put on the card:
Terry Waite,
Beirut.
Somehow the card got through to Terry & he was extremely encouraged by, not just her letter, but that it had a picture of John Bunyan in his prison cell. The thought of how John had spent all those years in prison due to his faith in Jesus Christ gave fresh hope to Terry to go on persevering.
PLENARY:
Q. How important would certain values be to you? If you were put in prison for holding them, would you change your mind so that you could be released?
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Either take a short time to discuss this question, or leave it with them.
Perhaps you could look on an atlas to see where Beirut is.
Visit http://www.kbnet.co.uk/bedford/town/bunyan.htm to see a bronze statue of him.
Then follow: the link"More about John Bunyan" for a portrait of him.
(Teachers note: There is a text only copy of this page which can either be printed onto an OHP, or it can be printed out & given to the children,
also there is a sheet of questions to accompany this lesson plan, & a further sheet of questions).