We used the story of Zacchaeus for our intergenerational Harvest service this year (2025). The Bible reading is mostly as written, but with a few action words added to increase the interactivity.

I made most of the verbs in the text bold, and as I read the text from the screen, we acted those words out together. Keeping an eye for the next 'action word' keeps people's attention! Do read through the text during your preparation time to ensure that you know which action to use for each word.

For the word 'money' - a strong theme in this story - I got everyone singing the well-known line from the ABBA song. That was the loudest the congregation sang that day!

In our service, we had just played a game which involved trying to 'harvest' balls from one side or the church and bringing to the other side, although one team were hampered by lots of luggage and awkward objects they had to carry. This was to illustrate how much easier it is to receive if we come empty handed. The losers (purposefully three adults, in our case) received as a consolation prize the opportunity to play Jesus in the reading.

Alternatively, you could approach a strong, loud reader before the service and ask them to stand up and call out Jesus' lines from the text; or you could divide the congregation into Jesus and Crowd.

I followed up the reading with three discussion questions and then received feedback. Most of what I wanted to say was fed back from the congregation and so I only needed to summarise. No one had to listen to a long sermon, but all received some great wisdom from this amazing story.

The questions I used are below, although your service theme may be different. See for example, our Whole Church Worship sheet based on this text, which focusses instead of how Jesus can change us.

Discussion Questions:

- Why do you think Zacchaeus suddenly wanted to give half his money away?

- What do you think Zacchaeus felt like when he’d given so much money away? What do you think his community felt like?

- Bonus question: What do you think Jesus meant by ‘salvation has come to this house’?