A fun and easy to do craft to finish this Sunday school lesson on following Jesus!

Jesus calls Peter and the others to become fishers of men. From now on they will be making lots of disciples, all people who are also going to follow Jesus.

What do you need:

- strips of white paper
- pens and coloured pencils
- pairs of scissors

What to do:

Fold the paper into a concertina and draw the shape of the people on the uppermost fold with their arms going right up to the edge.

The children can cut out the shape, and if you fold it open you will have a whole row of people holding hands. It would be a good idea to make an example to show the children beforehand. They can then colour in all the people different

Theme:

Fishers of men, come follow me, the calling of disciples, miraculous catch of fish, calling of Peter

A complete programme for your Sunday school

This idea is part of a complete Sunday school / kids ministry programme about the calling of the disciples and the miraculous catch of fish.

Idea 542.    Introductory game – seek the fish!
Idea 543.    Children’s moment / introduction: what is your job?
Idea 544.    Catch the balloon with your funnelatch the balloon with your funnel
Idea 545.    A fun way to tell the story of the miraculous catch of fish
Idea 546.    Creative activity / YouTube video - the calling of Peter
Idea 547.    Game – balloon crab!
Idea 548.    Craft activity – a row of disciples

How careful can we lower our paralyzed friend to Jesus?

The four friends have to work together to help the paralysed man get into the house through the roof. They had to lower him down very carefully at Jesus’ feet. Very carefully, so that nothing gets broken!
This game is a fun way of encouraging children to work together..

Theme:

The paralyzed man healed by Jesus, the story of the man through the roof 

What do you need:

- an egg (hardboiled or not!!)
- a plastic bag
- string
- an A4 piece of paper
- an elastic band
- glue
- cellotape
- empty toilet rolls

A complete programme for your Sunday school

This idea is part of a complete Sunday school / kids ministry programme about the story of the man lowered through the roof.

Idea 529.    How to tell the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man with four pieces of cardboard
Idea 530.    Is it a duck or a rabbit? - an objectlesson
Idea 531.    Bubble fight - a cool science experiment
Idea 532.    Never without my denture - a YouTube video
Idea 533.    It’s hard working together! - a creative way to have a group discussion
Idea 534.    Reaching your goal - a fun indoor game!
Idea 535.    Make a body - a fun indoor game!
Idea 536.    Create your own story sticks - a craft activity
Idea 537.    Make a parachute for the egg - a fun indoor game!
Idea 538.    The fifth friend in the story - a creative prayer idea

The game:

Divide the children into teams and give each team a raw or hardboiled egg (depending on how messy you mind things getting!

The children have to find a way of getting the egg safely to the ground when one of the leaders throws it out of a first floor window (if this is possible), or drops it from a height. They might make a parachute or something else with the materials provided, to help get the egg down safely. Which egg will survive the fall and stay whole?

Give each team all the materials listed above, and they can get thinking and building. The team(s) whose egg stays whole has won. You can give them 10 – 15 minutes to make their creations before throwing them out of the window/dropping them from a height.

Create your own story sticks so you can tell the story of the paralyzed man

If you have used the four ‘story sticks’ to tell the story of the paralysed man, then it’s a great idea to have the children make their own story sticks so they can practice telling the story at home.

You can do this with strips of cardboard and lolly sticks, or wooden sticks with small nuts and bolts. Wooden lolly sticks work well too – if you make holes in them beforehand the children can make them with split pens.

Theme:

The paralyzed man healed by Jesus, the story of the man through the roof 

A complete programme for your Sunday school

This idea is part of a complete Sunday school / kids ministry programme about the story of the man lowered through the roof.

Idea 529.    How to tell the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man with four pieces of cardboard
Idea 530.    Is it a duck or a rabbit? - an objectlesson
Idea 531.    Bubble fight - a cool science experiment
Idea 532.    Never without my denture - a YouTube video
Idea 533.    It’s hard working together! - a creative way to have a group discussion
Idea 534.    Reaching your goal - a fun indoor game!
Idea 535.    Make a body - a fun indoor game!
Idea 536.    Create your own story sticks - a craft activity
Idea 537.    Make a parachute for the egg - a fun indoor game!
Idea 538.    The fifth friend in the story - a creative prayer idea

What do you need for each child:

- four strips of card and three split pens OR wooden lolly sticks and split pens OR…
- four thin pieces of wood, and nuts and bolts.

Method:

Attach the four strips of card or wood together in the following way.

When the children have done this (they can of course decorate them before putting them together), they can practice telling the story. Here you can see most of the forms that you need to make to tell the story:

Fig. 1 The legs of the paralysed man

Fig. 2 The window of the house where Jesus was

Fig. 3 The paralysed man’s bed, or the flat roof of the house

Fig. 4 The house where Jesus was

Fig. 5 The stairs behind the house

Fig. 6  The letter M for the paralyzes Man or maybe his name Mark / Matthew

Fig. 7 The letter W to express the frustration of the Pharisees saying: "What?!"

It’s also fun to help the children practise the numbers 1 – 4.

With the help of a secular YouTube film and a creative activity you can explore Jesus’ sacrificial love.

This YouTube film shows the story of a paper creature that is attacked by a pair of scissors. Rock sees what is happening and he attacks Scissors out of compassion for Paper. Rock wins from Scissors but gets wounded. Rock carries Paper to a safe place, but because in the game Paper always beats Rock, he starts to crumble even as he is carrying her to safety. He therefore demonstrates sacrificial love.

It’s easy to find a link between this story and the incident when Jesus touches the leper and makes him promise not to tell anyone. The leper does tell everyone that Jesus touched and healed him. It has been centuries since anyone healed a leper – back in the time of the prophet Elisha, when general Naaman was healed. If Jesus can heal even a leper, surely he can help anyone! As Jesus had expected, large crowds came to see him – so large that he was no longer able to go into the villages and towns. His compassion for the man with leprosy, and the fact that the man was too excited to keep it to himself meant that Jesus was forced to retreat to more remote places. Jesus experienced a degree of suffering because of his compassion for this man.

Of course you can also use this video to teach on Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection!

Themes:

Jesus healing the leper, sacrificial love, Jesus' death and resurrection

Important question:

It’s important to watch the video yourself first and to decide if you want to show it to the children? Does it fit within your context and the age of the children?

What do you do:

Step 1: Have the children play the game ‘Rock, paper, scissors’. You could play it for a few minutes and have them change partners half way through.

If you don’t know the game, you can watch this link.

Step 2: Watch the video together, and possible one more time after completing step 3.

Step 3: Discuss the video using six worksheets which you can download here: Broken---Rock-Paper-Sciccors.pdf

The worksheets consist of the following images: 

- rock
- scissors
- paper
- the illness leprosy
- Jesus
- the ill man

1. Print the six images out and show them to the children
2. Ask the children to make three pairs of the images – which ones belong together?
3. Who represents Jesus in the video? (the rock) – why do you agree or not agree?
4. Who represents the ill man? (the paper) – why do you agree or not agree?
5. Who represents the illness? (the scissors) – why do you agree or not agree?

You can create a magical moment by bringing a stick figure to life.

This is ideal for when you do a talk about:

Easter
As a visual demonstration of the resurrection of Jesus!

Creation 
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2: 7)

The raising of Lazarus  
Rrecounted in the Gospel of John (John 11:1-44), a miracle of Jesus in which Jesus brings Lazarus of Bethany back to life four days after his burial.

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain
Recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus arrived at the village of Nain during the burial ceremony of the son of a widow, and raised the young man from the dead. (Luke 7:11–17)

Being alive in Christ 
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ  (Ephesians 2:5)

Watch the two video's below to discover how you use this great object lesson!

Fun crafts idea

Of course you can also use it as a fun crafts idea, as shown in the video below!

How does it work?

As you can see in the videa all you need is a whiteboard marker and a flat, shiny surface. Use a whiteboard marker to draw a stick figure on a flat, shiny surface and drop a little water on it. Then you'll see the drawing slowly lift off the surface and become one with the watery bubble.

This is because the ink in a whiteboard marker, unlike a permanent marker, includes an oily silicone substance. Because oil sits on top of water so does this ink, which will also move as the puddle moves. By gently blowing on the puddle the stick figure will swish and dance around according to which way you blow on it.

The final product may look like an intricate optical illusion, but the stick figure comes to life thanks to only a whiteboard marker, some water and a shiny surface.

Themes:

The resurrection of Christ, raising of Lazarus, the resurrecrtion of Lazarus, the raising of the widow's son, creation of mankind, being made alive in Christ

Rocky Raccoon and the ZigZag trick

We are always looking for new ways to tell Bible stories. One of these ways is through the use of Rocky the spring puppet. 

Rocky is very easy to bring him to life. Spring animals are puppets that consist of a large spring covered with fur. You hold the spring raccoon in one hand, moving the head with your thumb and first finger. It gives the animal a very realistic effective, and it's not uncommon for people to mistake it for a live animal!

In the video below we will show you how you use Rocky and the ZigZag trick tol tell the Bible story of Jesus healing the paralysed man who was lowered through a hole in the roof made by his four friends.

Themes: 

Jesus has the power to forgive sins, Jesus forgives sins, Jesus heals the paralysed man, finding new ways to bring people to Jesus, perseverance, don't give up, friendship, Jesus puts us on our feet

Buy your own spring puppet:

There are several places where you can buy your own spring puppet. You can buy them for example on Amazon. 

If you are looking for the ZigZag trick that we use 'to cut Rocky into three parts' have a search on Google.

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