Children’s Story for October 17th, 2004

By Barrette Plett, Bethel Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, MB

Scriptures

Psalm 119: 97-104
Jeremiah 31: 27 – 34
Luke 18: 1 – 8
2 Timothy 3: 14 – 4:5

Theme/Scripture Connections:

Both the Old Testament and New Testament passages in the lectionary this week encourage God's followers to have the Lord's laws written on our hearts and to share God's laws with others. Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant between God and God's people, suggesting that the struggling, combative nature of relationships (both with God and with other peoples) is to be replaced with a different type of relationship—perhaps more of a partnership. This new covenant also breaks down the barriers between God's selected, chosen people and the gentiles, welcoming all into God's fold. Jesus' parables this week all have the common theme of encouraging his followers to look at the marginalized (widows, tax collectors and children) just as Jesus sees them – precious members of his Kingdom. 2 Timothy urges us to preach the good news to others requiring, as the Psalms confirm, that we have God's words written on our hearts.

Supplies Needed

large pictures (about 5-10) of many different people; different ages, heights, colours, clothes, etc. (can be found in National Geographic, etc.)
a jar of buttons of different colours and sizes

Object Lesson

Show the children the pictures, one by one. Ask them to describe what stands out about each person. After you've shown them all the pictures, ask them if they can figure out what is the same about all the people. Allow the to suggest a few ideas and then either add or highlight the fact they they are all people and that God loves every one of them the same.

Story: Everybody is important to God.

Have you ever seen 100 people all together in a room? That would be a lot of people! Look at the people in our church. There are about ___ people here! That's a lot of people. One time, Jesus was going for a walk. Lots of people were watching Jesus! There might even have been 1000 people. All of the people were trying to get close to Jesus and talk to him, or touch him, or ask him a question. When Jesus walked past them, he tried to smile at every person. There were lots of different people there, watching Jesus and trying to talk to him. One of the people who was there was a very short man whose name was Zach. He was so short, that he could not see the road because of the taller people all in front of him. Everybody pushed him away and said, “You're too short. Jesus wouldn't even talk to you anyhow!” Zach got very discouraged. He almost gave up. Everywhere he ran, the people pushed him away. He felt like nobody liked him. Finally, he ran ahead and climbed up a tree so that he could see Jesus. When Jesus walked past, he looked right at the tree. He looked past all the other people and said, “Zach! How are you? Can I have lunch with you?” Zach was so happy that he almost fell out of his tree! He felt very proud and special as he walked through the people to Jesus!

Teaching

Jesus often told stories about people. Lots of the people in the stories that Jesus told were poor people or the kind of people that most people don't like. Jesus always told his followers to love everybody and treat everybody kindly. Jesus said that everybody was important: old people, poor people, rich people and especially kids!

Prayer

Jesus, thank you for making each one of us special and loving us each very much! Help us to remember that we are special and that you think each person is special. Help us to treat other people like they are special, too!

Sending

Show the kids the jar of buttons and tell them how the buttons are all different. Explain that these different buttons can help us remember that every person is different and special. Give each child a few buttons and ask them to bring them back to their seat with them. Tell them they need to keep 1 button and give the rest of the buttons to people sitting around them to remind them that God thinks they're special, too. Perhaps invite some older children, youth or parents to pair up with the younger children and bring buttons to benches/seats where no children are sitting.