I've decided to start a new feature here at the Nest - one based on missional activity. Some of these ideas will come from the lessons I teach to our church's elementary-aged youth group, others will be things that I do with my own kids, still others we do as a family.
I am particularly excited to start with this one, because it involves one of My Little Man's most favorite things: rocks.
My Little Man picks up rocks everywhere he goes. There are always rocks in his pocket and I find them all through the house - in the washing machine, on the floors, in his bedding, and between the couch cushions. Gets to be a painful thing, sometimes.
But Jesus talked about rocks. About how their strong and sure, a good thing on which to build a foundation.
They're all through the Old Testament - where people experienced something spiritual and placed rocks in a certain arrangement to mark the place where their revelation occurred.
They're also plentiful, and, well, ... cheap, which makes them the perfect ingredient for a mass-kid activity.
After talking about the above parable and related stories with the kids, each one chose a rock from some I had brought. They were all fairly smooth and small enough to fit inside your pocket.
The children wrote on their rocks whatever they wanted. Some wrote 'faith' or 'joy' or simply 'Jesus.' They chose what was meaningful to them.
Then each child was given a piece of an index card. My Big Helper chose to write about Jesus on her card, as you can see in the picture above.
On the other side of the card, they glued on this graphic and poem I created. When everything had dried, they had a poem and a rock - both things that they could carry in their pockets to remind them of Who the rock of their world really is.
Who's your rock?
I like the idea of a mid-week mission, and the rock is a great tie-in, especially for young boys.
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