Ages 4-6 Discipleship Resource

May 10, 2020 • Moving in the Spirit Beginner (Ages 4-6) Living Stones

Focus Scripture Acts 7:55–60 PURPOSE To discover the power of confident faith.

Lesson Preparation q Read Acts 7:55–60 and the biblical background for May 10. story pieces from teaching pictures #97 and #98 “Reuben’s q Set up worship table with a purple cloth, Bible, votive candle, Friend Stephen.” offering basket and Unit 6 logo. q Choose option(s) you wish to use for Integrating the Theme q Bring a collection of small stones of various shapes and colours. and bring necessary materials. q Bring a piece of heavy cord and tie it between 2 chairs to make q Check the birthday list. a clothesline. Place 12 clothespins on the line. Prepare the 12 q Pray that God will reveal to you anything that might interfere with your ability to learn as well as teach.

Opening Welcome each of the children by name and tell them Acknowledge birthdays and receive the offering, how glad you are to see them. Prayer: (Invite the children to repeat each line.) 1 Light the candle saying, “We light this candle to remind O God, Yellow Cloth us that God is always with us.” give us courage to be your followers in good times and in difficult times. Amen.

Introducing the Theme Stone designs (Set a pile of stones in the middle of the floor. Invite the learn what lives on and under them, make shapes with children to move the stones to make a shape or a letter of the them. Stones are lots of fun but sometimes people can 2 alphabet. Demonstrate by outlining a heart with the rocks. use stones in bad ways and hurt others. Today’s story Allow each child to talk about their artwork. What are some is about a man who had to face stones being thrown of the fun things you can do with stones? (e.g. learn at him and yet he was still faithful to God. what they are made of; skip them along the water,

Exploring the Theme (Hand out the 12 clothesline pieces to the children.) Clothesline Story: Reuben’s Friend Stephen Reuben lived in Jerusalem with his mother and sister. 3 (Place Reuben, Mother and Sister on the line.) They had very little money but they felt rich. They were part of the community of Jesus’ followers who shared every-

May 10, 2020 • The Whole People of God™ 1 May 10, 2020 • Beginner continued

thing. No one was too rich or too poor. Everyone had the ground. He cried and cried. His mother and sister just enough. came out and sat down on the ground beside him. Every week, Stephen, who was a church deacon They cried too. No one said anything. Then Reuben – a kind of minister – came to visit them in their tiny broke the silence. “I loved Stephen,” he said simply. home. He was a very good preacher. (Place Stephen “Yes, I know you did,” said his mother. “We all on the line.) Sometimes he brought food to them (put loved him and will miss him dearly.” up food); sometimes he brought clothing (put up cloth- “I want to do something,” ing); and once when Reuben’s sister had a bad cold, Reuben said. “I want to make some- he brought her a soothing herbal drink (put up drink). thing.” He pulled out the stones Sometimes he would stay and tell stories about Jesus from his pocket. I’m going to build (put up Jesus’ face). Sometimes he would play rock something with stones. I’m going to games with Reuben (put up rock game). Reuben had collect all the rocks and stones that I so much fun with Stephen. He always watched out can find and I’m going to build something special for for him when they went to the Temple and he looked Stephen.” forward to his weekly visits. “You do what you have to do Reuben,” said his One day a different visitor came. (Place Sarah on mother. “Then we’ll go to the worship service togeth- the line.) “Where’s Stephen?” Reuben asked. The new er.” (Remove Mother.) visitor looked very sad. “Stephen’s dead,” she said. Reuben worked furiously for (Remove Stephen.) “He’s with Jesus now.” 2 hours. His sister helped him. Reuben felt the tears come into his eyes. (Re- When he was finished, it just place Reuben with Crying Reuben.) “Dead?” What hap- looked like a pile of rocks un- pened? How did he die? der a tree (put up tree with pile of Sarah, the new visitor, put her arm around Reu- rocks). But Reuben was satisfied. ben’s shoulders. “He was stoned to death. None of us He knew that this pile of rocks had a special mean- can believe it.” ing that couldn’t be said in words. As he added the “You mean people threw stones at him until he last rock Reuben whispered, “Thank you Stephen. I’ll died?” Reuben couldn’t believe it. never forget you.” Then he and his mother and sister “It is hard to understand,” Sarah said. “It hap- went to join the rest of Stephen’s friends. (Remove Cry- pened when he was preaching in the streets about ing Reuben and place Reuben, Mother, and Sister at the God’s love. The crowd became very angry at some end of the line.) of the things he said and threw lots of stones at him. Stephen asked God to forgive the people who were Discussion hurting him. Now he’s dead. We are all gathering to- Talk together about times when they have been picked morrow to pray and thank God for Stephen.” Sarah on by other children. Talk about how that made them stayed for a little while longer. Then she had to leave feel. Sometimes jealousy and unwillingness to change to go and see some of the other families for whom causes people to be mean. Instead of hitting back, Stephen had cared. (Remove Sarah.) Stephen prayed for the people who hurt him. We can Reuben felt the smooth stones in his pocket which do the same. God can help us be strong in the good he had lovingly collected for a good rock game with times and in the bad. Stephen. He ran outside and threw himself down on

Activity: Building a Cairn (Bring out the stones that were used earlier.) The stones used to kill Stephen were just ordinary stones, maybe even stones that children had used in their play. They became weapons when chosen by angry people. These stones are just ordinary stones, until we choose them. Then they become special to us. Let us honour Stephen’s life by using our stones to build a cairn. A cairn is a pile of stones that is made in memory of someone special. It is like the altar Abraham and Sarah made to show their love and thanksgiving to God that we heard about in Lent. (Invite the children, one by one, to make a pile of stones.)

Integrating the Theme Option A: Rock Painting Option B: Rock Candle Holders Materials: tempera paint, small paint brushes, smocks, Materials: 15cm / 6" white candles, plastic containers bucket, towels for cleanup, (optional): stickers of Chris- (e.g. small yoghurt or margarine) for each child, white 4 tian symbols. glue and stones. In advance: Prepare to take the children on a walk In advance: Line containers with waxed paper. around the church to gather rocks that can be washed Give each child a lined container and candle. En- and painted. If this is not possible, bring some rocks courage them to build a holder around the candle us- that they can paint. ing plenty of white glue and rocks, stacking them all Encourage them to paint the rocks with bright around the candle set in the middle of the container. colours of “new life.” Older children might paint Encourage the children to take their candle home and “new life” symbols, e.g. butterfly, lily, etc. tell the story of Stephen’s love and faith as the candle burns. (When dry, remove from the container.)

Closing Sing: The Church Is One Big Family (tune: London Bridge) The church is one big family family, family 5 The church is one big family, the church is every where.

And in this special fam’ly of love fam’ly of love, fam’ly of love, and in this special fam’ly of love I know that I belong.

Spread the good news that Jesus is risen Jesus is risen, Jesus is risen. Spread the good news that Jesus is risen, spread it everywhere.