3-5s
Theme: Stay with Jesus by loving and obeying Him
and telling others about Him
Intro
- Making branches – get them to make branches for the story.
- Get them to make ‘fruit’
Teaching
Read v1a
Jesus says that He is the
vine – Have a big branch (rolled up newspaper?)
And He says that each one
of us are branches attached to Him – add branches
What does Jesus mean? – He
means that we belong to Him, we are His. So x belongs to Jesus (add their name
to a branch and continue).
And we’re to keep belonging
to Him by loving Him and doing what He tells us to do. So keep thinking about
Jesus and remembering how wonderful He is. Keep trying to live His way. Read
v9-11.
But the big thing that
Jesus wants His branches to do is to bear fruit. (Attach a bunch of grapes to
the branch.) What does Jesus mean? We can’t just attach grapes to ourselves.
What he means is that we’re to go and tell others about Jesus, so that they can
come and be branches too. So x goes and tells his friend y about Jesus and he decides
to become a friend of Jesus and look (attach another branch with y’s name on).
But that’s not how you
grow grapes is it, by sticking them on with sellotape? How do we tell others
about Jesus? By seeing for ourselves how wonderful He is. [Read Basil the
Branch at this point – www.lostsheep.com.au]
The big thing to remember
is this: Keep remembering how wonderful Jesus is. Keep loving Him and wanting
to please Him, and we’ll stay as His branches and we’ll bear fruit.
Pray
Activities
- Invitations for friends (bearing fruit)
- Carry on making the vine from the introduction
Songs
Stick with Jesus
Follow, follow (from a
Very, very Big God)
5-11s
Theme: Stay with Jesus by loving and obeying Him
and telling others about Him
Intros:
Teaching:
[Make a big vine and some
branches and have some grapes]
Remember – Jesus said He
was going away. But He would send His Spirit to be with them. He carries on
telling them how they are to live without Him there in His body.
Jesus gives them a picture
– Read 15:1-7
That’s a bit of a funny
picture, isn’t it? Let’s have a think about what it means.
Who is the true vine?
Jesus – put up a big vine.
Who are the branches? You
and me – put up branches and write their names on them.
We are to remain in Jesus.
How are we to do that? Read v9-11. By loving and obeying Him. So always
remember Jesus, remind yourself about how wonderful He is every day. Always
look to Him, don’t get distracted by other things in life, but remember how brilliant
He is and love to live the way He wants you to. That means loving others.
And when we do that we’ll
bear fruit. Read v16. Stick on fruit. That means that we love Jesus so much
that we’re overflowing with love for Him and we tell others about Him. They
then come to follow Him and become branches too. [Add more branches on the vine
with other names on].
We can’t just stick fruit
on. It comes from loving Jesus. [Read Basil the Branch]
But if we don’t love and
obey Jesus listen to what happens. Read v2-6. God the Father, the gardener,
will take away every branch that doesn’t bear fruit. So if [made-up person]
doesn’t love and obey Jesus then the Father will remove Him. So it’s really
important to love Jesus with all our hearts, minds and bodies.
[At this point – get them
to make a branch with a friend’s name. Pray for the friend and attach to the
vine].
Table time:
Younger ones – have a big
picture. Get them to write their names on and colour etc. while asking the
questions below.
Older ones – Read passage
and answer questions. Then make invitations to invite their friends.
Knowledge
- Who is the vine? Who are the branches?
- Who is the gardener? What does He do?
- What does the gardener want the branches to do?
Understanding
- What does it mean to remain in Jesus? (v9-10)
- What does it mean to bear fruit? (v16)
- What happens if we don’t bear fruit? (v2-6)
Application
- How much do you love Jesus at the moment?
- How much are you obeying Jesus at the moment?
- What friend should we pray for?
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