Last Sunday I taught an impromptu children’s Sunday School: impromptu meaning absolutely no warning that there were going to be children at church at all until they showed up. It was rather interesting, actually. It was a brother and a sister, both of whom I had seen before but neither of whom I had actually had a chance to talk to.
After much searching by all three of us, we managed to locate a lesson from the current Sunday School book (Jesus’ parable about the wise man building his house on a rock and the foolish man building his on the sand). We took turns reading the Bible verses and then I told them we were going to do something different. We were going to see what the difference was between a house built on a rock and a house built on sand. What I didn’t tell them was that I was making this up as I went along!
So, here is my own lesson plan for Matthew 7:24-29.
For each person there:
- A Bible
- A paper plate (from the kitchen)
- A styrofoam cup (kitchen)
- A large flat rock (gathered from the church driveway)
- Large handful of sand or dirt (also from the driveway)
- Pitcher of water
- Youthful lungs and excitement over being encouraged to make a mess
The rock and sand went on the plate. We cut out houses (brightly and wildly colored) and stands from the cups. I suppose it would have been easier to have made the house from another plate, but such a thing only occured to me in hindsight.
Next we went outside to simulate a storm, much to the rising enthusiasm of the kids. The sand quickly turned to mud and sunk the house, but I’m afraid that the House on the Rock did not quite line up with the lesson: when the winds came, the rock stood firm but the house went flying.
All involved had a good time and those people on their way into church got some free entertainment.
