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Description

Aim: Looking at the stories that Jesus told about Seeds. Introduction: Jesus told his parables in real life situations using the examples of farming, greed, and love. This would help him to build a visual picture for the listeners who could understand his imagery. The imagery in His parables is full of spiritual truths. Jesus used parables to hide some of these spiritual truths from people who cared more about being entertained than being saved. Only those who were spiritually awake understood the truth behind the imagery. Because of this, many people did not understand Jesus’ teaching. Taken from the BB Anchors Pro Pack S-2-8

Resources

Activity 1
Seeds
Tray
Compost
Fork

Activity 2
• Story
• Wordsearch
• Pens/Pencils

Activity 3
• A hoe
• Gardening fork
• Weed killer

Instructions

Activity 1 - the Parable of the Sower

Aim: To look at the parable of the Sower from Mark 4.

Preparation:
You’ll need some packets of seeds and a tray of compost.


Instructions:
Introduce the story by showing some packets of seeds and asking what would happen if you planted them in different places — demonstrate the different places by:

• planting some on the floor. Will you get any carrots?
• planting them on a table?
• in someone’s hair?
• or just by throwing the packet on the floor?

Tell the story from Mark 4 in simple language.

Explain to the children that you will need some help with this story which will make it loads more fun

You will need to divide the children into 4 groups who will act out the story as you read it.

Seed that fell on a footpath — get the children to walk on the spot and use their hands to peck like birds.

Seed that fell on shallow soil — the children need to start crouched on the ground and then grow slowly and then shrink and fall to the floor dead.

Seed that fell among thorns — the children need to put their hands to their necks and show themselves being strangled by weeds and then fall down dead. They can make a choking noise.

Seed that fell on good soil — the children need to grow up strong and show strong arms like a body builder looking very healthy.

Then as the story teller you can mime throwing seed (or use something to represent seed) to all the children who are crouching down in their different groups.

Now plant the seeds properly in the compost.

Tips/Advice:
Let the children really enjoy this session. If you have a low number of children get them to act out each seed together as a group rather than separating into smaller groups.

Extension Tasks/Adaptations:
After you have finished the story sit all of the children down and ask them if they know- What is a parable? Tell them that it is a story with a hidden meaning—some times a parable has many different hidden meanings. Jesus told parables so that only people who really wanted to -could understand what he was talking about..

Activity 2 - The Tiny Mustard Seed & The Big Tree Story & Wordsearch

Preparation:
Familiarise yourself with the story and check that you can find all the words in the wordsearch.

Instructions:
Many people came to hear Jesus teaching and they gathered in a large crowd to listen to his stories/parables. Jesus told them many things and he told them stories about God’s Kingdom. Jesus told them that God’s kingdom is like a mustard seed. Hold up a mustard seed to show the children and tell them that it is one of the smallest seeds in the world. But it is a seed that keeps on growing and growing and it becomes one of the tallest trees. It is so big that some birds come and make their nests in its branches and live in it.

What Jesus was teaching the crowds is that God’s kingdom can start very small and can grow and grow into something very big. Gods love can start in one person’s heart and when they share that love God’s kingdom grows and grows.

Hand out a wordsearch to each child and let them find the words. There are 9 words to find

including:
• Jesus
• Bird
• Mustard Seed
• Branches
• Kingdom
• Love
• Grow
• Heart
• God

Activity 3 - The Parable of the Weeds

Aim: To understand Jesus’ Parable.

Instructions:
The Parable of the Weeds
Matthew 13: 24 - 30
Tell the story in an age appropriate language.

Parable of the weeds.
I have lots of weeds in my garden. I planted my garden in good soil, and yet there are still weeds everywhere. As in a garden full of plants and flowers. one of the biggest enemies are weeds. Weeds will take all the nutrients from the soil — all the good things that help plants grow and sometimes the weeds will choke good plants.

So what can we do about the weeds? Well, you can dig them up with a gardening fork or a hoe and cut down the weeds, but what can happen is that you will probably cut out some of the good plants by mistake.

A really quick way to get rid of weeds is to use weed killer. Weed killer is like poison to the weeds. But the problem with using weed killer to get rid of weeds is that it can’t tell a weed from a flower or a special plant like a tomato plant or carrots. Weed killer will kill every plant where it is put. And that is not what you want in your garden is it?

Sometimes, its a better idea to leave the weeds alone until it is time to dig up your carrots or when your tomatoes have finished giving you tomatoes. Then when your plant has given you fruit and vegetables you then separate the weeds from the good plants.

In the parable of the weeds Jesus told a story where he compared his church to a garden that was full of weeds. Sometimes there may be people you meet that don’t fit in and they do things that aren’t very kind and they might not believe what Jesus teaches in the Bible. Sometimes they might say nasty things about the other people and try to hurt them. They are like weeds in a garden.

In his story, Jesus said that we should not worry about pulling up weeds that grow around us. If we do, we might do more harm than good. He says that we should leave the weeds for God to take care of - and concentrate on doing what he wants us to do which is producing good fruit.

Tags

• anchors
• Parables
• seeds
• spirit
• weed clearance

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