No Jesus, No Fish

I decided to try a lesson from our Experience God curriculum.  The topic we are still working through is God is All-Powerful.  He does great things too marvelous to understand. Job 9:10

It had been a while since we had talked about this topic so I got out the Story Cards to read through again. I just have to show you what they look like.  They have great graphics of course.  There are 4 of them with each months story.  Each one has a picture on the front and words on the back for you to read.  The story has prompts and ways for you to get the kids involved.

The story that goes along with the verse in Job is of Simon Peter going out to fish.  They threw their nets in again and again but caught no fish.  Jesus came to them and told them to throw their nets out one more time.  They obeyed Jesus, threw their nets one more time and caught a super heavy load of fish.

This last card has story telling pieces.  My plan is to turn these into the old fashioned Sunday School flannel graph pieces.  I have a board that is covered in flannel that we place felt pieces on to tell stories, and to play with colors and shapes.  I would like to put felt pieces on the back of these cut outs so the kids can put them up as I read the story and act it out.

After reading the story we started in on the activity.  I laid down a blanket on the floor in the living room.  I got out ball pit balls and put them in a little drum.  One child stands on the blanket while the other kids throw the balls at the blanket.  The child standing on the blanket kicks the balls back off.  They keep going for 30 seconds and when you stop they count how many balls are still on the blanket.  The idea is that the balls are the fish and the blanket is the net.

Lachlan sat on the blanket and threw the balls back off instead of kicking them off, but the idea was still the same.

The question we asked before we got started was: What do you think might happen if we try to do things without God?

After we were done with the activity I asked the question again.  No one seemed to be in the mood for conversation, so I answered the question for them.  I explained that it might not work out quite as well if we do things without God's help.

There is an Explain strip on the page that always sums up the lesson beautifully.  The disciples went out fishing alone and came back with empty nets.  When we do things on our own with out Jesus' help, we will not have what we need.