This Month in Christ’s Carousel
They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Mark 2:12
This month we are exploring the story of Jesus healing a man through the roof! The story begins when four friends hear that Jesus is coming to town. They had heard that Jesus performed miracles and healed people, and having a friend who was paralyzed they decided to make the trip to see this man they had heard so much about. They carried their friend across town to the house where Jesus was teaching only to find a large crowd blocking the doors and windows. Not wanting to give up on the possibility that their friend would be healed, they climbed to the roof where they dug through the layers of mud and grass, creating a hole large enough to lower their friend through. As Jesus continued to preach, the four friends carefully lowered the paralyzed man into the room below. “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus exclaimed as the man came into view of the crowd. This was displeasing to most, as the crowd of people believed Jesus could not forgive this man, only God could do that. Jesus replied to their outrage with a question: “which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to say pick your mat and walk?” And at that moment the paralyzed man did just that — he picked up his at and walked through the crowd. The people were amazed and exclaimed, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Our lessons for this story focused on the word “AMAZING”, as well as the importance of friends. In our Sunday Morning Live workshop we participated in a story walk consisting of 4 stations. Each station included activities that allowed us to dive deeper into the story — we ran relay races while carrying a mat and heavy objects to represent carrying the paralyzed man to Jesus; we worked together to figure out how to get our “paralyzed man” from one end of the room to the other; we looked through books and pictures to learn how houses were built when Jesus was alive; and we used props to retell the story. Our Joyful Jams and Science Lab workshop found us singing the word “AMAZING” and enjoying some amazing science activities (ask one of our kids about elephant toothpaste)! As we talked about what it means to be a friend, we made helping hand cookies in our Solid Rock Cafe workshop. We also made special blankets for kids in need in a special missions workshop.
Our next session in Christ’s Carousel begins on March 10. We will be exploring the events of Holy Week and Easter. Let me know how you can be a part of Christ’s Carousel!