Storm on the Lake

Today in God Squad I ran a session on The Storm on the Lake.  I started by talking about what stories the kids could remember that involved a river, lake or sea; I was blown away by all the stories they could remember and importantly their meanings.  What a wonder kids are.

I then asked them to sit in the middle of a huge blue tarpaulin and told them we were going to act out the story of Jesus and his disciples in a storm on a lake.  The adults took the edges of the tarp and as I read it we increased or decreased our movements to make the story come to life.  Here's the drama I read:

Jesus and his friends were tired after talking all day. They decided to go to the other side of the lake to get some rest. They got on a small boat to sail there.

The lake was calm and the boat rocked gently; Jesus fell asleep.

Then suddenly the clouds turned grey, the wind got strong and the waves became huge. The little boat was tossed about in the waves.

The disciples were frightened, really scared, they thought they were going to drown. But Jesus kept sleeping. His friends started shouting at him and shaking him.

Jesus woke up.
Jesus sat up.
Jesus looked at the storm.
Jesus stood up.
Jesus said “Peace, Be Still.”

The wind stopped and the waves calmed down and Jesus said to the disciples “You did not need to be frightened. All you need to do is trust me.”

After the drama we spoke about trust and who we trust and who trusts us. We also did some trust games; ones where we adults would catch the kids when they "fell" backwards and others where we led them around blindfolded and then they had their turn to lead us. It was fantastic for us all to really experience how important it is to be responsible when we are the one to be trusted; and also to realise how wonderful it is to be able to trust others with our safety.
 
We concluded our session by making a joint collage picture of the storm on the lake, I'm really impressed with their teamwork considering they're aged 3-9.   I forgot to take a picture but when I'm in church tomorrow I'll take one then to include here.   here it is

 

PS We did the drama again in church to show everyone, it went down a STORM!!!!