God Squad "Down through the roof"

Todays session is from Mark 2:1-12.  It is about people who came to Jesus for help.  For healing.

 1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
 6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

 8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”


1. The Mat Race
Materials:
Bath towels (one for each team)
Stuffed Animals (one for each team)
- Divide the class into two or three teams.
- Have the kids in each team grab part of the bath towel, corners or sides etc., and stretch it out to make it like a trampoline.
- The teams will start at one end of the room, and while staying together keeping hold of the towel, race to the other end of the room.
- they'll collect a stuffed animal and put it on the top of the towel.
- the teams will then race back to where they started while attempting to keep the stuffed animal from falling over.
- This game helps reinforce the story about the man lowered down on a mat from the roof


2. Read the story from the Lion Storyteller Bible


3. If we need to be healed then we just need to ask; ask Jesus.

How do we do that?  - prayer
Let's make prayers on mats and ask for what we need healing in ourselves.




4. Sometimes we need to remember we can come down through the roof and be healed.

We just need to let go of our fears and worries.
Let's make our own models of ourselves coming down through the roof to be healed.

Material:
- toilet roll
- pens
- plastic cup with hole in the bottom
- string/wool/cotton to thread

A) Make two small holes on each side of one end of the toilet roll.
B) draw yourself on the roll.
C) thread the string/wool/cotton through the two holes
D) put the string ends together and thread through the inside of the cup so the ends are outside and the roll inside
E) knot the string tightly so it won't fall through the hole



Now you should be able to lower yourself down inside the cup.