[PYCL: Love to tell Christ's story with real level details & apps!]
CedarS PYCLs–Possible Younger Class Lessons for:
"Christ Jesus"
The Christian Science Bible Lesson for March 3, 2013
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, House Springs, MO (314) 406-0041 [Bracketed inserts by Warren Huff]
[PYCL #1: “love to tell the story”! (Hymn 417) Set the scene! Give very real level details.]
What fun it will be just to retell the stories in this week's lesson. You can think about what details to bring out in your own words with the littler ones. For example, if you are telling about Jesus walking on the water you may want to set the scene by talking about the stormy weather. What would it be like to be on a very large lake in a strong wind in a small boat? Would you be frightened? What if the waves were coming into the boat and threatening to turn it over? You might try to row as hard as you could for shore, but even then you might find yourself making no progress. You certainly wouldn't want to turn sideways to the waves, a sure way to capsize or turn the boat over! What would you think if, after rowing all night (how tired would you be after being terrified and rowing hard all night?), if, towards dawn you saw someone walking over the rough waves toward your boat? Even if you thought you knew the person, wouldn't you be a bit amazed? Think what they felt and thought as they saw Jesus come toward them on top of the stormy water! Show the little kids what rowing is like. You can do a little pretend demonstration, even without oars, and you can show them a picture from book or device. These details are not given to make the story “more interesting” or give it “excitement”. They are shared to help bring the story into our consciousness as a happening that was experienced on a very real level, not as some distant tale told. If you ask them to imagine themselves in the boat, listening to the howling wind and feeling the wind and water hitting them and rolling the boat, they might be able to begin to appreciate the amazing nature of the freedom that the disciples experienced when Jesus showed up walking on top of the waves and having all the wind “cease”. Ask them why Jesus walked out there to the boat, why didn't he just still the storm? What does this act of walking on the water and stilling the storm mean for us today? What freedom does it display that we have as well? Think in terms of everything that the law of physics contains, any accident really is a result of physics in some way. So you can surely share an example from your life of how you've overcome this law in some way.
[PYCL #2: Share 5 pictures of the 5 stories; let them chose which to hear or tell 1st; debrief…]
If you take the time to look at each story in the lesson in this way, you probably won't be able to finish them all, but I'll share a few other thoughts anyway! In your story-telling mode, you may want to explain that the lesson this week is all about Jesus, so there are many stories about him to share. Lay out five pictures of the five main stories. You can make simple drawings (five porches by a pool with stick figures lying around it…) and so on. Or if you feel like being elaborate you can find some sort of resource to collect the pictures from. Then ask the kids to choose which story they want to have you share. That way they have some choice in the matter and kids like to have some choice! Another option is to tell a story and then ask if one of them would like to tell the story on their own or with help. You will have to judge if your class is old enough and not too silly in nature. {Debrief:] What do they think are the important parts of the story? Why are those parts important? What does the story mean to them in their life today?
[PYCL #3: Share how Christ comes to you in the darkest hour, crossing “impossible” gulfs]
I don't know how applicable this is to younger children, but something I loved in the story about Jesus walking on the water as I read it this time was the detail about him approaching the ship during the “fourth watch of the night”. It occurred to me that this would be in the early hours of the morning. Symbolically, after a difficult and “dark” challenge, the light or truth dawns on our consciousness, comes to us as Christ, Truth, as Jesus came to his disciples. This Christ “walks” out to us. It comes across an impossible gulf of limiting mortal thought and human law and brings us peace, healing and freedom. This seemed like such a comforting and lovely detail, that I think there must be a way to share this with some of the older children at least if it seems helpful!
[PYCL #4: Hand out goldfish in a basket after sharing the loaves and fishes story…]
One Sunday School teacher that my boys had brought some goldfish crackers with her to talk about the loaves and fishes. You could bring some in a basket and have the kids sit down to listen to the story after you've handed out a few fish to each. Maybe give them each a towel to sit on, as if they were listening to Jesus on the hillside. Set up the story before you hand them crackers or all they will think about is eating crackers. Alternatively, you could make them wait until you are done telling the story and ask them to hand each person a cracker and share how we get all good from God. Explain about how abundance of good of every kind comes from the infinite God, not from matter, just the way Jesus showed us in the story. If we are ever truly in need, truly hungry or truly desperate for something good, then we can see that abundance in our lives, given to us already by God, and presented in a way that we can see it, just as Jesus did for all those people long ago.
[PYCL #5: Discuss the freedoms and laws illustrated by each story…]
With the kids that are of reading age, you can look at the list of stories and think together about what freedoms they illustrate. For example, the second section deals with freedom from the law of physics, the third illustrates the law of divine abundance, the fourth I like to think of as showing the law of compassion over a dogmatic approach to the Sabbath laws, but it's certainly also illustrating how Love overcomes the laws of material health. The fifth section illustrates the law of Life and the last really shows us that there is no limit to the reach of Christ's laws of love and truth.
[PYCL #6: God's light accessible right within us embraces our humanity in tangible ways…]
Finally, one detail that I have been enjoying involves the way that the first section speaks of how God made the “light” to shine in our hearts… Citations B1 and in B5 …”the day star arise in your hearts;”. Mrs. Eddy parallels it in citation S1 when she speaks of this light “…[traversing] the night…”. I was struck by the way that Jesus was brought to earth so that the light, the understanding, hope and key to healing, would be planted directly in our hearts, not out there somewhere, but within us. If there is anything that I think Jesus brought to us, it was this sense that God's goodness and love are right with us, accessible and embracing our humanity in tangible ways then, and no less, now.
Have a great Sunday!
