Saturday 9 May 2020
Welcome to our second Messy Church At Home. Although we can’t meet in person, we can still share Bible stories, songs and activities together, like we do when we’re at Messy Church.
In our last session, we heard about two friends of Jesus who met him on a walking journey and today we’ll hear about some more friends of Jesus who met him after he had risen.
I’m sure we all really miss seeing our family and friends in person just now, but now we’ll hear about Thomas, who wanted to reach out and touch Jesus for himself, before he would believe that he was alive again. Watch the clip below to find out what happened.
Wow, Thomas recognised Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, it was really him, he had beaten death and was alive again. Here are some activity ideas to help us to think a bit more about this story.
Feely Bag Game
Can you collect some objects from around the house (nothing sharp!), pop them in a bag or an empty pillowcase and then see if someone else can identify them, by feeling them through the bag? Ideas: pen, sticky tape, wooden spoon, hairbrush, soft toy, plastic cup etc. How many did they manage to guess? What was the hardest one? Take turns of choosing and hiding different objects in the bag and guessing what they are.
I doubt that you would know what was in the bag without touching it from the outside or having a peek inside. In today’s story, Thomas wanted to be able to see Jesus and reach out and touch him for himself, before he would believe the news that he was alive again.
Touchy Feely Picture
Write ‘Faith’ on a piece of paper or card or on the inside of a cereal box. Decorate each letter with different things from around the house so that they all feel different. For example, you could use foil, rice, lentils, pasta shapes, coloured paper, beads, sequins, scrunched up paper – anything you can find that you’re allowed to use! Write this verse from the Bible on your picture:
“Faith means being sure of the things we hope for. And faith means knowing that something is real even if we do not see it.” Hebrews 11 v 1
Thomas believed because he had seen Jesus with his own eyes. Today we can’t see Jesus with our eyes but we can still put our faith and trust in him because of all we know about him from the Bible.
Story and Song Celebration Time
You can read today’s story in John 20 v 24-31 in the Bible or you can follow the link here.
It wasn’t surprising that at first, Thomas doubted the news that Jesus was alive again. He knew Jesus had died and so surely that was the end? However as soon as he saw Jesus for himself, he was convinced that the news was true and he called Jesus his Lord and his Saviour. It’s important that we all look at the evidence too, find out for ourselves who Jesus is and decide if we want to follow him as our Lord and Saviour. We can’t see him in person but we can have faith in Jesus if we believe what we read about him in the Bible.
We’ve found lots of new ways of keeping in touch with each other recently and it’s been good to see our family and friends on a screen when we can’t see them in person. How can we stay close to Jesus when we can’t see him? We can always pray and talk to him about anything. Why not take some time now to say thank you to God, for the good things that we have and we can also bring our worries and our problems to him too.
Let’s finish up by singing My Hope is in the Lord, with actions too, as we remind ourselves of the everlasting hope we have in Jesus.
Remember to send in any pictures of what you have made to our Facebook page or you can email them to familyworker@outlook.com, we would love to share some on our Facebook page. Thank you for visiting Messy Church At Home and we hope you’ll join us here again soon.