Sprouts Ep 02: A Little Boy's Lunch

Lesson Extenders

• Talk about how it feels to share what you have. Have your children imagine what it would be like to share with Jesus and see a miracle. Think about what that looks like for us now. What can we give Jesus? (our time, the things we're good at, our obedience). 
• Start making a list of blessings. In this episode of The Treehouse I told the kids to start looking for God Sightings.  A God Sighting is whenever you see God at work around you. So, I want you to start looking for God in your life. What good things are happening? What blessings have you or your family received? What can we praise God for right now today? I encouraged families to start a paper chain made up of God Sightings and hang it up where you see it every day. 

Below is the written lesson I more or less followed in the video. 

Hey Sprouts! Last week we talked about how important children are to Jesus.

In fact, one of Jesus's most famous miracles included a kid. It's a story about a little boy and his lunch. What's your favorite thing to have for lunch? Is it fish and bread?? That's not my favorite lunch! I like pizza! 

Let me tell you the whole story. One day Jesus and his friends, the twelve disciples, were way out by the Sea of Galilee. An enormous crowd of people followed Jesus. They wanted him to heal and help all the people who needed him. Jesus realized that the people were going to get hungry! The disciples didn't know what to do. One of them, Philip, said that even if they could go buy food it would cost way too much money. Jesus told them to see if anyone in the crowd had any food at all. And jesus's friend Andrew found a little boy with five small loaves of bread and two small fish. This was his lunch! 

How do you think the boy felt when Andew asked him to share his lunch? Do you think maybe it helped him feel better about sharing his food when he found out it was with Jesus? 

Jesus took those five small loaves of bread and those two tiny fish, and he told the disciples to tell all of the people to sit down. There were over 5,000 people there! Five-thousand is a big number! So after everyone was settled down for lunch, Jesus thanked God for the bread and fish. 

Then he started tearing the bread and giving it to his friends to pass out. He started tearing up the fish for them to pass out too. And even though there were all those thousands of people there, they had enough food. There was enough food for everyone to eat until they were full! And there was also twelve baskets of fish and bread leftover! That's a whole lot of fish and bread. 

We can't do that. We can't tear up one slice of pizza and make enough to feed our whole families! Jesus did this miracle, this impossible thing, because God gave him the power to do it. Isn't that so cool?? Isn't it really cool how this little boy was willing to share what he had and Jesus was able to feed thousands of people? Everyone saw a miracle that day! I bet that little boy remembered it all his life and told everyone he ever met all about it. 

We can tell everyone we meet about Jesus too. You can tell someone this story I just told you! And if you want to know more, ask someone to read it to you. The whole story can be found in John 6:1-13. 

And remember, children are important to Jesus!