Jesus Without Language

Kid's Ministry & Sunday School Resources

The thankful leper (Luke 17) | Story

This passage holds a very straightforward message of thankfulness. Jesus did not heal for the praise, but showing gratitude is a skill we should all aim to model and foster in the youngsters in our care.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Luke 17:11-19

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The 99 Sheep – Luke 15 | Story

This parable, often called the Lost sheep, is one that’s hugely quoted and a staple of Christian symbolism. It’s a fabulous passage because it shows us not only that Jesus will rescue us, no matter how far we have wandered, but that Jesus recognised the religious leaders’ faith in that he knew they did not need his help in the same way the fallen did.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Luke 15

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Lydia (Acts 16) | Story

We can forget our influence as established members of a community. Too often we glorify the those who travel to ‘spread the faith’ and loudly proclaim the special relationship God has with the poor and suffering. All that doesn’t mean God does not also have a special role for the established and secure. To be like Lydia and change a community. To be like Lydia and host. But, perhaps, not to be quite as bossy as Lydia was!

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : Acts 16
Additional passages : Acts 9

I wonder if you know someone who is a little bit bossy? Someone who knows exactly what they want? That’s a bit like the woman Paul meets in today’s passage, but first let’s chat about Paul!

Paul was once called Saul, and he spent his time chasing all those who followed the way of Jesus the Messiah so he could put them in prison. But then his life changed dramatically when Jesus appeared to him on a road and told him to change his ways and his name! Soon Paul was the church’s early missionary, travelling around from town to town telling people about Jesus.

One night, Paul had a dream of a man begging him to come visit them next. The man was dressed like a Macedonian (southern Europeans), and so Paul got in a boat and sailed North. He travelled many days until he reached the trading city of Philippi. When the Sabbath came, he went outside the city walls, near the river, where the Jewish community used to pray because they did not have a synagogue. Paul sat down with a group of women and told them all about Jesus.

One of the women was called Lydia. Lydia had grown up in a town called Thyatira where purple cloth was made. But Lydia didn’t want to make cloth; so she moved to Philippi to trade the expensive purple cloth there. She was very good at trading and had become wealthy. She had a big house in Philippi with many rooms and many servants. However, the most important thing about Lydia was that she knew God.

While the other women were unsure about what Paul told them, God had opened Lydia’s heart and she believed the message Paul was sharing. She believed Jesus was the Messiah! Lydia believed so fully she asked Paul to baptise her and her whole household, even the servants. They all went into the river and did just that! Paul was delighted. Lydia was the first European believer in Jesus.

Lydia told Paul that he and his friends should come and stay at her house. Paul wasn’t so sure. He didn’t want people to say he had targeted the rich women of the city so he would get free accommodation. But Lydia was not going to take no for an answer. Paul had told her the believers cared for each other; saying no would be saying she wasn’t a real believer! Paul threw up his hands and laughed; Lydia was not someone to be argued with. Plus, she really did have room for them all to stay.

Lydia helped to grow not only the Church in Philippi but also in her home town of Thyatira. The teachings of Jesus spread through Europe and out to the rest of the world.
 

Witnesses to the crucifixion | Story

Today’s text is not a straight story but an interactive event.
Start by gathering the children in a circle and putting as large a cross as you can find in the middle. Explain that today we are going to talk about what happened when Jesus was on the cross. It’s a sad part of Jesus’s story, but we know that it’s not the end of Jesus’s story. The witnesses to the event did not know this, though! Choose one of these three ways of sharing the story.

1. Split the large group into 3 small groups and give each group one of the accounts. Gather and share after 10 minutes of group discussion.
2. As a whole group, use three actors to read the three accounts.
3. Hand out one of the story cards and have the children read them individually. Give them a moment to be quiet before discussing as a large group. Repeat process with the next character.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passages : John 19, Matthew 27, Mark 15

Biblical retelling of the stories of the Witnesses to the crucifixion

Salome’s Story:

When Jesus left after the evening meal, we knew whatever was going to happen would be soon. When one of the disciples finally returned, he was alone. Jesus had been arrested. We stood in the streets and heard the whip hit his back, watched as he carried the wooden cross to Golgotha wearing that stupid crown of thorns. Would he save himself from the cross? Mary Magdalene, Jesus’s mother, and I edged closer and closer and saw him looking at us. Three hours we waited until he shouted the words, “it is finished.” Jesus was gone. It was over. They laid him in a tomb, and I went to collect spices to put on his body. But it was too late. The Sabbath was coming, and the spices would have to wait. That Sabbath was so quiet. We were so afraid. We were so lost. Our lives had become all about Jesus, and now he was gone.

The beloved disciples Story:

Jesus called me the one he loved, but I ran just as fast as the rest of the disciples. I ran when I saw Judas turn up with the crowd of men. I ran when I saw their swords. I was scared they would take me too. I didn’t stand up in court or plead with Herod or Pilate. For 3 years, he was my family, and I did nothing. The crowds in Jerusalem were thick with people. I followed at a distance, keeping my head down. I saw the men with gold coins for those who shouted “crucify,” and I did nothing. Why am I so afraid? I can see him looking from the cross for his friends. I got near enough to see his mother and the women. He wanted to say something to me. He told me that I am to take his mother as my own and that she is to take me as her son. Even as he left, he gave me a new family.

The Centurion’s Story:

We got handed this man straight from the steps of Pilate’s house. He’d been whipped already, but he was still standing. Pilate looked irritated. This was the crowd’s decision, not his. It was about half a mile to Golgotha, but we didn’t think he’d make it. The crowd was crazy. There were a few weeping, but most of them were shouting abuse and spitting in his face. He had this good robe on and a crown of thorns. We gambled for the robe and put up a sign saying “King of the Jews.” The Jews didn’t like that. He was nailed up to the cross as the sky went black. It was midday. He didn’t say much up there, and he didn’t last long. But he asked God to forgive us and said we didn’t know what we were doing. When he died, I realised this was no ordinary man: We’d killed the son of God.

Witnesses to the crucifixion | Story PDF

Click this image to get the printable story page. Split into 3 cards once printed.

Love is (1 Corinthians 13) | Story

This passage is so quoted and used, it’s a key part of understanding the “love” theme that echoes through scripture. It is, however, rather abstract, and this retelling used the instance of Paul writing it to frame the passage into a story.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : 1 Corinthians 13


Character resources for: Love is. 1 Corinthians 13

Paul was in the midst of writing to all the people in Corinth about the gifts God could send them through his Holy Spirit when he suddenly stopped and threw his hands in the air. In all his talk about the great gifts and the way they all worked together, he’d forgotten the most important things of all… Love!

It didn’t matter if you had every gift God could give; if you didn’t have love, then they were nothing, nadda, zip, diddlysquat, useless! Love was the thing that tied everything together.

But what kind of love. After all, there are many kinds. We may love chocolate or football, but we love our parents with a different kind of love. And God loves us with a love even greater than that. So, Paul tried to do the impossible: he tried to write out exactly what this “love” was.

Love is patient and kind.
It does not envy, boast or be rude.
Love thinks first of others and keeps no record of wrongs.
Love finds no joy in brokenness but rejoices in the truth.
It holds all things, believes all things, hopes all things, suffers all things.
Love never, ever ends.

Paul sat back and read the long list of things about love. It was something he was still learning about. It was something too big for him to ever know everything about. It was like he could only see part of the picture.

He described it as looking at a reflection in a dull mirror. He knew it was God’s love, and he knew a lot about it, but the image was still blurry. His greatest wish was that one day he would see God’s love face to face, to discover what he already knew in part, but then to know fully.

Paul picked up his pen one last time for the day. He would stop after this and continue the letter tomorrow, but this last sentence needed adding:

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—
but the greatest of these is love.

The Body (1 Corinthians 12) | Story

It’s easy to get lost in feeling you aren’t an important part of a congregation, that’s even more true for kids who often don’t have numerous hands-on skills they can offer. Paul’s passage on the body of believers is a great way of reminding everyone that not all jobs are glamorous and that each part, whether it’s a leading or supporting or a needing support role, is an essential part.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage :1 Corinthians 12

Biblical retelling of The Body of Believers, 1 Corinthians 12, for youngsters.

Paul stared at the passage of writing. The letter to the Corinthians was getting long, but it was all important stuff they needed to hear. He had just finished the bit about how God gives us different gifts, and now he had to find a way of explaining how those gifts worked together.

Paul looked around for something he could use as a symbol. The curtains needed the window. The lamp needed the oil. The plants needed the rain and sun and soil… nothing was quite working. He tried again. His pen needed ink and a hand to hold it and an arm to move it and eyes to see… wait this could work! He put the pen down and looked at his reflection in the basin. Then, he rushed to the table to start writing…

The body has many parts, but it’s still one body, just like the Church has many members but is still one church.

Imagine if a foot said it didn’t belong to the body because it wasn’t a hand! Doesn’t that sound silly? How would we walk without feet?

Imagine if an ear said it wasn’t part of the body because it wasn’t an eye! How would we hear?
If the whole body was nothing but ears, how would we smell? If the whole body was eyes, how would we hear? The body needs many different parts.

God has arranged the body so that we can all work together. The eyes can’t say they don’t need the ears. The hands can’t say to the feet that they don’t need them. Our churches are not places for being exclusive and only gathering people who are the same, but inclusive where we love the differences that others bring. We need each other to be the whole body.

When we work together, it changes how we treat each other too. If one person suffers, we all suffer. It’s the same when we get hurt. If you cut your foot, then the body is hurt even if your arm is fine. If you win an award for your drawing, your whole body is honoured and rejoices, not just your hands.

God has put the body together so that there would be no division in the body and that the members would all value each other. We all have different roles to play. Some roles are more important than others, but that doesn’t mean that the smaller roles aren’t important too. Without them, the body, as God designed it to be, would be incomplete.

Christ the King (John 18) | Story

As we finish our cycle through the lectionary, it’s important to help kids learn this anchor of our year. We start with the birth of our saviour and end with the acknowledgement of his eternal kingship. This passage centres around Pilot’s question about Jesus’s earthly claim to kingship and how his divine kingship is misunderstood.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage :John 18:33-37

Biblical retelling of Christ the King
John 18:33-37 for youngsters

The church year isn’t the same as the usual calendar. It starts in Advent as we get ready for Jesus to be born, and this is the last week before we start that journey again. This week we look back at the whole year and remember that Jesus is, was, and will always be King.

But Jesus isn’t like the other kings, and Jesus’s kingdom isn’t like other kingdoms.

Most kings are born in palaces and sleep in grand beds; Jesus’s first bed was a feeding trough, and for many years he had no home.

Most kings are big and powerful and have armies to fight for them, but Jesus was a servant to everyone.

Most kings wear royal robes and golden crowns, but the only crown we see Jesus wear is one made of thorns.

Most kingdoms fight over land and resources; Jesus’s kingdom fights for people’s hearts.

When Jesus was arrested, a man called Pilate tried to understand what kind of king Jesus was. The Jewish leaders had called him “King of the Jews,” but the man who stood before him didn’t look like a king.

“Are you a king?” asked Pilate.

“My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus.

“So you are a king then?” said Pilate.

“You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. Then, he continued, “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth.”

Pilate was confused. What was this truth that Jesus spoke of? But Jesus wasn’t confused. He knew that sharing the truth of God’s kingdom would end with him dying and then coming back to life.

Confused, Pilate had the crowd decide, and the crowd had Jesus killed. The king of all Heaven and Earth had a crown of thorns placed on his head and died between two thieves. But we know there is still more story to tell, and that the story of Jesus never ends. We know that the story of Jesus is still being told in the things his followers are doing today.

Next week, we will begin the story again for a new year. Jesus will be born and die and rise again; then his followers will spread the word of his Kingdom around the whole world.
 

Destruction of the Temple (Mark 13) | Story

This is such a gloomy passage, and it may seem like one you’d prefer to skip, but it’s a passage that covers one of the central themes of Jesus’s ministry and making God your foundation. While the parable of the wise and foolish builder may be more visually friendly, the prediction about the fall of the temple reminds children that no matter how huge and real and solid something is, God is always bigger. In a world where the unthinkable happens, where violence seems to win, where nature destroys and empires fall, this passage offers comfort.

This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.

Main Passage : John 1: 1-10

Biblical retelling for the destroying of the temple, Mark 13:1-8 for youngsters.

Jesus and his followers left the temple. As they walked away, one of his friends looked back and stopped Jesus to ask him about it.

The temple was really impressive. They had built huge walls around the mountain top–as high as an 8 story building–to support a flat area the size of 30 football pitches. In the middle, the temple was built. It was huge too, made of white stone that was covered with large gold plates reflecting sunlight. Along the top of the temple walls, there were golden triangles so the whole place looked like a giant crown. It was supposed to be a temple for the world, but only the priests could get all the way inside. People came from all over the world to see the biggest place of worship ever built, to marvel at the size of the stones and tall arches, to spread their arms around the tall white columns and glimpse the beautiful coloured stones that made the floor.

One of Jesus’s disciples pointed and said to him, “Teacher, look! What massive stones! What impressive buildings!”

Jesus saw something different, though. He replied to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another—all will be thrown down.”

The disciples around him stopped walking, their faces shocked. How could something this huge be destroyed? The crowd carried on walking with sad faces. Behind them, the temple–the pride of their nation–shone brightly.

Later that evening, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Jesus privately, “Tell us, when will these things happen?”

Jesus looked at his friends’ sad faces. They had believed his words, and yet he could not tell them when the Roman army would destroy the temple. But he could warn them that many things would happen–people would come and lead men into foolish places, earthquakes and wars would shake the world, famine and illnesses would visit communities–but that they were not the end of the story. There was no need to trust in huge buildings or shiny gold plates because the kingdom of God was going to change everything.

That’s what Jesus had come to teach them. That’s why he, the king of all Heaven, had been born in a stable, not a palace. That’s why he had wandered, showing them how to love their neighbour, to heal the sick, to welcome everyone. He had been a living temple that didn’t have closed doors only priests could open. That’s why he would let himself die on a cross like a criminal because even death wouldn’t stop God’s truth. And that’s why he promised to return because the story wasn’t over yet.
 

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