Jesus Without Language

This invisible innkeeper is a beautiful character in a way because we have very little clue on who played this role. Whomever the relative was, distant or otherwise, we can safely cast male or female, old or young, to play the part. This craft is therefore very generic and can be used with any group familiar with the hero resources.

 
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Games for this (invisible) Innkeeper lesson are based on historical activities, the theme of welcoming and how we use our space. While you may have traditional Christmas games you wish to use instead these games are deliberately trying to break that mould.

Stubborn mules – For this game you’ll need some small bells or a Christmas decoration that jingles when moved and a bowl of sweets. Talk about how when lots of people are in a small space it gets hot quickly. Explain that during the winter months many families used to bring the animals inside to help everyone keep warm. However tonight the house is full of guests so the animals can’t enter, but one mule is really stubborn and wants inside… have the kids lay on the floor and pretend to sleep, the mule with the bells attached must sneak around the sleeping kids to the sweets. the children can’t move off the floor but can wriggle and stretch their limbs. if they touch the mule then they must lead the mule away from the sleeping people and can become the mule themselves. once the game is established you can increase the number of animals!
 
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Here are the images you need for the hero’s attributes linked to The (invisible) Innkeeper.
Each hero set contains a high quality graphic of the character, a take home bible card and a colouring page.

The images are displayed small here, click on the image you wish to have, then save the image that loads.
(Please note : these images have no watermark but are not copyright free, they are only intended for classroom use.)

English

Alternative Graphics

This invisible innkeeper lesson is all about understanding the context of Jesus’s birth and this craft really helps us see how the houses would have looked. This is a versatile craft that could be used for lots of lessons. For reference : Generally there are three main designs. The bigger houses had rooms surrounding an open courtyard but the more common home was either like I’ve featured or the same design with the ‘guest room’ on ground level behind the main room.

 
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If you want the teachers page then please click on the image for the pdf.

Today’s hero is the invisible innkeeper because he shows us the gift of a blunder.

Essential Teachers notes:
This story may surprise your children, it may make them question and claim to ‘know better’ but delving into the historical and cultural time of Jesus is a great gift to our understanding of his birth. Jesus’ birth story has been very sanitised and westernised, a stable allows us to dismiss the idea of cattle sharing our homes, a practice still common a couple of centuries ago in northern Europe. An innkeeper is a construct from the idea of guest room, yet any descendant of David would have been able to find shelter in Bethlehem, and it would have been an insult to either turn family way or choose an inn over their hospitality. Jesus was born into a home not his own, but into a culture that would have cherished it’s ancestry and that same family would have been witnesses to his first few hours.

Main Passage : Matthew 1, Luke 2
Additional passages : Matthew 5:15

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