Prepare: You will need several pieces of paper cut to look like loaves of bread and some crayons that you are willing to break in half or even smaller. For the Worship Station you will need a jar with enough pennies for every person who comes to worship to take one, and another jar or basket to collect them again. You can also have snack sized bags for them to take home the extra crayon pieces.
The pieces of paper will turn into a prayer, ideally they should be part of the Prayers of the Church or prayers of intercession.
As the children gather, set aside about one crayon for every 2 or 3 children. You want to set it up so that they need to break the crayons in order to do what you are asking them to do.
I love the story that we get to hear today! Jesus does something unbelievable! He feeds thousands of people with nothing! Well, they had a couple of fish and 5 pieces of bread, but that’s all. Let’s think about that for a minute, 2 fish and five pieces of bread. How many of us are here? (take a quick head count) Would that be enough food for us? Maybe we should modernize this a little. Let’s say that they had 2 sandwiches and an extra piece of bread . . . I think that we would all be still be a little hungry if that is all we had to share between us. But Jesus is able to make that be more than enough – in fact, there was more leftover than they started with!
This is a story about sharing what we have and ending up with more than we thought there could be, so I want you to think about a place where people need more of something. If could be people who need more food, or more clean water or more safe places to sleep or more love, you get the idea. I am going to give each of you a loaf shaped piece of paper and you can write or draw a prayer on it and we will use it later in the worship service. There is only one problem, I only have enough crayons for half of you, and we need to all work on this at the same time . . . what should we do? Let’s break them into pieces and see if we have enough then!
Quickly draw or write your prayers and put them in the basket and them you are welcome to take home the crayons that you used in one of these bags.
Give what time you can – then pray to wrap up.
For the worship station, invite people to add their penny (or more if they want) to the basket. Estimate how many pennies you will collect and how much money that will be, then make a few signs that talk about what can be done with that money. For example – a church that worships 450 to 500 people on a weekend could buy 2 or 3 meals at a rescue mission like the Denver Rescue Mission. You could buy 4 or 5 chicks through something like Heifer International, or contribute to a water project. Find several examples of how pooling a small resource from all the people gathered can make a big change in the community around you or in the world. Invite people to pray about their donation as they make it.
God of abundance, just like Jesus created more than enough out of way to little, stir up more than enough love and hope in us so that we can share your loving word with all the word. Amen.
May God give you more than enough love, more than enough peace and more than enough grace.
~GB
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