Advance note to teachers. You could ask the
children to bring a packed lunch – just simple sandwiches for next week. See
lesson.
Scripture: for teacher background: John 4:1-41
Suggested songs:
"I am feasting on the living bread, I am
drinking at the fountainhead………Fill my cup Lord……..”
Making contact:
Play a quick running game to get the children thirsty and
then give them water to drink. While they are having it talk about taps and
where our water comes from. Ask them if they know what a well is and show them
a picture.
Exploration:
Jesus and His friends were traveling through the country and
they were hot and tired.
They came to a village in Samaria . The Jewish people didn’t really even
speak to these people because they were half Jews, but Jesus sat at the well
outside the town while His disciples went in to buy food.
It was midday, a time when no one usually came to the well,
but a woman came. She avoided the other women because they hated her.
She had
been married 5 times and now was living with a man. She was very surprised when
Jesus spoke to her.
Men didn’t usually speak to strange woman and definitely
not a Jewish man to a Samaritan woman.
She asked Him about this and Jesus said if she knew just who
was speaking to her she would have asked Him for a drink of water.
By now she
was very confused. “You don’t have a bucket – how could you possibly give me
water?” she asked.
Jesus told her that people who drank from that well would
get thirsty again, but if they drank of the living water, they would never be
thirsty again.
She said she’d like some of that water, so Jesus told her to
fetch her husband. She said she didn’t have a husband.
Jesus said he knew all
about her 5 husbands and what was going on in her life.
She said He must be a prophet and asked Him where God should
be worshiped – at the temple or on a mountain.
Jesus said God wanted people to
worship Him in spirit and in truth – genuine worship.
The woman said that when the Messiah came He would explain
all these things. Jesus then told her that He was the Messiah.
She got so excited that she left her water jar and rushed
off to tell the whole town that they must come and meet her new friend – the
Messiah!
Jesus and His friends stayed there for 2 days and many
people there became believers.
Application
We can spend our whole lives searching for something to
quench that deep thirst inside us – we can do well at school, have lots of toys
and sweets, have a good career, own a house and a car and every thing that open
and shuts, but those things don’t satisfy.
The richest people in the world are
still thirsty. Only Jesus can fill us with living water and when we love Him
and follow Him it’s as if we have a well inside us which bubbles up with
life-giving water.
We can teach others about this and must never think that
some people are beneath us, like the Jews did with the Samaritans.
Challenge to Mission
Can you take living water to some thirsty person? By that we mean take them the Gospel message about Jesus.
Begin by
praying that God will make them thirsty and then at the right time you can be
brave and tell them how Jesus will quench that inner, deep down, spiritual thirst.
Worksheet.
The children could make a well out of the insides of toilet
rolls. Inside could be the memory verse on a piece of paper and string.
Memory Verse
"Jesus said: “Whoever drinks the water that I give will never
be thirsty again.” John 4:14
Put the memory verses on cardboard shapes of cups, or cardboard water
drops or taps.
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