Bartimaeus Cries Out (Mark 10:46-52)

Lesson Set

Summary of Workshops

Art - This Arts & Crafts lesson starts with a reading of the scripture story of Jesus healing Bartimaeus. The following craft activity consists of building "decoder" glasses and then writing a simple message that can only be seen (in theory) when wearing the decoder glasses. The point of the lesson is to highlight how asking God for healing can help us see better, just like what happened for Bartimaeus.

Games - This Games lesson starts with a reading of the scripture story of Jesus healing Bartimaeus. The class activities consist of a paper, rock, scissors team-based game, a "Guess who made that noise" game, and a beach ball demonstration.

Storytelling -This Storytelling lesson seeks to highlight (mostly by telling the story in three different ways) Bartimaeus' role in his own healing. He doesn't just ask Jesus for help, he cries out to Jesus for help, even after other people tell him to be quiet. The lesson activities consist of watching a "movie" of the story (movie, here, refers to a "homemade" narration of slides - like a powerpoint presentation). The second activity consists of putting on a play that mirrors the events of the scripture story using popsicle puppets. An additional option is to video tape the puppet play and then let the class watch it after they've completed the puppet play.

Bartimaeus Cries Out (Mark 10:46-52)

Art Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activities:

This Arts & Crafts lesson starts with a reading of the scripture story of Jesus healing Bartimaeus. The following craft activity consists of building "decoder" glasses and then writing a simple message that can only be seen (in theory) when wearing the decoder glasses. The point of the lesson is to highlight how asking God for healing can help us see better, just like what happened for Bartimaeus.

For the full lesson, download the attached Word .doc at the bottom of this post. Note that the first three pages of the document are "background" and that the actual lesson starts on page 4 (which is also where you will find the supply list).

Note: The attached lesson has pictures to better illustrate the instructions.

From the attached lesson, here is the decoder craft with some of the teaching comments (in first person) included.

Rotation Review Note:  We liked this lesson, and added the following suggestions in BLUE in the text below. These additions are not in the downloadable doc.

Supplies List:

• Cardstock images of glasses
• Scissors
• Red Cellophane
• Tape
• Highlighters
• White paper

Leader Preparation:

• Read the scripture ahead of time.
• Gather the materials.

Presentation

Opening-Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Greet the children and introduce yourself.

Open with a prayer.

Dig Main Content and Reflection:

Read the story.

• What kind of things do people cry out in need for?
• When we cry out to God for help, other people might tell us that we’re foolish. Or they might tell us to be quiet. What do people sometimes say to poor people who are crying out for help? ("Get a job!" ?)
• But as we see in the Bartimaeus story, God can heal us, but being quiet about our needs so that we don’t bug God, or other people, does not save us.
• One of the ways Bartimaeus experiences healing is by being able to see. Whenever we read a story about blindness in the Bible, we have to remember that blindness is also a "metaphor", a "sign" or code for something else as well.  Blindness is not always just physical. What can people be "blind to"?  Blind to others needs. Blind to God. Blind to their own sins.
• When we pay attention to God, when we keep asking God for help, then we will be able to "see" things differently than we did before.
• Scripture, prayer, worship, Sunday School, guides, --these are all things which help us "see" truth, see needs, see sin, see solutions, see ourselves as God sees us. How does God see us?
• We’re going to do a craft now that will help us remember how asking God for healing helps us "see" things differently than we did before.

Also needs some thoughts about "what the glasses ARE" ...our faith? our hope? scripture? prayer?

Explain & Do Craft Activity

• We have a two-part craft today.
• The first thing we’re going to do is make a special pair of glasses for each of us.
• The second thing we’ll do, then, is make a secret message that we can only see when we have our glasses on. And remember, the glasses are a symbol of today's lesson. God helps us see the world, its needs, and ourselves DIFFERENTLY, ...in a NEW WAY.
• So I’m now passing around drawings of some glasses that are on a thick piece of paper that is called cardstock.
• Once you get your cardstock glasses, take a pair of scissors and cut the frame of the glasses and the stems of the glasses out by cutting JUST the solid black lines. [do that]
• Once you’ve done that, you’re going to cut out the place where the “lenses” will go in the frame of the glasses. There’s a shaded area that says, “Cut out.” Cut those two spots out.
• Now take a strip of red cellophane and cut it to the length of one lens.
• Now tape the red cellophane in place as a lens. Repeat for the other lens.
• (If you’re using red cellophane tape – cut it to size, then place the tape on the inside of the glasses in the lens area, with the sticky side facing out and adhere the tape to the frame).
• Once your lenses are in place, take the “stems” of your glasses and tape them to the frame of your glasses.
• Your glasses and the first part of the craft is now complete.
• For the second craft, take a white sheet of paper and write one of these sentences on it with green highlighter in big and sort of messy but PRINTED letters:
• • “Jesus have mercy on me!” or “Your faith has made you well.”
• Now use two or three other colors that are not green (red and yellow are the best) and draw a maze around and even sometimes on top of the green letters so that you can’t see the letters very well.
• See these two pictures for example: [Let the students do this for a little bit]
• Now that you’ve made your pictures, go ahead and put your glasses on.
• You should be able to see your original message very clearly.

Tell

• When your mom or dad ask you what you made, tell them “I made a message.”
• Show them your “message” and ask them “What do you think it says?”
• When they can’t tell you, then you tell them they need to ask for help.
• When they ask for help, give them the glasses and tell them to put them on to read the message.
• Then they’ll be able to see the message.
• Then tell them that THIS is how it works with us and God.
• When we ask God for help, God helps us to see in ways that we couldn’t see before. God helps us see his message. God helps us see Jesus. God helps us see people differently.
• This is what happens with Bartimaeus, and it’ll happen with your parents too.

After completing the glasses and message, spend some time talking about "what OTHER kind of glasses do we have that help us see God?  See people's needs more clearly?  See solutions to problems?  See when we are sinning?   You might have a couple extra pair of glasses with a SIGN attached to them, -with words on the sign like:  Prayer, Worship, Bible, ...and ask the students how those particular "glasses" help us "see".

Closing:

End with a prayer.

A lesson written by the rfour rotation writer's group.

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability

If you like this lesson, and are interested in more, visit www.rfour.org/curriculum.html.