Jesus Heals Bartimaeus

Art Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Review the Bible story of blind Bartimaeus. Then read the storybook Lucy’s Picture – a story about a girl who makes a collage for her blind grandfather to “see.” Use a variety of art materials to create tactile pictures to illustrate a book for a blind child using an altered book technique. Discuss the story while working.

For scripture, objectives, and background - see above.

Leader Preparation:

• Read the scripture for this lesson.
• Read and reflect on the overview material provided for this lesson.
• Gather the materials.

Materials List:

• Easel; appropriate marker
• Bibles; One purple Adventure Bible with tabs (Law, History, etc.); For younger students: The Beginner’s Bible
• Storybook: Lucy’s Picture by Nicola Moon
• Bible tab writing kit: tabs, fine-line Sharpie pen
• A card with the Key Bible verse written in Braille
• Discarded children’s board books
• Poems or a story suitable for children- written in English and in Braille
• Textural art supplies to fit the poems or story to be illustrated
• Mod Podge™ (matte), containers for glue, foam paint brushes for glue, Double-Stick Tape, Tacky Glue™
• Table covers
• Basic colors of tempura paint; sponges; meat trays or flat containers to hold paint
• Optional: drawing paper & markers

Before Start of Class:

• Prepare a board book: Use a book that has the number of individual pages equal to the number of students likely to be in class. Cut apart the book pages. (The pages will need to be re-attached later.) Sand the pages - up and down & from left to right with fine grit sandpaper. Next dust off and clean with a baby wipe, and then paint the pages with gesso or white acrylic paint. Let dry. Apply a second coat if necessary. Number of books to prepare depends upon class size. For the second time the art workshop is offered, may wish to present partially finished pages for completion. [An after the fact note: because we had 14 kids the first week I needed 2 books prepared. It definitely needed 2 coats of white paint. Might have only needed one coat if I’d used gesso.]
• Be able to tell the story from the book Lucy’s Picture.
• Distribute Bibles around the table.
• Write the key Bible verse on the easel.
  

Presentation

Opening- Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Greet your students warmly, welcoming them to the Art Workshop. Introduce yourself and any other adults.
[Note: The Shepherd will be taking care of attendance while you are starting your lesson.]

Ask for any prayer requests. Ask if anyone would like to lead the group in prayer. Be prepared to say a prayer yourself, working in prayer requests. Use the Lord’s Prayer as the ending. A suggestion: “Dear God, Thank you for everyone who is here today. We are so glad to be able to use art supplies to be creative. Help us to hear your lesson for us. Help us to really look at Jesus in a new way. (End with everyone joining in on the Lord’s Prayer.) Amen.”

Ask:

• What are the five senses we use to explore our world? (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch)
• If one of your senses is blocked what happens? (use your others more)
• For someone who is blind, what senses do you think they depend on?

Say: The sense of touch is very important to people without sight. Braille is a language that uses small raised dots as an alphabet. A blind person can use the sense of touch to feel the raised dots and read!

Pass around the key Bible verse in Braille.

Say: This is our key Bible verse written in Braille. Our key Bible verse is “Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’”

Ask students to repeat the key Bible verse. [Refer to the easel.]

Say: Let’s read a Bible story about a man named Bartimaeus (Pronounced: bar-tih-MEE-uhs) who because he had faith, was healed by Jesus.

Dig- Main Content and Reflection:
Ask:

• Where in the Bible would we find a story about Jesus healing? (New Testament)
• What do we call the first four books of the New Testament? (the Gospels)
• What are the four gospels? (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)

Say: Besides being divided into two testaments – the Old Testament and the New Testament – the 66 books of the Bible are further divided into collections. We call the first collection of the New Testament, the Gospels. If you brought your own Bible today, be sure you receive a tab for the gospel section of your Bible.

Show the classroom Bible with tabs.
Have the Shepherd do tabs for students who bring their Bibles. Use the classroom Bible with tabs as an example.

For those who have finished 1st through 3rd grade:
Say: For our classes this summer we’ve been counting on our soon to be 4th graders to teach us about how to find stories in the Bible. Our story is found in three of the Gospels. We’re going to look at the story in the Gospel of Mark.

Refer to the Bibles distributed… Ask the students to find the Gospel of Mark in the Bible. Have the older kids help show the younger kids about the quick way to find the New Testament – dividing the Bible in half gets them near Psalms. Dividing the back half in half again gets them near the Gospels in the New Testament. Go over the order of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have them find Mark, chapter 10, verse 46. Point out how the chapter numbers are large and the verse numbers are small.

Once everyone has found the story, have them close the Bibles.
Say: When we are done reading our Bible story we are going to say what is said in church after the scripture is read. Be ready to say “thanks be to God!”
Read the story out of The Beginner’s Bible, pages 438 - 443.

Say: For the Word of God in scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us,
The class says: Thanks be to God!

For those who have finished 4th through 6th grade:

Refer to the Bibles. Have everyone find Mark 10: 46-52. 
Since these students visit on the last week of this Rotation, ask the students if they can tell you the story. Have them check their Bibles for accuracy.

For all students…

Discussion:

Ask:

• Why was Bartimaeus sitting by the side of the road? (he was blind & begging)
• Why were there so many people on this road? (people on way to Passover)
• What did Bartimaeus do to get Jesus’ attention? (shouted)
• Why do you suppose people wanted Bartimaeus to be quiet? (to hear Jesus)
• What did Bartimaeus want? (to be able to see)
• What did Jesus say to him? (refer to the key Bible verse)

Say: Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”

• Ask: What is faith? (accept a few responses)

Say: When we trust God and believe that God will always be there with us, it is called “faith.” Faith is believing in God and trusting God.

• Ask: How did Bartimaeus show his faith in God?

Say: Bartimaeus showed his faith by calling to Jesus, by clearly asking Jesus to be able to see. Bartimaeus also followed Jesus once he’d been healed; that is showing faith as well.

Start the art project:

Say: Jesus stopped to talk to Bartimaeus because Jesus cared for people who were in need. Today we are going to be making something for a child who is blind. We are going to be making a book.

[After the fact note: at this point the workshop leader had the students use dry brush techniques – using sponges - to apply some color to the pages - for the person who was helping the blind child to read the book.]

Say: Let me tell you a story about this book that we’ll create.

Tell the story using the book Lucy’s Picture. [Tell the story rather than reading it to save time.]

• Ask: How can someone who is blind read a picture?

Say: We are going to be illustrating a book for a blind child to “see” using texture.

Show the supplies to be used. Distribute the pages from the “altered book.” Two students may wish to work together on one page. Distribute the poems or the story to be illustrated.
Have the students read the poems (or the story) and choose which page they should create. [For the younger group, have a soon to be 4th grader read them to the younger students.]

[An after the fact note: I struggled to find poems that used lots of images that could be illustrated texturally. We ended up deciding to let the kids make illustrations and to write a story after the fact to go with the illustrations. I’ll have to let you know how this goes!]

Have the children create their artwork on the front side of a page. [The backside will be glued when the book is put back together again.] Explain that they should leave an area on each page for the text in Braille to be added.
Have students periodically close their eyes and feel their page – is it turning out how they think it should?

More Discussion: (while the students are working)
Ask:

• Does Jesus expect us to see everything with our eyes in order to believe? (no)
• Do you believe that wind exists?
• Can you see wind?

Say: You can see the result of wind and you can feel wind but you can’t actually see wind. The same holds true for believing in God, we can’t see God but we can see the result of God in our lives.
Ask:

• What are some of the results of having God in our lives? (allow all answers- takes care of us, etc.)
• Why was it important that Bartimaeus had faith in Jesus?

Say: It was necessary for Bartimaeus to have faith in order for him to be healed.

Ask:

• How did Bartimaeus know that Jesus could heal him? How do you suppose that Bartimaeus knew who Jesus was? (perhaps he’d heard others talking about him) 

Say: There were many people at that time, even some of Jesus’ disciples, who didn’t understand who Jesus really was. They didn’t under stand that Jesus was our Savior that he would die to save us from our sins. It’s interesting that Bartimaeus was blind, yet he seemed to understand who Jesus really was.

Ask:

• What today can keep us from clearly seeing who Jesus really is? (allow all answers – maybe not knowing enough about Jesus, maybe our expectations of who Jesus is and what he can do, etc.)

Ask:

• How do you think Bartimaeus was changed after meeting Jesus? (he followed Jesus)
• In what area of your life would you like Jesus to be able to open your eyes?

If time… Discuss: (use the Overview materials as a resource)
Why the road was crowded that day.
What it was like to be blind in Bible times (i.e., why Bartimaeus had to beg).

Extra Activities (For those who finish early)
Hand out paper and markers. Ask students to draw a picture of what they think the man must have been the most excited about seeing for the first time or what they think someone who has no sight might miss seeing the most.

Closing:
Have the children close their eyes and move their fingers over the artwork.
Can they “read” what they have written?

Resources:

• G.R.E.A.T. Adventure Dream Team at State Street United Methodist Church, Bristol, VA. “Blind Bartimaeus – Faith Heals: Art Workshop.” 2002.
• Hatzigeorgiou, Karen J. “How to Alter a Board Book.” 2008.
  http://www.creativity-portal.c...ooks/board.book.html
• Kruzman, Dianne. “Jesus Heals Bartimaeus: Creation Station.” 2003. (the original idea for this lesson)
• Moon, Nicola. Lucy’s Picture. London: Orchard Books, 1994. (ISBN-13: 9781852139551)

A lesson written by Carol Hulbert for First United Methodist Church
Ann Arbor, MI 

Copyright 2008 First United Methodist Church, Ann Arbor, MI.
Permission to copy materials granted for non-commercial use provided credit is given and all cited references remain with this material

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